Ebay Requires Account Verification

I have had same problem ebay needs Verification message 2 days ago and my snipes were no placed . Ebay says it is Auctionsniper problem and I can't even access the reason using auctionsniper link provides I have typed the numbers 30 times and go no place today I can not even enter a snipe ? I have used this service 10 years so someone tell me what is wrong ?

Hello All -

Please be aware that eBay may request such verification at any time for any account and as we are unrelated to eBay, we have no way to know ahead of time when such a request may be made. Auction Sniper is unable to work around such requests when eBay makes them.

Also note that the confirmation page from any snipe record is a snapshot. It is a record of the last communication between eBay and Auction Sniper at the time our service attempts to place your bid - it is not an actual eBay page and is not intended for any purpose other than letting you know what occurred at the time Auction Sniper tried to place your bid; it is not a functional page.

Our engineers make consistent adjustments on our end to reduce the likelihood of this type of request occurring from eBay.

- Craig

quote:

Originally posted by Craig A:
Hello All -

Please be aware that eBay may request such verification at any time for any account and as we are unrelated to eBay, we have no way to know ahead of time when such a request may be made. Auction Sniper is unable to work around such requests when eBay makes them.

Also note that the confirmation page from any snipe record is a snapshot. It is a record of the last communication between eBay and Auction Sniper at the time our service attempts to place your bid - it is not an actual eBay page and is not intended for any purpose other than letting you know what occurred at the time Auction Sniper tried to place your bid; it is not a functional page.

Our engineers make consistent adjustments on our end to reduce the likelihood of this type of request occurring from eBay.

- Craig

Now, isn't that odd? EBay accepts NO responsibility for the action Auction Sniper calls "EBAY REQUIRES ACCOUNT VERIFICATION" The way it was explained to me by a well-seasoned EBay customer service representative VIA TELEPHONE (something Auction Sniper really needs to invest in, because, as anyone who comes to this so-called forum can see, the dates are so few and far between that users are being testy because we have no place to turn to to get real time information from this third party service); Auction Sniper is a third-party company, unrelated to EBay in any way, and having a snipe unplaced by this service is ridiculous. Buyers will always chose to have their auction end within 2-5 seconds of auction end, and it looks like the EBay computers and the A.S. computers just cannot talk to each other that quickly.

I just spent more than an hour using the customer service page, via internet -- because it is the ONLY way we can "talk" to anyone at Auction Sniper -- inputting all of the snipes I missed because of the ridiculous EBAY REQUIRES ACCOUNT VERIFICATION and DID NOT WIN glitches -- and then something occurred to me.

I sent a message to Auction Sniper, using that same "reach Customer Service" internet page, in May of 2014 -- ALMOST A YEAR AGO -- and oddly, I did not remember receiving any help from anyone at A.S. So, I looked up my own inquiries ... guess what I found? The inquiry I made last May (again, in 2014, almost a year ago), WAS NEVER REPLIED TO BY ANYONE AT A.S. It is still waiting for disposition.

The customer service rep at EBay told me I would be better suited to sitting at my desk, and placing bids ON MY OWN, since they could verify that they had NO way of contacting anyone at Auction Sniper to fix the problem that so many buyers are complaining to EBay about. They find it is a common problem in their complaint file, as well, when Auction Sniper uses these "terms" when a glitch has happened to folks who use the service honestly, expecting an outcome to WIN if they have the high bid.

If EBay cannot contact anyone at Auction Sniper to address a problem that is being tossed into their complaint file, and, believe me, it sounds as if folks are quite angry when they hear from EBay that they have no say-so in this because of the old THIRD PARTY COMPANY that Auction Sniper is, and that EBay can do nothing to help. Turning here, as I have learned today, is futile; remember, I have a problem I turned in almost a year ago that has not been addressed by Auction Sniper, still.

Everyone might do as I am doing this weekend (APRIL 10-11-12, 2015, FRIDAY THRU SUNDAY). Give Auction Sniper a chance ... list items this week-end. If you encounter the same problem, that we have been told is so very erratic and not at all common (which is why it happened to me on 3/29/15 AND 4/5/15, which, by my estimation is two weeks in a row, with today starting a third week that could follow the same pattern IF Auction Sniper has not yet verified by existence ... it seems to be VERY common), find a different listing service and/or go back to sitting at the computer and placing those last second bids yourselves. I thought I was getting a wonderful service through Auction Sniper, but now I am seeing a lot of things being done wrong. They are only a service if we pay our bills.

Once again, Auction Sniper, look to companies like SPRINT to get a cheap 1-800 number so your users have a place to call to get REAL help.

I do look forward to hearing how both of my "INQUIRIES" are being resolved. Thank you, Kathy Noland

can be reached on EBay through user name genuinething for a copy of this should it disappear

What I can't understand is that I have NEVER been asked for catchpa verification when I place a manual bid (and I place a lot) but it keeps happening when I use AS. All I can think of is that eBay is doing something with IP addresses.

