Why not just continue to let us decide what lead time is best for our own bids? I bid (at least,did) at 2 seconds and virtually never got "not in time" message. I frequently get "out sniped" or "bid too low" but the lead time is not an issue.

At 5 seconds, I frequently get outbid by manuel bidders. It is insane to say you cannot place a bid in the last 3 or 4 seconds. I place bids in that time frame all the time.

And please don't repeat that ridiculous mantra that it "is not the last bid, it is the highest bid." What idiot doesn't know that? The object is to get in the highest bid at the last second so no one can have time to outbid you. Five seconds is not short enough for the auctions I bid in. Some of you seem to bid on things that you can get in the last bid in the last few minutes but it is different in more competitive markets.

just give me the freedom to make my own mistakes.

anyway, at this point. i find BIDSNAPPER to be a reasonable alternative to AS and I can make my own decisions and mistakes.

Steve

OK,

Am I missing something? I assumed that the lead time has been changed but I just placed a bid at my normal 2 seconds. Did I misunderstand this issue?

Steve

Never mind, I see now how bad it really sucks. AS still allows me to set my snipe at 2 seconds but changes it to 5 seconds. At least you should make it 5 seconds on the pop up window and not give me the illusion that I still have the freedom to set my own time.

Steve

This is from support:
Hi Steve,

Clealy you are referring to the situation "Not able to reduce lead time below 5 Secs" well I agree you will not be able to change your lead time to anything less than 5 seconds. (You can increase it though). It‘s a bug (Which would mean that some of the snipes may go off below 5 Secs) that should be fixed next week. However, we don‘t recommend anything less than 5 seconds. Although we send the snipe on time, during peak times eBay‘s servers may not process it in time. Not eBay‘s fault or ours: internet traffic is just heavier at certain times. And during peak periods, you might consider adding 2-4 seconds more since their servers seem to be taking quite a hit during that time (5-10 p.m. pst, and weekends).

Regards,
-Arjun Y.

It kind of sounds like Steve has made up his mind to go somewhere else?

Not really. I know AS works. I would prefer to remain but I want to be able to set a 1 - 2 second lead time.

Steve

quote:

I place bids in that time frame all the time.

How?

R2

quote:

Originally posted by letitflyantiques:
And please don't repeat that ridiculous mantra that it "is not the last bid, it is the highest bid."

It does seem that when we run out of convincing arguments, someone usually posts that. Someday I’ll have to find out who originally coined that phrase, and try to count the number of times it’s been posted.

quote:

Originally posted by letitflyantiques:
AS still allows me to set my snipe at 2 seconds but changes it to 5 seconds. At least you should make it 5 seconds on the pop up window and not give me the illusion that I still have the freedom to set my own time.

That seems like a good idea, but it doesn’t sound as if that’s going to make you a happy ASer.

quote:

Originally posted by letitflyantiques:
I would prefer to remain but I want to be able to set a 1 - 2 second lead time.

Based on Sniper Bill’s post on the first page of this thread, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. And, since it was a recent change, it might take awhile before it's reconsidered, assuming it's ever reconsidered.

Hi,

Thanks Rick. Actually I am a very happy AS member except fot this issue.


I am still confused about if this is a bug or a policy. Bill said policy but I also read:
V

quote:

This is from support:
Hi Steve,

Clealy you are referring to the situation "Not able to reduce lead time below 5 Secs" well I agree you will not be able to change your lead time to anything less than 5 seconds. (You can increase it though). It‘s a bug (Which would mean that some of the snipes may go off below 5 Secs) that should be fixed next week. However, we don‘t recommend anything less than 5 seconds. Although we send the snipe on time, during peak times eBay‘s servers may not process it in time. Not eBay‘s fault or ours: internet traffic is just heavier at certain times. And during peak periods, you might consider adding 2-4 seconds more since their servers seem to be taking quite a hit during that time (5-10 p.m. pst, and weekends).

Regards,
-Arjun Y.

Hence I am unsure if this is a bug or a policy. Probably 5 seconds won't hurt me but I really like two second.

As for bidding at 5 seconds, just have your bid ready and hit "Place bid" at 2 or 3 seconds. It won't work with a 110 year old computer with a dial up connection but it works well for me with road runner and nextal wireless. If you are really concerned about speed, I also recommend gold tipped USB cables. They are real cheap, around 40 - 50 bucks, and I can really tell the difference.

