I lost 4 auctions to a lower bids In final seconds

[demis1234]

I am very disappointed with eBay 3 weeks now. I have bid  on   items with a maximum bid (actually 4 times more than the winning bids).
I received an email saying I'd been outbid by an amount much lower than my maximum bid. And I lost the auctions for less than my maximum bid.
When I called customer service for 3 times now  they did not help me at all, but said the winner bid in the last ten seconds and their system did not allow for my maximum bid to function and override is last minute bid. Clearly the rep was off shore and English was her second language (Philippines) I didn't get the item and the seller got less than his due. I've lost winning items last minute before, but never for a lower amount than I bid. I never knew eBay had such a horrible flaw.
My last case was item # 123621829219 Altec Lansing InMotion iM7 iPod Dock Portable Boombox Speaker with a winning bid of US $23.50 when I try to bid it 15 seconds to the end for US 72.99

Why can't I increase my bid within the last minute of an auction when I'm already high bidder? I am in ebay for 15 years and now I have to face this stupidity

As far as I know now Ebay is using a stupid software that it seems interfere with the biding, and we all going to lose at the end, and more the sellers.  I do not know why they are doing this...
I asked for investigation in my case in vain. They do not want to see the problem I thing.
When they are going to lose customers and Allibaba or somebody else like Allibaba is going to open in the US then is going to late for Ebay, they do not listen to us as customers any more it seems like it.
If Ebay's tech support could investigate my 4 cases I would appreciate and to take my user out of this stupid restriction they impose on us...
Thank you. 

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

The only th8ng I can think of is you’re trying to bid too late. The last bid I see of yours is $23

[etacarina11]

alot of people been having problems biding late on Ebay. try using a third party sniping app. thats what I do and never had a bid not go thru unless I underbid.

[mudshark61369]

@demis1234,

Over the last year or so, ebay's countdown clock has been off.  It often shows more time left in an auction than is really the case.   Much of that may be due to a time lapse between the time the clock information is sent, and the time it is received and displayed by a device.  The best guesses for that happening is the amount of information being transferred online these days, and the number of apps some people have loaded on their devices.

If you have been consistently bidding with 15 seconds left, and not having your bids register, you may want to try bidding even earlier.  Both you and the winner, were nibble bidding, and the other person was not placing automatic bids much higher than 3 or 3 increments at one time.  They only placed 2 bids, and you were playing catch up to them.

It does not matter who bids last in an auction, but who bids the most. Yes, bidding in the last seconds can mean getting an item for less, but you never know how much the other person has bid.  If you had bid with 1 minute left, chances are given the other person's bidding strategy, you would have won the item for less than $30. 

Things you can do to decrease the lag time between info sent and displayed are:

1) Clean out your temporary internet files and cookie cache, and restart your device with 10-15 minutes or so left in an auction, I clear mine with a utility daily, and if I am doing a lot of searching or streaming on a giving day, I'll manually clean it several times a day..

2) Turn off any apps or streams that are running in the back ground.

3) Look at the bid history page to see the exact time an auction will end. The item page may round up the amount of time to an even minute if an item is ending at more than 30 seconds left in the last minute of an auction.

4) Find an auction for some item ending soon, go to the bid history and find the exact ending time for the auction, and refresh the countdown clock page with 20 seconds left. If the refresh shows the item still counting down when the page refreshes, note how much time is left. If your device is taking more than 20 seconds to refresh and the auction has ended, you'll have an idea of how much lag you are experiencing. 

5) if you are placing a fairly high automatic bid do it earlier. Chances are the other person is also experiencing a delay, and won't have time to react. 

[demis1234]

OK but nobody's explain to me why ebay it does not permit me lately  to bid on the final seconds. Probably they put me in their black list, so the matter is   a prejudism? I cannot explain differently...

[nobody*s_perfect]

Because you are not actually trying to bid in the final seconds. You are trying to bid after the auction has ended, because the time-left showing on your computer is not accurate.