Same exact issue twice in the last two weeks and I AM SO PISSED!!! I have spent, just like everyone else, loads of money on ebay sniping for the past 10+ years and now I missed 2 items that I was very interested on and there is no accountability or responsibility........there has got to be another sniping site that I can trust?? Help!!!

Yesterday (very early 13/04/2015 GMT) I had both my snipes fail with Ebay Requires Account Verification. I was able to place a manual bid at the time of the second failure. The bids were set for 7 seconds before auction end, so auctionsniper should have been able to make repeated attempts to place the bids.

Yesterday, I lost three of five snipes that were placed due to account verification. Of those three, I would have won them too. Of course, the lost snipes for the three things I wanted the most. While I understand AS can't know when this issue will rise, I still find it very frustrating. I am left with no other option but trying other sites or stop the practise all together.

It pains me to do this as have been a very satisfied customer here for many years...

Monday 13/4/15 I also had three snipes fail due to "Ebay Requires Account Verification". I am also very annoyed at this , because they were auctions I really wanted to win, and would have if the snipes did not fail.

I pay money for Auction Sniper and expect a high level of reliability because it is a paid service. If a good explanation cannot be provided by Auction Sniper, I will use a different sniping service provider instead.

The exact same thing happened to me, and not only that, but the page where I was asked to enter the "captcha" "verification code" would not accept their own code.

I tried it so far, eleven different times.

If there is no way around this, I will either be forced to find another sniping method, or take legal action against Auction Sniper for breach of contract in not providing the services I paid for.

Fix this.

Wow, that is EXACTLY what I went through........the page never accepted their own code. Finally, I deleted my payment info and reentered it and (knock on wood) so far, it's worked.

Hello Community -

Unfortunately Auction Sniper is unable to work around such additional request from eBay at log in and eBay may make such a request for any account at any time. As we are unrelated to eBay, we have no means to prevent or predict when such may occur.

As for the confirmation pages associated with your snipes, please keep in mind that these pages are records of the last communication between Auction Sniper and eBay in relation to the bid they are associated with; they are not, at that point, viable eBay pages - they are snapshots of eBay pages - so it is not expected behavior for them to operate as such.

Also note that our engineers regularly make adjustments on our end to reduce the likelihood of this occurring.

- Craig

Exact same issue last night. "Account Verification Required" prevented one snipe for an item on which there were no bids. Would have won, seller would have sold, ebay would have made money. Instead everyone loses. A snipe an hour later went through just fine. A manual bid entry today required no verification. I called ebay today and was bounced around to 4 different customer support reps in a foreign call center. After an hour on the phone they confirmed there is nothing wrong with my account and ultimately blamed the seller for requiring entry of the account verification captcha code, which is ridiculous. My theory is this is ebay attempting to thwart AuctionSniper and other bidding robots from sniping. Sniping clearly suppresses competitive bidding and likely costs ebay significant money. Appears to be random, maybe tied to IP address and time remaining in the bidding process, maybe a history of prior snipes. If this is true, it will unfortunately render Auction Sniper an unreliable means for bidding. Too bad because it has worked well for me for quite some time now. Sorry to hear others had the same experience. I plan to contact the seller who lost out and let him know why his item didn't sell.

I agree completely with Cellarseller. This isn't AS's fault - it's eBay. First, there's no reason for eBay to suddenly require a captcha when bidding, since manual bidders have already logged in. It must be directed at sniper bots. Why? Over the years I have received emails from other bidders (from a time when they could get your email) complaining that I had sniped an auction and "hadn't given them a chance to bid again." Despite the fact that they are clueless about proxy bidding, I suspect their complaints to eBay have caused this captcha nonsense. And as in Cellarseller's case, I lost out on an auction that had no other bids. Once again eBay is protecting the newbie bidders at the expense of sellers. If enough of us notified sellers that they missed out on a higher bid, maybe eBay will drop this nonsense. Otherwise AS's sporadic lockout renders it useless.
A better solution for eBay is what other auction sites do: an auction won't end until x minutes after the last bid. At least that way the newbie complainers have to be at their machines to re-bid.

I also experienced this problem, the first time last week on the 19th. after reading a lot of discussions on the ebay boards, i came across an interesting point - that these captcha problems often occur on sundays, when the ebay bidding traffic is very high. my initial two times of this occurring happened last sunday. so today i was wary, and manually bid when i was able, with no problems whatsoever. but one of my snipes didn't go through and gave the ebay verification required message on auction sniper.

so, my theory is that *THIS IS A PARTICULAR PROBLEM ON SUNDAYS* and my experience is particularly in the *AFTERNOON*.

my snipes from the morning had no problem, but my snipe that was blocked was in the afternoon (CST).

i, too, rang ebay last week after this occurred, and had a customer service rep tell me that 'ebay does not recommend third-party sites' etc. they clearly know about the problem.

i believe that this is probably not an attack on sniping sites, but rather a glitch on their very shaky server, a problem with ebay's technology, given that it seems to occur especially when there is highest traffic volume.

any other folks have this problem on sundays particularly?