Steve

quote:

Originally posted by letitflyantiques:
I am still confused about if this is a bug or a policy. Bill said policy but I also read:

I’ve read the bug quote several times, and I don’t read it as AS is going to make a change to let users specify less than 5 seconds. The bug quote sounds a bit buggy.

quote:

have your bid ready and hit "Place bid" at 2 or 3 seconds

Hmm - so you have already decided on an amount and reached the final stage of the bidding sequence at this point. Trouble is, you cannot react with an even higher bid should someone come in higher. It begs the question, why not snipe at the amount you set up here which is obviously less than or equal to your max for the item?

Also, what's the refresh rate of your auction watcher? 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 1 second? That, too, could cost you vital seconds.

Apologies if I'm sounding negative but it all seems a lot of trouble when, for a few cents, AS will do it for you.

Welcome back to AS!

Suggestion: AS provide stats of %age of snipes that lose to a proxy bid vs %age of snipes that are out sniped by a higher snipe!

R2

Hi,

I typically use AS but occasionally I see something in the last seconds that I had missed or assumed would go way to high and had not bothered with so i snipe it. There are many and varied reasons I bid manually at times. On rare occasions I decide I had sniped to low and want to hit it again.

I never have any problem getting in a last second bid.

Steve

I think in Steve’s case, the issue isn’t “if He can”, but will AS allow less than a 5-second snipe. If that’s a deal breaker, then unless that changes, Steve won’t be able to use AS.

I don’t agree with your (Steve) concerns about this issue, but then, I’m not in your shoes, and you have a hell of a lot more experience being in your shoes than anyone else. Your posts don’t sound like the ramblings of a deranged person, and anyone that says, “just give me the freedom to make my own mistakes” is someone that sounds willing to accept responsibility for what they do – a behavior that isn’t the norm on this forum.

There is the alternative that for those auctions that will be highly competitive to place manual snipes, and those that are less competitive to place 5-second AS snipes. Just a food-for-thought suggestion.

quote:

Originally posted by Rick:
Someday I’ll have to find out who originally coined that phrase,

star_trkr - Feb 6, 2002 - It's all his fault.

Hey all...

Awhile back, we made a decision to not allow snipe leads times below 5 seconds due to the risks of not getting the snipe placed in time.

When this was implimented into the "Add a Snipe" control on our website, there was actually a bug with the validation. It was correctly NOT allowing less than 5 seconds for most browsers, but for some people using Firefox, Opera, and other non IE browsers, it was still letting you enter in a lead time of less than 5 seconds.

A couple weeks ago, when I realized this was happening, I had someone fix the validation so that it worked properly.

At this point, we started getting a ton of complaints from people who really liked being able to enter lead times less than 5 seconds.

Due to this fact, I'm going to go ahead and make a change to allow people to enter snipes down to a lead time of 3 seconds. 1 and 2 second lead times will still not be allowed.

Let me explain my primary reason not to allow extreamly low lead times: New users don't always realize how the whole system works, how there is lag time between our servers and eBay and all of the other factors in getting the snipe actually placed. So, if they come in for the first time and entered a 1 second lead time and lost the auction because we couldn't get it placed in time, then they are likely to think our service doesn't work.

Hope this clears up some of the confusion on the topic.

-Kevin

Thanks, Kevin!! Well appreciated, always, when we get this from the "horse's mouth"!

quote:

Originally posted by Kevin:
Due to this fact, I'm going to go ahead and make a change to allow people to enter snipes down to a lead time of 3 seconds. 1 and 2 second lead times will still not be allowed.

Hey, STEVE! What do you think?

The change is now live... You can enter lead times all the way down to 3 seconds.

Keep in mind, we do NOT recommend actually using anything less than 5 seconds. In fact, I personally recommend 7 seconds. But, to each his own.

-Kevin

Thanks,

Just saw this. I was having lunch today with two other serious bidders and they were madder than me. I will let them know.

I appreciate the rare attention to customers' opinions. I can certainly live with 3 seconds.

Steve

quote:

At 5 seconds, I frequently get outbid by manuel bidders.

Is he a Spanish sniper?