[demis1234]

I am member since 2001 and only now i face this problem.
Probably am am a Guinea Pig of some smart programer

[buyselljack2016]

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@demis1234 wrote:

OK but nobody's explain to me why ebay it does not permit me lately  to bid on the final seconds. Probably they put me in their black list, so the matter is   a prejudism? I cannot explain differently...

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eBay is not going to try to stop you from bidding/buying.

Higher sell price, more money for eBay.

They are not blocking "YOU".

As others have posted, for whatever reason your bid is not getting there in time to register before the listings end.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth · Accepted solution]

There is no earthly reason why Ebay would prevent a buyer from bidding late.  It's far more likely to be imperfect programming. "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence" - Hanlon's Razor.

I get too stressed out bidding at the end so I've used a sniping tool for about as long as you have been on Ebay. I use Esnipe but there are other free tools out there too.

There are some screens where the countdown is more accurate than others. Gnome usually comes in with those numbers. However my best suggestion is to try bidding at 25 seconds remaining. I think you'll find your bid registers if it is high enough to meet the increment rule.

[sharingtheland]

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@demis1234 wrote:
I am member since 2001 and only now i face this problem.
Probably am am a Guinea Pig of some smart programer

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Ebay doesn't have smart progra

As explained many times above, ebay's clock is off and/or programming is slow and doesn't recognize bids quickly enough.

Bid the maximum you are willing to pay, once.   Or use a sniping service.

Ebay really isn't out to get you.  

[reallynicestamps]

Bid once.

Bid your maximum.

If you are outbid, that sucker paid too much.

Nibble bidding is a thrill, but part of the thrill is that you might lose.

And sometimes you will.

[castlemagicmemories]

It sounds like you are bidding too close to the end of the auction.  There is a lag time in there.  Just bid a bit sooner.

[castlemagicmemories]

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@demis1234 wrote:

OK but nobody's explain to me why ebay it does not permit me lately  to bid on the final seconds. Probably they put me in their black list, so the matter is   a prejudism? I cannot explain differently...

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Seriously?  What do you think they would be prejudiced about?  

You are reactive bidding if you bid and then have to bid again and that rarely works.  Bid your true max a bit earlier than the exact end of the listing, even a few seconds will help.  As was said earlier, your bids aren't showing up because you are bidding too late.  

[woodland_gnome]

FOR WHATEVER REASON your bid was not accepted by eBay servers.  One issue with bidding very late is that when your bid is rejected by eBay you don't get to read the error message telling you why (since the countdown script calls fro a refreshed Listing Page when your clock gets to 0).  There are many possible reasons why your bid could have been rejected.  It being RECEIVED too late is just one of them.  (Some others:  you ran into a limit imposed by either the seller or eBay--those limits do not make an exception to allow you to rebid on an auction that already counts toward that limit--moral is don't expect to be able to place more than one bid so make the first one at your TRUE maximum; the minimum bid had increased by the time your bid was received; the seller had added you to his Blocked Bidder List;  you ran into a Buyer Requirement that the seller had changed since your earlier bid or that you now failed).

Your bid must be RECEIVED  and timestamped before the end of the last second to be timely.  The countdown is not an accurate measure of that, it does not take into account the latency for various causes (computer lag, ISP lag, general internet lag, your reaction time) in EITHER direction--the time left is as of when eBay's server generated the response and that has got to get to your computer and then your bid confirmation has to get back.

Bid ONCE at your TRUE maximum you are willing and able to pay for that item as listed.  Either bid earlier (and afterwards check the bid history to see how early it actually was as opposed to what you aimed for, but remember that latency can differ from one minute to the next) or use a snipe service.  There are reliable and secure free ones, or you can pay more for extra bells and whistles.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

Those are good suggestions gnome. I just figured if it has happened across multiple auctions it's more likely to be a timing issue than a seller limit issue. Unless ALL the sellers have the UID block and the OP has 2 or more UIDs in the last year.