Same thing has been happening to me. I am changing to a different sniping program and quit relying on AuctionSniper or just go back to manually doing the auctions that I really care about. Tired of missing items

This is the same thing that happened to me but on the 19th & 25th on 3 snipes. 2 I would have won and one I would have been outbid on. One of them no one else even bid on so I was sure to have won that. Interestingly on the AS lost page one of the items does not even have the final numbers right. I contacted auction sniper...they blame ebay. I contacted ebay and they blame auction sniper....but after being cut off once on ebay and calling back I was transferred to 3 people for over an hour of unresolved conversation only to state that auction sniper was obviously having "technical issues". I did register with another sniping Co. But they seemed more confusing and more costly so after I registered I decided not to use them and would continue looking for another one. I don't really see that it would be in ebay's best interest to interfere with sniping since there are SO MANY items NOT SELLING...you'd think they would welcome any honest bidding at all! ...PS: I have just "celebrated" (I use the term loosely) my 18th year anniversary being an ebay member! And ebay sent me an email to state such...and I say Between the bidding problems, the lack of selling problems I have had on ebay and a change in using terms coming in May, I feel like a needed break is in order. Not making any money anyway!

Ebay Requires Account Verification occurred 4 times now and I could have won all four. They occurred on

Sunday, 3/29 at 14:04 (bid placed to Switzerland)
Sunday, 4/26 at 15:01 (bid placed to United States)
Sunday, 5/03 at 13:41 (bid placed to Great Britain)
Sunday, 5/03 at 14:15 (bid placed to Great Britain)

Veronicalodge seems to have the correct theory as to when and why it occurs, Sundays in the afternoons, busiest times of the week.

Don't have the time to sit there and place all my bids, AuctionSniper has to do it for me. Do we all complain to Ebay to get this resolved?

No! EBay does NOT care. I've already been there and done that! The overwhelming sense I got when speaking to customer service reps on THREE different occasions is that if they did NOT have to do any business with 3rd party companies, they wouldn't! The can't do anything more than they already have -- NOTHING. They have no authority over A.S.'s third party sniping, and vice versa. Auction Sniper still gets their fee, even if we miss our auction because of "EBay Requires Account Verification," so what do THEY care?

I'm looking for an alternative, but all I've found so far require money in advance on the account. Which is more aggravating?

A.S. will continue to say it is NOT their fault and EBay will say they have no control over third party companies.

Griping, I have found, does no good when it comes to this topic. (

Hugs, and GOOD LUCK!

Kat

Hello genuingthing -

Please keep in mind that our service does not assess a snipe fee on an item unless you win using our service. There are no charges associated with a snipe that does not win. You can see the details of our pricing structure here:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/h...tion-sniper-pricing/

Also note that our service has no control over responses that eBay may request at log in, and is unable to work around additional confirmation pages should they arise at that time, but our engineers make adjustments on our end to reduce the likelihood of such events occurring.

- Craig

Well here it is on Sunday night and another auction lost due to A.S. showing ebay needing account verification. I thought these people got this fixed, but apparently NOT!!!!! People in charge FOR GOODNESS SAKE DO SOMETHING and fix this problem! People are pissed!

Same thing just happened to me and I lost a valuable auction! I called e-bay and they said NO they didn't need my account verification! I've been on Auction Sniper since day one. Never a problem. Now I feel that I can't trust it.

This has happened to me a couple of times as well, and it usually take a couple of complaints to get a rise out of AS. I wonder if they have some special class of customer who pay a little more to have AS sidetrack our bids, even though we are willing to pay more, in order that theirs can win. Certainly their service for the rest of us is cheap enough - maybe that's how they make their money.

Seems like Auction sniper is giving the same generic runaround answer to this problem. I lost a bid because of this...... eBay Account Verification Required.... I Bid on a different item minutes later without this eBay Account Verification Required problem. NOW WHAT???? If users keep losing items or bids because of eBay Account Verification Required this site will become useless. Like I said Now What? Even in the meantime keep losing bids/items until then??? This puts a BIG doubt into EVERY snipe placed on this site. Unacceptable

I find it very funny that for years this site has given me the chance to bid on items while I was at work by sniping bids on items of interest. I do not even remember when I started it has been so long ago, but it has been many years. Now in the past 30-40 snipes I have lost out on 15-20 chances to buy items of interest due to this problem that AS cannot control or does not wish to find a solution for with Ebay. I feel safe to say this and it is hard to, that I myself will be forced to look elsewhere to find what I need. A service that can do the job that this site used to be able to provide to me. The chance to buy items on Ebay while at work. I will not stop collecting what I collect because this site cannot or will not do something to solve a problem. I am tired of seeing the same answer by Craig that ths site cannot control anything that Ebay does. Ebay says they are doing nothing too create this problem. SOMEONE find a solution before you no longer have a website to run. It is not hard to figure out no customers means no buisness and no money. Ebay wants everyone to sit by your computer and bid. If that cannot be done they do not care as someone will win the auction. Tell them they would get more money final value fees by another bid coming in higher than what they got and they do not care as they make so much anyway and charge more all the time. All buisness's need to remember to work with your customers or you do not have a buisness to run any longer. Craig try calling Ebay and find a workable solution before you have no website to run. Sorry for ranting but in the end this website and it's workers will lose out, not Ebay or the customers who use this site for the intended startup reason to provide customers with the opertunity to bid on items while not at home or have the chance to do so!

