Double Failure!

I tries to use the bidding group last night, for the first time so it may yet be user error!!!

However I was bidding on 3 similar Items with a view to winning 1. The 3 items finished and the status still reports ready ? 2 finished under the max snipe bid.

I work in IT and would appreciate knowing if I'm being a muppet or if there is a bug that can be fixed ?

RPJ

Auction #'s, lead times, and bid amounts?

Good morning gentlemen!

rsmiller40

Gentlemen, had you won items out of that bid group previously? Once you've won the pre-set number of items in a bid group folder, it becomes inactive forever, and you have to shift any remaining auctions to a new folder if you wish to buy more items. If you're trying to snipe from an inactive bid group folder the snipe status will still show as "ready" even though AS will no longer snipe items in that folder.

Um, Steve?

quote:

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Originally posted by janapier:
Further information: the items were the sole items of respective bidgroups that had not fulfilled their win conditions yet.

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Item Details as requested by Rick.

It was the first time I had created a group, there were 3 similar items closing within an hour of each other.


item
3044097742
Seller: limbo_cat max
27.00
Currently 26.01 quantity
1 lead
5 ended
9/3/2003 2:05:25 PM folder/bidgroup
Minidish status
Ready

item
3044097979
Seller: limbo_cat max
28.00
Currently 24.00 quantity
1 lead
5 ended
9/3/2003 2:07:02 PM folder/bidgroup
Minidish status
Ready

item
3044458216
Seller: saich86 max
30.00
Currently 31.00 quantity
1 lead
5 ended
9/3/2003 2:59:45 PM folder/bidgroup
Minidish status
Ready

RPJ, does "1 lead" stand for a one-second lead time for your snipe? If so, it wouldn't surprise me if some or all of your bids didn't get in to eBay on time, which would cause your status to remain "ready" on AS status.

Other than that, on 3044097742 I take it that your bid was £27.00 and the current bid was £26.01? If so, your bid was not one increment higher and wouldn't have been accepted by eBay. On 3044097979, if your lead time was one second that's the only reason I can see for the bid failing. On 3044458216 your bid was £30.00 and the (winning) current bid was £31.00. I call that being outbid, don't you? If you submit a bid lower than the current bid eBay won't accept it and your snipe status will still show as "ready" on AS.

Quantity 1, Lead time 5 seconds (normaly OK on a midweek auction).

Of the 3 items in the group, I would have expected at least 1 to have been "Bid too Low" but the strang bit is the green "Ready" that is still in the Status field ?

The 3 items appear to be active even though the auction has finished, No emails or notifications, it just seems as though it didnt do anything ?

I just thought it was me but when another user "janapier" had a similar issue with bid groups at a similar time I thought it may be a bug with AS or Ebay ? As said before I havent had a requirement to use bid groups before but having used it and it not doing what I expected I just wanted to work out why.

Previous failed bids (non bid group) HAVE changed status eg:

item
3043888918
Seller: saich86 max
30.00
Last price 40.10 quantity
1 lead
5 ended
8/31/2003 1:33:45 PM folder/bidgroup
My Snipes status
Bid Too Low

[This message was edited by RPJ on September 04, 2003 at 08:40 AM.]

As I understand it, when you place a bid through AS, eBay's response goes back to AS. I know for a fact that AS has only a limited number of "canned" explanations for why a snipe failed or wasn't placed. When eBay, for whatever reason, fails to process a snipe AS will continue to show "ready."

I think in the situation you describe I would file a support case at http://support.auctionsniper.com/ and let the techies look at it. I still am of the opinion that in one of the cases you mention your bid was not one increment higher than the current bid, and thus failed, while in another the current bid was clearly one increment higher than your bid, which is known as "being outbid." Incidentally, you don't know how high the winning bidder's max actually was; eBay only shows an amount sufficient to top your bid.

Looks like Bidgroups arent working properly.

We'll find and fix this immediately and I'll post back here once that has been done.

I agree with Sara B. that there must be a problem with the bid groups.

Regarding the speculations that lead times were too short: in this case AS reports "Not in time", rather than "Ready" for the snipe.

I have successfully used bid groups in the past, but I will stop doing so until the problem is solved.

janapier

I lost three auctions since last evening too. I used bidgroups in two of the and thought it might be something I was doing wrong, so I use AS on a cheap auction with out going through bid groups and it did work. I then placed another bid outside of the bidgroups today and it too wasn't placed. Showed "Ready" in the status box too. The problem has to be with AS. Now I'm afraid to use AS again for fear of losing againg!

PS.
I did file a complant this morning but have not received a reply yet.

-s

As Sara said, they are working on the problem.Nothing is perfect all the time.

rsmiller40

quote:

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Originally posted by boller:
I then placed another bid outside of the bidgroups today and it too wasn't placed. ... Now I'm afraid to use AS again for fear of losing againg!

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I'm usually suspicious of co-incidences, and based on what happened on your auctions, you're wise to be cautious. On the other hand, it may just be a co-incidence.

If you supply auction #, lead time, and snipe amount someone may be able to help.

The problem with bid group snipes has been fixed. eBay changed the text on their page that we use to make sure you havent already won an item. This is what is used to keep you from winning more than one of the same item in a bid group. When in doubt we dont snipe becasuse we dont want you winning every item in your bidgroup.

Boller: the bid group sniping has been fixed. Your missed snipe this morning was just an unfortunate time a snipe didnt work. I would assume that eBay or a computer network enroute to eBay was not working. We snipe from multiple sites in california, all with different routes to eBay. So when a snipe doesnt register and we have no reply from eBay it usually means that the snipes couldnt get to eBay through any means, even trying to bid directly on the site wouldnt have worked at that time.

You can get free snipes even in such cases as it was eBay that was down by going here:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/freeSnipes.aspx

You may be right. AS just placed a bid correctly (outside of the bid group) a moment ago. I'll try the bid group feature again since I lost the auction to a proxy bidder.

Thanks,
-s

After reading the previous exchanges from boller, sara and the rest of the gang I have to say that although I am disappointed for you, boller, you were certainly good about your losses and allowed AS to find and fix the problem.
As for Sara, I admire your rapidity in researching and fixing the problem.

The general feel I got with the above situation is that when someone has a problem, everyone is concerned and willing to help.
Thanks to everyone at AS for being so cool.

-bjt