Bids that didn’t happen…

[bryanandstacie]

I posted this last night and now it’s nowhere to be found. I bought a watch last night. With 45 seconds to go in the auction, I entered my max bid at $211.37. I was then the high bidder at $150-something. A few more bids came in, but I remained the high bidder at $177. I raised my max bid to $219.11 but it didn’t matter because there were no more bids. I sat there and watch the clock countdown to 0:00 and I was the high bidder at $177. Then is said “determining winner” or something like that for a minute. I won of course, and get the invoice a minute later….$211.37 + tax/shipping. I am furious. It’s very obvious eBay tacked on a bid that didn’t happen in order to drive the price up to my first high bid. I set that high bid to win against other humans, not for eBay to set the final price at that to drive up their fees. I strongly considered canceling the whole purchase, but I didn’t want to shaft the seller because they were innocent in it too. But I want to know what can be done considering I watched the item end at $177 and eBay said it magically just hapoened to end at my first max bid

[soh.maryl]

When you look at the bid history, are you making sure you are clicking on "hidden bids"?

Or, if you care to share the item #, we can look at it and see what the problem is.

[nobody*s_perfect]

Sounds like you ran into a last-second sniper bid, but that's a huge coincidence that the maxed out your very odd proxy bid amount.

It would be very helpful  if you would share a link or a listing number so we can look at the bid history.

[monica-sells]

@nobody*s_perfect 

Item: 235403297385

I think this is it...

[mudshark61369]

@bryanandstacie, 

If you can still open the bid history first look at the start time Ex. 7:04:38 pm. The countdown clock tends to show minutes rounded off to 7:04 and doesn't include the last several seconds. You were invoiced for $211.37 because the last bid (look at its time stamp) was $2.50 less than that amount.

"I am furious. It’s very obvious eBay tacked on a bid that didn’t happen in order to drive the price up to my first high bid".

If ebay were tacking on bids constantly for the last almost 30 years, don't you think people would have been in an uproar over the practice, and there probably would have been investigations,  especially back in the day when the majority of listings were auctions?  If you thought the watch was worth around $211.00 or maybe a bit more, don't you think others might think it was worth that much as well?

[lacemaker3]

Yes, I think that's it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235403297385/?nordt=true

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/235403297385?item=235403297385&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m145235.l256...

It looks like there were 8 bids placed in the last minute of the auction, by 4 different bidders. Beginning with OP's first bid (of 2), after which there were 6 other bids placed by 3 other bidders.

@bryanandstacie, your page wasn't refreshing automatically, so those last-minute bids didn't show up on your screen. But they were really placed, in the last less-than-60 seconds.

They weren't placed by eBay. And the second-high bidder didn't match your proxy bid, they just came close to it. eBay upped your first bid to the maximum amount ($211.37) because the next-highest bid ($210) was less than a bid increment lower than your maximum amount.

[bryanandstacie]

Oh it shows a “bid”, whether or not it was a legit bid is something else altogether. 

[bryanandstacie]

This issue with the last second sniper bid is that I literally watched it count down to 0 and the high bid was $177. So how do they add bids after the auction is over and how did it magically bid up to my first max bid?

[bryanandstacie]

Yes, that is it

[bryanandstacie]

I never said they’ve been doing it for 30 years, did I?? I’ve been on eBay since 2001, this is the first time in 23 years that I’ve seen them do it.

[bryanandstacie]

I was refreshing it every few seconds. And yes, every time there’s a new bid, it automatically refreshes. They can make it appear there was a last second bid by another bidder, but when the clock was at 0:00, the high bid was $177.

[kensgiftshop]

It's here

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/I-believe-eBay-is-now-throwing-in-shill-bids/td-p/3426554...

[mudshark61369]

@bryanandstacie,

If you look Carefully at the bid history and toggle between see automatic bids, and Hide auto bids, you can see what happened.  If you were as you claim refreshing that page every few seconds you may not have been giving your device time to finish updating the previous info. New bids do not automatically get displayed or refresh the page.

Note: At the top of the page it says the auction ended at 7:04pm PST however the start time was 7:04:52 pm PST. So at 7:04 there were still 52 seconds left.  Were you watching the bidding from the listing page or from the Bid history page. The two clocks can be out of synch from each other.

One bid that did not happen was your increased max bid of $219.11, If it had been entered the winning price would have been $2.50 more than the $210.00 placed at 7:04:50.

Did you click on the scrambled bidder IDs of the last three bidders?  Do you really think ebay made up those bidder histories just to "shill bid" the auction?

You can believe what you want, but the auction bid history shows what really happened, and ebay had nothing to do with the price being raised.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@bryanandstacie wrote:

This issue with the last second sniper bid is that I literally watched it count down to 0 and the high bid was $177. So how do they add bids after the auction is over and how did it magically bid up to my first max bid?

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The sniper did not 'magically" bid up to your last bid. As explained in one of the other posts, it came in below that bid by LESS than a full bid increment: They bid an even $210.00 and your full hidden proxy bid was $211.37. In that price range, the bid increment is $2.50.  In other words, both you and that other bidder were willing to pay about the same amount for that item.

The countdown is not always accurate, because it is tied to your computer rather than to eBay's. The bidder who drove up your bid placed their bid just two seconds before the auction ended. If they had bid $211.38 (or more), they would have won the auction.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@mudshark61369 wrote: ... One bid that did not happen was your increased max bid of $219.11, If it had been entered the winning price would have been $2.50 more than the $210.00 placed at 7:04:50.....

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IIRC eBay was taken to court over this phenomenon a few years ago, and the outcome was that the high bidder's new, higher proxy bid would not be factored-in. Hence the bid history showing the OP as the winner with both of his bids showing at 211.37 because the final, higher bid of 219.11 was not used because he was already the high bidder. The higher bid was placed at 7:04:36, a relatively leisurely 16 seconds before the auction ended at 7:04:52.