Before the problems were just Sun. Afternoons like people said, but now it's completely broken. I tried other sniping sites and they can't even verify the ebay login. Looks like sniping services are dead. Ebay is losing a lot of money!

Same thing that everybody. I've been trusting AS for years and now I can't trust it. Yesterday I lost 5 of 5 item that I was interested in. I could won all of them but AS couldn't place the bid.

I never Had to verify my account when I bid. I watched the auction I lost on this site. The seconds were ticking down correctly then I looked at the end date that Auction Sniper had and it was 24 hours later????????. I opened the ebay auction, saw that it had ended with no snipe. When I went back to the auction sniper site, the incorrect date was gone and Ebay Requires Account Verification was posted. Why???

Many of the people in this thread seem to think that AS is causing this problem and needs to fix it. They can't. It's eBay that's decided to arbitrarily require authentication in order to bid, and AS can't do anything about it. eBay is deliberately trying (and succeeding) to render sniper bots ineffective because newbies complain about sniping. If you've ever tried to deal with eBay, you know that they're arrogant enough to ignore whatever AS says. Of course, the fact that AS can't fix it means that regardless of whose fault it is, AS is now useless. But all of you ranting that AS needs to fix it or you'll go somewhere else need to understand that anywhere else will have the exact same problem.

NOTE TO CRAIG AT AS: You have the data to calculate how many bids you failed to make because of this. You can calculate how many of those auctions ended with no bids. (Yes, that might take some time, but pretty soon you'll have a bunch of employees with nothing to do.) Therefore you can calculate how much money eBay has lost because of this idiotic policy of theirs. Maybe if you put a $ in front of them they'd listen.

AuctionSniper is a dead issue now, for me.

... eBay of course does not want auctions to be sniped, they never did want sniping, and they have apparently now found a way to put snipers at great risk of losing auctions. From a 99.+% reliability factor, AuctionSniper is now an unknown risk, for losing important auctions, to me.

There is one auction site that uses a 15 minute rule, for ending auctions. IF any bids occur in the last 15 minutes on GB's auction site, the auction is extended another 15 minutes, to allow bidders to keep bidding up on their auctions.
This means it works like a REAL auction, without an artificially imposed ending time. I think eBay ought to do the same, if bid-sniping is no longer a viable way of winning auctions, due to their lately occurring unreliability.

I'm not buying this story that Auction Sniper is selling that it's eBay asking for verification. Over the course of 16 years on eBay I've bid on thousands of items and I've never once been asked to verify my account. This is purely an Auction Sniper problem. If it continues (and they have to realize this) they will go broke.

What makes me the maddest is that Auction Sniper has blamed it on eBay despite several people telling them that it was not an eBay issue.

From the "support team"

"Please note that this verification page was presented by eBay's security system that our system could not workaround so could not sign into your eBay account and could not place your snipe.

Sadly, at this time, there is nothing we can suggest that would prevent these possibilities from occurring sometimes. Typically such requests cease within a day or so and sniping resumes normally thereafter.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance to you."

Has - anyone - actually seen this page they keep referring to? In over 16 years on eBay, I've never seen it. It's a virtual boogeyman in my opinion.

Whatever though, if the issue isn't corrected, the company is out of business.

Hello Entirely Peeved -

you can typically see the request that eBay has made on the confirmation page of a snipe record. This page is located by clicking the button on the extreme right of the title bar for a snipe record. The button has an icon like an eye on it and records the last communication between eBay and Auction Sniper in relation to your bid where possible.

Please note that the confirmation page from any snipe record is a snapshot. It is a record of the last communication between eBay and Auction Sniper at the time our service attempts to place your bid - it is not an actual eBay page and is not intended for any purpose other than letting you know what occurred at the time Auction Sniper tried to place your bid; it is not a functional page.

Our engineers make consistent adjustments on our end to reduce the likelihood of this type of request occurring from eBay.

- Craig

I've lost 5 snipes in the last 24 hours due to "Ebay requires account verification". I won' go in to how angry I am. This is the first time in 15 years I've had a problem with Auctionsniper. Yes, it is a problem with Auctionsniper, not eBay. Your product does not work for me anymore - for whatever reason. If eBay has found a way to block snipebots then you guys at AS need to find a way round this. NOW! Your very business is at stake! Do you developers at AS know that it takes only one such failed snipe for a customer to completely lose faith in your product? And no, the fact that there is no fee from AS is really no compensation for a lost snipe. I don't know where to go from here other than to go back to manual bidding (ugh) and look for an alternative to AS.

