A very belated thanks for the reply, Rick.
I might have a solution to the mystery as it almost happened again! Fortunately, the problem was most likely due to my own haste and foolishness:
Firstly, the "snipe time" setting for an auction has a default value of 5 seconds. Usually, I change this to 3 seconds. What probably happened is that I mistakenly got a "53" second snipe when I typed a "3" without realizing that I didn't properly delete the default "5" value that was already in the snipe time typebox. (Note: I usually select the "5" with the mouse and then "overtype" it with a "3". But if the "5" was not correctly selected, you get a 53 instead of 3.)
I have done a number of successful snipes on Auction Sniper and I usually double check my entries for errors. But recently, when I almost made the same mistake again, I realized my earlier error.
Regards,
Matt