I can't figure out what happened. The opening bid for an item I was interested in was already in at $9. I decided to snipe it when I saw it was at $12. I put my snipe in at $22. Well, the auction was won by someone that put their bid in 3 days earlier than the $9 bid. I thought their bid would have been a proxy and they would have continued to be a high bidder but this didn't happen. What was going on?
Here is the link

You don't say whether the winning bidder was also the high bidder of record when the bid amount was $12. Further, what was the high bid 3 days earlier at the time you say he put in his bid? At some point he had to put in a bid for an amount greater than *or equal to* your $22 bid. If his high bid was also $22 and he entered it prior to your snipe, then it's "first-come-first-served," that is, the first $22 bid wins under eBay rules.

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Originally posted by Steve:
You don't say whether the winning bidder was also the high bidder of record when the bid amount was $12.

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Look at the link. The high bid of record when the bid was $12 was sweetie_bun.

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Further, what was the high bid 3 days earlier at the time you say he put in his bid? At some point he had to put in a bid for an amount greater than *or equal to* your $22 bid. If his high bid was also $22 and he entered it prior to your snipe, then it's "first-come-first-served," that is, the first $22 bid wins under eBay rules.

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He didn't even show up as a high bidder until the end. The bidding went from one bidder sweetie_bun to doggy_doc at $16.50 when I placed my snipe bid. I know this because I have bid against doggy_doc before and recognized him in this auction. So if both of them at one time had a high bid, how did surgeonplastic outbid us all at the end without his bids ever outbidding us by proxy? Please look at the above link.
Ron

That would be kind of odd. If it went down the way you stated, then it was a screw up. Who knows?

Ron, you keep saying "Look at the link" but if you'll scroll up and look at your first message you'll see that the link didn't appear. I'll be happy to take a look at the transaction if I have the link, but I won't guarantee any answers.

HEHEHE. The link is actually on the last word in his post. "link" it is not underlined. Just put your mouse over it and it will light up

The bid history on eBay is always listed by the highest bidder first -- not in the order the bids are placed. His proxy bid was higher than your snipe bid. His proxy could have been much higher, but $22.50 was all that was required to win.

I wasn't onto that little gimmick. Ron, star_trkr has the right answer. The winning bid, a proxy, was put in 6 days earlier and was higher even at that time than your last-second bid. When that happens eBay will show the date and time that the winning bid was entered, regardless of any other bids that followed. This is one of those situations where a sniper can't win because his bid is lower than an earlier proxy bid. You'll never know how much that bid really was unless the winner is kind enough to tell you upon inquiry. Better luck next time, and remember that particular bidder since he's likely to bid like that again.

Sorry if I am so dense, but what I don't understand is if his proxy bid was that high to start with, then he should have been a high bidder at some point. If you re-read my earlier posts, I know that he wasn't the high bidder but doggy_doc was. Should he show as high bidder at some point BEFORE the end of the auction?

OK, darkfrog, let's go over the bidding in detail. The auction was ended on Feb. 26 at 11:51:41 PST. Let's use that as a reference point. The first bid was by the eventual winner, surgeonplastic, on Feb. 20 at nearly one minute past midnight. The next three bids were by sweetie bun on February 23 and they had the combined effect of raising the bid amount to $12.00. Surgeonplastic is still high bidder. The next two bids, by dogydoc at 6:56:57 and 6:57:20 on Feb. 26, raised the bid amount to $20.75. Surgeonplastic remains the high bidder. Remember, your bid still hasn't been submitted by AS at this point. Your bid of $22.00 was entered by AS at 11:51:30, 11 seconds before the close of the auction. It wasn't enough and surgeonplastic walked away with the item for the next higher bid increment of 50 cents, at $22.50. Now, what don't you understand about that sequence? You said that your max bid was $22.00.

I wouldn't worry about it even if the auction was screwed up somehow. This seller has another one of these items up for auction as I write. I suggest you visit their listings and plan another snipe. You might even want to put your price a little higher, since you clearly seem to really want this item. Quite an interesting item BTW. Happy bidding..er..sniping!