I have read people saying they talked to people at Ebay who confirmed this was intentional on their side. It could be - the bigger companies get, the more they can push through their own policies. Could be that Ebay has grown too big....Since it also happened to me a number of times I will try some other way of sniping. But if that does not work out, I foresee I will be bidding on less auctions. Good for my money, less good for Ebay.

Although it matters not for the solution of the present dilemma, the blame is to be placed on the wimpy complaints of bidders who have lost auctions to snipers. I say wimpy, because even with sniping, the highest proxy bid wins, but the losers feel they have been "blind-sided" because they were not aware of the coming snipe bids. For us, that is the point, to avoid a bidding war, to avoid prematurely driving up the price, and the exact reason eBay does not want sniping. eBay favors the bidders over the sellers, and now the ignorant "newby" bidders over the experienced ones.

It is a point of question, whether the seller would gain higher bids in the long run, if eBay prevents sniping from being reliable. On the one hand, if all bids are regular proxy, bidding wars will occur, driving up the bids as the auction proceeds along. On the other hand, if snipes are being placed, higher bidders without sniper service will tend to be complacent that their bids are high enough, as long as they can see no-one beating them. The added amount of snipe wins does increase the bids at the end of course. But I believe the bean counters at eBay have weighed this issue carefully and decided that overall, sniping results in ended auctions with lower average winning bids, for those auctions that have sniped bids, compared to similar items' auctions where no snipe bids are placed.

eBay would rather level the playing field for beginner and unsophisticated bidders, and reduce the advantages that expert bidders have previously enjoyed.

Twice during the past 2 days my bid was not placed due to "e-bay requires account verification" on what would have been a winning bid. Bids were placed and won both before and after both by SNIPE and "manually" without a problem. Ebay don't know anything about an "account verification problem" on my account. I did receive a "session expired" notice from SNIPE which I have NEVER seen before.

What gives? If I can't bid reliably with SNIPE I may have to do something else.

RSVP

Look guys, clearly eBay is trying to defeat Snipe sites. This is a new reality. They probably developed some sort of rule-based code routine that checks IPs, time to auction end, and other fingerprints that differentiate a human user from a third party program. I believe a major parameter is a user's session length compared to when they place the snipe bid. Meaning that in that split second after the AS program logs in, it places a bid. Also the lead time for the bid may be being detected too. 4-5 seconds before auction end is clearly a marker for a Snipe bot so that also may trigger the verification. Maybe the user's history of bidding at the last minute is a factor.

I suppose eBay wants us all in front of the screen in the last 10 minutes of an auction to maximize the hammer price and consequently their profits. I know that automatic snipers and that whole are really not part of their business model, meaning they want to maximize eyes on the screen, also to drive up ad revenue, no. of clicks, add-on buys, etc. They've got teams of developers and analysts whose only purpose is to defeat Snipe sites and increase human clicks and page views. Most if not all online retailers or other sites that deal with the customer to get their online $ hate third-party automatic programs and bots which take the place of a human interaction with their site. The only good bot is *their* bot, as to what is allowed. eBay makes their money from humans who spend time on their site. Maximizing the time a customer is on eBay is not what a third party agent does so that's why now, as Snipe sites get a bigger share of the winning bids, they've declared war on us. And your bottom dollar that eBay has made sure that verification is never triggered when a human user bids, even at the last minute. So the assertion from AS that eBay does this from time to time is a lame excuse. I'd like to be treated a little more intelligently by AS Support, thank you.

So here's the deal. Auction Sniper knows very well this is an anti-snipe weapon. The fact is that it could be a business killer for them and it has been happening for some time tells me that they're either clueless or powerless to do something about it. By now they would have reasonably developed a counter fix to the verification check. I'm getting really fed up with the AS support, being unfriendly, clueless, and ineffective. This may well be their final straw.

Here's what I'm going to do in the short term.

For auctions of items that I definitely want to win no matter what, I will bid manually.

I have increased the lead time on one of my upcoming snipes up to 8 or 10 seconds, just to test if that makes a difference.

I am also going to log in and stay logged in to eBay within 15 minutes (min avg cookie session time) of auction end.

I am also going to start sniping with another AS account just to see if eBay is going after the hard core habitual offenders.

In the long term or sooner, if eBay continues this BS and AS doesn't find a fix, if the above ideas don't work, I'll drop AS like a ton of bricks and walk.

I'll let you know.

In any case the best solution hands down is a downloaded snipe program that we can install on our own PCs which snipes for us from the IP with which we logged in and stay logged through auction end. Letting a third party do this for us always was never a guarantee of getting the winning bid, thus with a high degree of risk because we're delegating to a third party agent. Now it seems that those chickens have come to roost.

