I was sniping an item on eBay and my auctionsniper
came back with a response of "not in time". I would have gotten the item if auctionsniper had acted correctly because my bid was way above the winning bid. I thought that it was all automatic, I don't understand how it could be "not in time". Has anyone else had the same problem?

Auction Sniper Snipe Status Report eBay Item: MARGARET 26" J. Berard KAIS Porcelain Doll
(Item # 2924571855)
Status Summary: Not In Time
Your snipe could not be placed because of the reason above
Click here to see eBay's response to your snipe

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I quote from the eBay listing site:

"Ends May-04-03 20:15:00 PDT"

That's a Sunday night and the auction closed exactly on the quarter hour. Two very bad omens. What was your snipe lead time? 'Cause if it was less than 15 seconds eBay probably didn't get around to processing your bid until the auction was closed. This, in turn, caused the "bid not in time" message you got.

Always remember that Sundays, and Sunday nights in particular, are eBay's busiest time. Remember also that many sellers take advantage of an offer by eBay which allows them to set their own listing times, and lots of them choose even hours, even half-hours, or even quarter-hours. This creates a pileup of auctions closing at those times and eBay's servers just can't handle the last-minute bid load. So when you bid on something where the auction ends exactly on the quarter-hour of a Sunday night your bid has two strikes against it already. Allow extra time for your snipe to reach eBay's overworked servers.

Janet,

"I would have gotten the item if auctionsniper had acted correctly because my bid was way above the winning bid." - How do you know you would have been the winning bid?

boy golly i sure hope i'm not wrong since this seems extremely obvious, but you just check the "bid history" on ebay. it gives the the maximum bid of each bidder.

Hi Clark. How's it going?

Clark, it gives the maximum bid of every bidder *except* the winning bidder. That person's bid amount is only shown to the extent that it took to beat the second-highest bid. If the bid was a million dollars and it only took ten bucks to win the auction, eBay would only show ten bucks.

DESPITE CALLING ME CLARK, thanks Steve for the explanation. Rick, please be more constructive next time in your mockery of me, this was in response to YOUR post.