Apr-15-04 16:36:57 PDT US $101.99 vike100
Apr-25-04 16:29:27 PDT US $101.99 bq_karen
Apr-25-04 14:09:51 PDT US $56.00 deer741
Apr-16-04 07:56:06 PDT US $54.00 ritastorybook
Apr-15-04 18:05:34 PDT US $50.99 nancyjamie
BQ, a proxy bid is simply a standard eBay bid, made at some point during the auction. It is called a proxy bid because your full amount is not revealed, just the amount necessary to keep you one increment above the next highest bidder. This is the term that eBay itself uses.
In your case, it was a most unlikely scenario, because you appeared to have bid the exact same amount--to the penny--as a previous high bidder, something that is very rare indeed. (I would recommend using middle range amounts, such as .37 or 63 cents.) Because the other bid came first, it triumphed.
Prior to your snipe, the winning bid would have shown as something in the fifties, since vike's high bid would have kept it one increment above the fiftysomething amounts bid by others. But your last second snipe automatically made his full amount kick in, and raised the final price to the $101.99 mark. But since he had already bid it, he won.
This is the only scenario where bidding late is a disadvantage. But the chances of it are SO slim (how likely is it that two people will bid the exact same dollar and cent amount on an item at this range?), that 99.9% of the time the high bid wins, regardless of when it was posted. We snipers place late to prevent a higher counterbid in reaction.
I know it stings, since ou bid the same amount, but you stated that the reserve price wa not met. When an item is listed, I have found that about half the time, if I e-mail the seller, he is willing to reveal the reserve price to me. You have nothing to lose and it may help you to select a bid amount.
