quote:Originally posted by TomBk:
If he put in a bid at 15:07 that was the leading bid at the time, that bid should show and it should not be taken away.
Depends on what you mean by "that bid." Are you saying that he was NOT shown as the leading bidder at that point? Or are you just talking about what the list says NOW?
I been doin' some research, and here's what I've come up with.
EBay uses a PROXY BIDDING system, and that seems to be the rub here. In Proxy Bidding, when you enter a bid that makes you top dog by a wide margin, the auctioneer does NOT enter your maximum bid on the bid list or anywhere else in public view. EBay posts ONLY the amount needed to keep you one increment ahead of the next highest bid. It keeps doing that until your maximum is insufficient to make an amount equalling the next maximum plus increment, in which case someone else takes the lead, or, if you can maintain that lead, you win the auction. (As did your adversary.)
Thus it's possible for me to bid $255 on an item and win it for 43 cents. And no one will ever know that I was dumb enough to bid such a ridiculous amount for a empanada with the face of Hugo Chavez's virgin mother! With one bid, I could lead an auction until the very end, and then get beaten by someone who bid 50 cents more at the last minute. And if some drunk wanted to buy a '91 Chevy for $45,000, he couldn't do it in an eBay auction, not unless some other drunk was willing to offer $44,250.
EBay doesn't talk about how incremental amounts are established, but they seem to be a percentage of the bid amount at any given time. Increments become wider as the bids go higher.
With proxy bidding, it's entirely possible for you to bid MORE than the high bid shown in the listing, and still not be the high bidder! For example, if the bid is $6 and the increment is 30 cents, a bid for $6.15 will be rejected, duh. (Cries of "Wait wait! I bid more than the leading bidder!" will fall on deaf ears.) Of course, you'll be told why the bid is rejected and given another chance to bid. If you bid $6.30, that bid will appear on the screen as the leading bid.
(Al Gore and I have something in common: I have lost auctions and been the highest bidder. It happens.)
If instead you bid $8.23, the bid that appears on the screen will still be $6.30. But keep in mind that you're still good up to $8 or thereabouts, depending on the increment shift and the next lowest bid.
quote:maybe eBay posts a winner's winning bid and none of the lower bids on his/her behalf.
quote:How could that be?
Exactly why couldn't couldn't that be? In fact, that's exactly what happens, if you define "winning bid" as "what it took to win the auction." See more below.
quote:If that is the case, why would we be using Auction Sniper. We could accomplish the same thing on eBay.
Hmmm. I know why I I use AS, but what sort of advantage do YOU think Auction Sniper gives us? (It's interesting how many people think AS is either a magic bullet / dirty lowdown trick or a waste of money. Both groups are wrong.)
quote:The list doesn't really matter; the bottom line is that you were outbid at 15.07:38
quote:The integrity of the bidding process demands that if this person entered a bid at 15:07, his bid ought to show up at 15:07, for the amount that it was at 15:07, and it ought to stay there.
That's not what's demanded by the integrity of the PROXY bidding process. Proxy bidding is incremental. If the high bid on an item is $4, and I bid $4000, you will still see a bid of something like $4.30 on your screen. You will NEVER see the $4000, because it never takes effect. I'm not an expert on auction theory, but that's fine with me. Among other problems, you'd have people screaming bloody murder because their keyboard went on the the fritz and entered "000" by accident. I'm sure there's much more potential for shilling and other sorts of abuse with that system than with proxy bidding.
quote:If he has a maximum bid that beats another bidder later, fine. But that doesn't mean his prior bid should be deleted.
Deleted? What "prior bid" do you think was deleted? The bid that appeared on the screen when he first made his bid was eBay's PROXY bid on his behalf. EBay - not the bidder - kept entering higher and higher proxy bids for him until he won the auction.
When AS entered your bid, it wasn't enough to exceed his maximum by the increment. So eBay entered yet another proxy bid on his behalf. That put him over the top.
As to the list:
After the auction, his WINNING bid amount appeared on the list. His maximum bid doesn't appear because it never came into effect. Nor do the proxy bids that were entered on his behalf. There's no good reason to list all the proxy bids that might have been entered during the auction, whether they're his or anyone else's.
And you also see the highest bids of the other bidders. One bidder may have entered several maximums - and they will appear on the list, with a different bidder's name next to them. But no interim proxy bids appear on the list. Only maximums and the winning bid.
Maybe I'm the one who's missing something here. Please enlighten me if I am.
quote:There is something deceitful about that. No one knows now if he had a prior bid in at 15:07 or not, or if he recieved some special treatment from eBay.
Hey, d'ya tink somebody coulda' been messin' widda servers, eh?
I'm sorry, but c'mon. EBay has its problems - retaliatory feedback, for one example - but do you think they could afford to screw with the auctions like that? Do you know what that would do to "shareholder value"?
Tom