This reminds me of those heady days of the Wild West Web of the mid to late 90s when search engines were constantly fighting web coders that modified web site pages to get higher search result placement. Most of you weren't even born yet (joke). It became so bad that search sites were even blocking the worst offending web sites and even server IPs from displayed results. There were young men and women "hired guns" ("search engine gurus") who represented that they had cracked the search engine's code and could achieve amazing results for web site business owners. Major money was spent, many late night hours burned. Some of the more astute guys even got sued by the search sites. No, really.

Anyway.., AS needs to fess up and come clean to their customers about what they know and don't know. Everything. I surmise that might not be very much and that's why they're playing the same old unprofessional, lame broken record to us: "It's eBay's fault".

This situation could very well completely change the AS business model to one that may fail the company unless they develop a solution quickly. Folks are not going to keep losing items with AS. Very soon we'll walk.

Thoughts?

-FU

I used to use AS all the time, but now i'm scared to use it for anything I want as I have lost 2 many things

The MOST annoying thing is that AS still won't acknowledge that this is a problem, they are still denying it and pretending it is some new ebay security and not a way of ebay cracking down on snipes.
GUYS - admit it and write some new code as suggested by Fed Up

By the way _ I always leave my computer on but this does not help in any way

AS removed my reply to Jacobsen AND my follow-up to my original post:

" Sniper Mike D.
posted June 02, 2015 10:11 AM
Hello FedUp,

This message is to inform you that we have removed one or more of your recent posts for mentioning competing sniping services, which is not allowed on our Community Forum.

Please consider this message a warning that similar posting in the future could compromise your ability to make use of our forum.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter,
Auction Sniper Forum Administrator "



This speak for itself. This is AS today. AS is clueless about keeping customers. Suppose they'll be working off of churn.

Screw this. I'm history.

-FU

Update: I just won an item with AS, without the verification holdup, but with the fol changes:

1. I upped my bid lead time to 11s.

2. I logged into eBay with my acct within 15 mins. of auction end.

3. I interacted with links on the listing up until hammer time.

Not sure what made the difference.

hmmn

Maybe just lucky?? I won one with AS last weekend, but then lost the next one….

something has come up that I really want now. It feels safer to me to write to the ebayer privately and try to get it for a fixed price. I have done this twice now and it has worked

Well, it won't work anymore to trust just setting the snipe and leave it to finish the auction any more ....ok ... understood the severity of the problem, is there any way for us to help AS work around the new eBay environment ?

What if the bidder also makes an initial bid, early on, just to establish their place in the bid process for the particular item ?

and what if they are logged into eBay at the time of the auction end ?

Would these two conditions ensure that eBay not defend against the bid placed by AuctionSniper at the end ?

Alx
I did that to one of my items, left an early bid through ebay, and then left my final bid with AS for £180
I item sold for £99

I had left my computer on and logged in to ebay -
I got the ebay requires verification blurb… so, no, that does not work, not if you really want something

ok, thanks for info ...

really nothing to do except proxy-bid thru eBay, planning if possible to be onsite near the end of the auction.

One thing to realize ... if other users of AS are becoming wary, there may not be any, or many, snipes from other bidders to worry about anymore ...

"Sniper in Training" huh ..... ok, we realize that if you have fewer than x posts in the message boards, you get this description - but really, after about 15 years and a thousand snipes, .....

Here is an idea I saw on a different thread in this board .... has it been explored yet ?

If you have a phone app that is logged into eBay all the time, as they are typically doing, and then AuctionSniper logs in to place your snipe, perhaps eBay's security measures are triggered by the double log-in situation.

Has this already been investigated ?

This problem has happened to me several times, too. It's very frustrating. I called eBay. They said all was fine with my account; verification was not required.

I've reset my passwords on both eBay and Auction Sniper. I deleted and reentered my credit card info on Auction Sniper. I went to my Auction Sniper account and clicked "Check Status," and got the following message:

Verified eBay login information
Your account has been verified and all snipes will be properly placed.

Still my snipes aren't recording!

Here's the communication thread with Auction Sniper:

Your Previous Comment: (submitted [Sunday, 6/7/2015 8:02 PM PDT])
My snipes are not recording. This has happened several times. I received the following email message after today's most recent snipe fail:

"Ebay Requires Account Verification
Your snipe did not win because of the reason above
Click here to see eBay's response to your snipe"

When I click the link, I get this message:

"Enter a verification code to continue

To keep eBay a safe place to buy and sell, we will occasionally ask you to enter a verification code. This helps us to block unauthorized users from entering our site. Please enter the verification code in the image below and click on the "Continue" button to enter our site. Learn more about our security policies.- opens in a new window or tab

Enter the verification code Click for help"

A six-digit number is displayed. When I enter the number, another six-digit number is displayed. This goes on and on. I tried listening to the number using several different browsers, but the audio does not play in any of the browsers.

I need your help to verify my account with eBay so that my snipes record.

Thank you for your help.


