I recently made a bid starting from the 1.00 I found in the window, assuming that the .00 indicated no cents.I progressively raised my bid to 51 dollars, leaving the .00 alone.Imagine my horror when I found , after the auction, that a maximum bid of $5100 had been entered.Perhaps it was my fault , but if it was it was very easy to do!Luckily the auction finished at $48 so we got away with it this time.
If bids of over ,say $50 were only in whole numbers this danger would be avoided .Alternatively the window could separate cents and dollars (or pounds and newpence ).
Has anybody else had this experience ?

Never have and have never heard anyone on this forum bring this up. Hopefully this doesn't sound unkind, but I'm going to say it was your error.

This same issue comes up on ebay, at least people claim it does when they retract their bids. They claim they put the decimal in the wrong place.

If a vote was taken, I'd vote that AS not make any changes for this.

I've often incorporated the 1.00 already showing in the AS snipe page window by simply adding a number before or after it: 31.00; 19.00 and so forth. The decimal has always been constant for me, that is, I never have a bid of 3100 or 1900 placed by AS.

Ya, you can withdraw a bid of $5100 you meant to be $51.00, but don't do it too often. You don't want a track record of withdrawing bids.

one thing you could do is erase anything already in the bid box before entering your bid. That might make it a little safer too.

Not to be glib or insensitive, but I don't think this will happen again to tubbys0 or anyone else that reads this topic, at least I hope not.

I've been considering what would have happened had someone else also accidentally placed a $5200 bid intending it to be a $52 bid.

The nice thing about sniper is that you can configure you bid before (generally LONG before) it is submitted. There is NO reason you can't take the time to read it carefully before you submit it.

After it's submitted you again have time to read it CAREFULLY.

There is no excuse for submitting a wrong snipe price and then failing to correct it before it goes to eBay.

I never submit an even-dollar bid. It's always something along the lines of $51.08 or $51.58, primarily because someone else might submit $51.01 and I'd feel really, really stupid losing by a penny with a bid of $51.00. <grin> It also prevents me from submitting an incorrect bid. (Watch out, too, that you don't use a comma instead of a decimal point. A bid of "$51,00" on eBay will register as a bid for $51,000.00.)

When you place a bid directly onto e-Bay without using AS, it always asks you to confirm your bid amount. Then you can change it immediately if it's not correct. If you place your bid through AS, you'll probably have plenty of time to look it over before it goes in.

$5100 for $51
May I thank all those who have offered advice.
Some of it will no doubt prove helpful.One human problem affecting the matter is that we tend to see what we are expecting to see.If from a starting point of $1.00 I think I am putting in $51.00 , and $5100 comes up that may be what I see, particularly if my screen is as fuzzy as it sometimes can be.One can't then change the faulty entry, as the problem is not known to the operative . I have to admit, in my idiocy , that I once put a bid of what I thaught had been confirmed as £1100 which came up as £10100.Luckily I did notice that .I am still wondering whose fault that was. Mine as usual , I suppose .Fortunately your contributors are much brighter and more careful than I am . One has to be pretty silly to keep buing antique flutes on Ebay !I still wonder how many people there are out there who have had such surprises .