TOPIC:

Vincenzo wrote:

Hoping someone can explain this to me. Vehicle advertised on ebay. $XXX bid / $XXX +$120 buy it now. I bid the $XXX and a maximum of $XXX +$5. I do all this eight days before the auction ends. Someone comes along in the last three minutes, makes a bid of $XXX + $5 and wins the auction. Up until then I was the only bidder.

Cheers Vincenzo

well anyone can bid up until the last second of the auction, and the highest final bid will win of course. If I really want something I put a lower bid in and then I will never bid again until the last 5 secs. That is called sniping. As you don't show your intentions until the very end. I do take it one step further and program my bid in so it is automatically sent by a server. That way if I forgot it doesn't matter. I also do it this way as I set a limit on how much I am prepared to pay. Not everyone likes this, but it isn't breaking any rules. The only way I can think of stopping this is if a bid is entered in say the last few secs/minutes the time of the auction is extended a little to allow the other bidders an opportunity to respond, much like a real auction.

I would say never assume you are the only one watching a bid. Many auctions I watch, especially for popular items will have low bids run up until the last day, and then as it gets closer( last hour or even last minutes), you will see the bid amount shoot up.

This is a strategy, precisely because bidding early tends to drive up the price.

Vincenzo wrote:

Hoping someone can explain this to me. Vehicle advertised on ebay. $XXX bid / $XXX +$120 buy it now. I bid the $XXX and a maximum of $XXX +$5. I do all this eight days before the auction ends. Someone comes along in the last three minutes, makes a bid of $XXX + $5 and wins the auction. Up until then I was the only bidder.

Cheers Vincenzo

Hi, if the two highest bids are equal, the earliest bid will win.
Are you sure the ending price is exactly the same as your bid? Not even some decimals above?

-Lars

doh, I missed that you said the two bids were equal.

ebay has a bid history for all auctions that you can look at. If they are indeed equal maybe you can email ebay (yeah I know contacting them is not easy) and ask them what went on.

Are you able to post a link to the ebay bid?

OK - here is a link to the item.

<www.ebay.com.au...20f9ddfe6d>

I had bid $320 and increased it to $325 just in case.

I check it with 40 minutes to go - no bid

I check it with 20 minutes to go - no bid

I check it with 10 minutes to go - no bid

Each time I made sure everything was there.

After I lost the auction I noted my maximum bid was gone and not showing.


Hopefully all this is not because my brain is playing tricks on me.

Cheers Vincenzo

Have you got an email confirming your bid/the amount?

OK - now I am officially worried. I just went through my entire trash bin in my email account (holds mail for 30 days before deleting) and I do not have a single bid confirmation for any auction I have entered. Only the winning notification / sorry you were outbid and posting confirmation. Blow it - it is 2am and I think i will head to bed - cheers Vincenzo

Just got a message from the seller - he may have another mint in box example he is willing ti put up.

Sounds a bit suspect to me.

Cheers Vincenzo

he has 494 feedback points with a 100% score. While not definite, it is a good indication that he has done a lot of trades that the sellers have been happy with. However he has only 12 feedback points left in the last 12 months, negative feedback points disappear after 12 months. That makes it kinda hard to tell, but given he as a lot of feedback points, he probably is legit. Also if you pay via paypal you have some recourse, and annoyingly for the seller, if you pay via paypal and the seller hasn't sold a lot lately, they will hold payment from the seller up to 21 days.

Vincenzo wrote:

OK - now I am officially worried. I just went through my entire trash bin in my email account (holds mail for 30 days before deleting) and I do not have a single bid confirmation for any auction I have entered. Only the winning notification / sorry you were outbid and posting confirmation. Blow it - it is 2am and I think i will head to bed - cheers Vincenzo

I don't know if this is related, but I noticed over the weekend that a lot of the listings that I was looking at had a number of "retracted bids". I imagine retracted bids are quite rare. So either something weird is going on or I a wrong and just never noticed them before.

Edit: Also check your SPAM folder. This is normally separate from the TRASH folder.


re "Do you snipe" - absolutely! I don't feel great about doing it, but I've found it's pretty much the only way to win auctions these days. What I normally do is this:
If I see an auction that I am interested in going without any bids, I put a low bid on it. I don't expect to win it at this amount, but it stops the seller modifying the listing (for example if it is listed badly) and (hopefully) would discourage him from withdrawing it and selling it out of ebay to someone offering a buy it now.
Then at the last few seconds, so long as the auction has not already gone over what I am willing to spend, put a my real bid on. I either do this manually if I am online or use a site like Gixen. I do this even if I am still the only bidder at the end of the auction.