Reply (submitted [Sunday, 6/7/2015 8:24 PM PDT])

Hello,

Thanks for contacting us regarding this matter and I am sorry to hear the trouble you are facing.

I've reviewed your account and found that snipe for provided item # is showing up status message ‘Ebay Requires Account Verification’. The 'View Confirmation' (an eye shaped icon) located at the right of the snipe is displaying the message you received through the email.

The "View Confirmation" page is not an actual eBay page, but a snap shot/record of eBay's request when Sniper attempted to access your account to place the bid. You will not be able to access/verify your eBay account via this page. Please do not enter the number again and again on this page.

As we are unrelated to eBay, we have no control over what eBay may present at log in and eBay may present such a request at any time for any account. Sadly, our service is unable to complete such a request or otherwise work around it when eBay presents it, and so in those cases, Auction Sniper is unable to place your bid. I am not aware of any similar service that can work around such a request.

Typically, this situation resolves itself in a period of time and snipes are then set normally. Please be informed that our engineers make every effort to make adjustments on our end to reduce the likelihood of such occurring.

If you have any other questions or encounter further difficulties, please don't hesitate to ask!

Sincerely,
Auction Sniper Support

Basically, unreliable ....

Look, .... if eBay was not opposed to the sniping of auctions, they could easily provide their own sniping feature, just as well as the proxy bidding system. It would probably entirely replace regular proxy bidding, because once understood by their buying customers, who would want to have their bids appear before the end of the auction ? At least it might foster a different style of auction, like a sealed-bid auction. The snipe-able auction would be at the choice of the seller.

For now, eBay seems to have effectively undermined the reliability of sniping services, such that only those bidders who are not end-users would care to risk snipe bidding. Anyone who really wants that item, who is invested in getting it for themselves, should just use the eBay auction system as it is normally operated - with proxy bidding, or be present at the auction end with a manually-placed "snipe" bid.

This problem is not only happening here but the same problem is happening over at -- as well. I was told by ebay support that this is happening because ebay is tightening up security when auto bidding takes place. -- and -- seem to be working ok. and i have not tried my -- account yet. So good lick everybody i think times are changing.

I have been having this same problem with Auctionsniper for weeks. At first they tried to push it off on Ebay but Ebay states they have nothing to do with it. This is a glitch with Auctionsniper which they either cannot fix or refuse to acknowledge. Yesterday I confirmed my Ebay information on Auctionsniper one hour before an important auction was going to end and my snipe was still not placed. Dennis Nedry did not screw up the systems in Jurassic Park as bad as Auctionsniper is screwed up. They clearly did some sort of recent system upgrade which has corrupted the system. My complaint to Auctionsniper has not even been acknowledged so I have ended my snipes and switched to another system as I cannot depend on this site any more.

I lost 4 auctions tonight!!! Same response eBay requires account verification. I can**NOT** find anything on eBay on how to stop this. ASniper gives me **no** answer either. Same old canned response.. Not their fault. I can place bids manually with no trouble. I have to find another service this is getting ridiculous. I **********CAN'T***** always be at the PC to place bids. I work for a living and do sleep sometimes, so I am not 24/7 at the pc to place manual bids. I am soooo mad.

What is sad is that sellers are losing money too! Their items would have sold for more.

I lost an auction that I would have won, but for this problem - I've tried the AS "check my login" link which has previously been a reassuring double-check, even it says "we are unable to check" or words to the effect.

I have a support request with AS, but until that is answered - as many others have commented, I don't see as I can rely on AS currently.

Whether it's eBay or AS' problem is almost immaterial, as an end user I don't seem to have any choice but to vote with my feet after many years of good service. The next auction I am watching, is 4 days time.

I also lost a snipe due to Acct Verification problem. I have contacted the seller and told him he lost a lot of money because my high bid was much higher than what he actually got in the bidding process due to my bid being blocked. In some cases, he may lose the entire sale if the Acct Verification "feature" blocks the one and only actual bidder who happens to be using AS. I think the pressure has to come from the sellers.

I advise you to go somewhere else. I am using another company now and it is working just fine.

I asked, like all of you, to no avail, for help fixing this problem.

seems they don't mind losing all their customers

@jacobsen - Purely as a matter of interest, which other company are you using now? (If you reply and AS decide to delete the post, I can provide you with a direct email address instead)

Thanks

IIRC, some or all of the eBay replies to the problem are saying something to the effect that eBay is trying to block UNAUTHORIZED users on their site. Well, bingo, AS is not considered an authorized user, they are not a bona-fide eBay account holder, and they are using your and other members' info to log in. Sure it is according to your ( our ) wishes, but eBay obviously does not want that, and they have finally decided to hamper sniping. It's their site to control the way they decide, and I only wonder why they have waited for so long, but guess it is because they were not sure whether it was in their best interests. Now they have decided it is best not to allow sniping. Again, I suggest that sniping is actually alot like the action of sealed-bid auctions, which are common online, but just are not eBay's model.

