I also trust that AS would not risk bids not getting through on time or, conversely, would not send them way early (unless conditions warranted), risking counterbids that could cause the bidder to lose the auction. The speculation that AS sends them early to jack up the final price, but still allow the bidder to win the auction is ludicrous, to say the least. It imagines that AS has a crystal ball, knowing what other bidders will do, and which auctions will reach which prices.
Not knowing what amounts the counterbids would be, AS would not risk losing auctions, simply because then they do not get paid. By charging bidders only for wins, AS remains focused on winning auctions. There is no way to know if, or how high, counterbids might be; AS is not going to risk counterbids being too high. Whether all bidders agree with AS' conscious decision or not, AS has opted to sometimes risk sending bids too early, rather than too late. Those of us who have used the service for some time generally appreciate it, because we have all seen the complaints when bids did not reach in time--boy, have we seen them!
Lately we have seen a number of complaints about bids going in too early. Most (I said most, not all) come from new forum members, who appear in most (I said most, not all) cases to be new AS members. In many cases they are also new to eBay, which is another whole issue. But those of us who have been around a while notice that complaints run in trends. We recall the "bid not sent--this sucks" posts. Just as those whose bids were not sent (as in the recent bid group problems), depite their claims that they "would have won" because their snipe amounts were higher than the winning bid, have no way of REALLY knowing what the winning bidders had bid, so, too, those whose bids went in a little early have no way of knowing who planned to bid what amount, when and on which auctions. Perhaps folks should not bid amounts they are not willing to pay. And I think that we will ALWAYS have whiners, no matter what AS does.
I also tend to believe that some of the recent posts, since they seem to repeatedly beat the same dead horse, are actually made by the same individuals. I, for one, have granted the point that AS could handle the explanations better, but meanwhile am tiring of hearing about "company literature" and all the rest of it. Maybe AS could eplain this policy better, but it has been indicated countless times on this forum that this is the manner in which they have chosen to proceed. I do not use AS because of Sara; I use it because it snipes and wins auctions for me, and does so consistently.
There may have been a point in some of the recent complaints, but if so, it was made long ago and now we just have people beating the same dead horse. Can we move on? This is the last I will post on this subject, and members may consider this MY company literature.