Having used AS for more years than I can count. I am angry and saddened to have lost an auction because of this ridiculous Ebay Requires Account Verification nonsense.

What are AS doing about it?
I will stop using the service if this is not fixed. AS will lose their business entirely if they do not resolve this.

The only solution at this time is make an app that we can run on our local PCs that'll work with AS and place the bids from our own machines.

Ebay doesn't care about the lost business, they might even be trying to kill auctions completely and go to BIN. Ebay has never cared about what the users want.

So, what we need is an app, or program that will place snipe bids from our own machines .... 'doesn't need to be an AS application, or anything else but a program that could run on our computers.

Hello All,

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think.

I have forwarded the suggestion of a desktop application along to our product management team for their consideration and will reply back to this thread should more information regarding such an app become available.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts with us!

- Craig

The problem is not really with the sniper service it is with eBay itself. They want us to place a bid in the open early so that any margin can be used up by on line bidders testing limits.

I stopped selling on eBay after they terminated the Coin Watch Committee and all other expert volunteers that helped to stop fraud.

EBay makes the most money by stopping snipers and encouraging fraud. It is eBay that is the real rip off in this situation.

Sunday, June 21, 18:47:44, for the first time in many years as a user, bid blocked, lost item.
Same day, same seller, different item, 18:48:28, bid entered, but lost item because bid too low.

June 24-July 17, bids OK.

Sunday, July 19, bid blocked, lost item at 12:44:34.
Same day, same seller, different item, bid entered, won item at 12:56:15.

Don't know what all of this implies about the system, except that it's erratic and very, very annoying.

We all know why we snipe. We've probably all been burned by some newbie who doesn't understand proxy bidding and overbids himself as soon as he gets outbid. What I don't understand is why eBay wants to eliminate it? How can they benefit from eliminating sniping? For me, the alternative to sniping is to not bid at all. Are their analysts stupid enough to think we're all going to revert to manual sniping? And if they really want to eliminate sniping, the solution is very easy, and is what many other auction sites do: any bid made within ten minutes of auction end automatically extends the auction ten minutes. They don't need to pull this verification crap and pretend it has nothing to do with sniping. Between eBay's "who gives a damn about our users" and AS's sticking their fingers in their ears and going "la-la-la," I think I need to find a new sandbox to play in.

I had this problem back in April. Seemed to "get fixed" now it is happening again! I don't care who's FAULT it is, I WANT IT FIXED or I will stop shopping ebay and not use auction sniper...then they will both lose....I could probably use to save the $$ anyway! Been using both since the 1990s....

Typical...they blame each other...sick of it!

Hello, I am so angry at this moment. Two Ebay auctions I have been patiently waiting for just ended and I should have won and instead it says EBAY requires account verification. BS - I have been using this service a long time. In reviewing the messages here, it seems no one cares whatsoever. The first time it happened was a little over a month ago. I did sent a message to CS and have never had any reply whatsoever. The first time it failed, I was bidding on two items with the same vendor at approximately the same time. Tonite, same thing. I am absolutely frustrated with this service. I was loving it and it is costing me items I want and it is costing EBAY vendors - or which I am one money. Is there no accountability for this rubbish?

I just don't get it. I bid $100 over what the auction closed for. Ebay just doesn't want the extra money. Just plain dumb. Ebay shoots itself in the foot again. They have such huge opportunities that they just squander. I'm sure the seller would have rather sold for $166 instead of $66...but they will never know how badly ebay ripped them off. Just SOP for that loser site. Again....

I have used Auction Sniper for the past several years with no problems. About 3 months ago I started experiencing what you have experienced, and just as randomly and intermittently.

Several calls to ebay and Auction Sniper got the same response as the rest of you, sometimes with an added comment from ebay that "OK, I've fixed it so you won't experience it again" - and then it happens again.

I think ebay is trying to put "auction sniping" services out of business - and the way they're doing it is to randomly reject bids by "third parties" (bid services) under the guise of "requiring account verification"...do this enough times, and the disgusted-at-poor-service-ebay bidder will cease to use these services.

I can think of no other reason...

Some of the prior replies show how angry we get when "something stupid" - like "Ebay Required Account Verification" - stops us from being the successful winner of an auction WE REALLY WANT TO WIN.

The reason I think ebay is after bidding services is that I have been on the phone 9 times with ebay about this (it started about 3 months back), and they say everything is OK with my account, tell me it's the auction service's fault - and then push me not to deal with a bidding service, but to use ebay "proxy bid" instead.

Yes, it's stupid. Maybe, with enough complaints, it'll get fixed.

It seems to happen most with the items you want most...Smiley Sad

Sellers need to be made aware when this happens - this cost them money. In one case I bid $100 more than the winning bidder - which means the seller potentially lost $100 on the auction - all because this 16-years-on-ebay-veteran's "account required verification". Give me a break!

Because of the "talking points" from ebay customer service which I now know by heart, and which, summed up, is "we're not going to fix the problem:, I have taken to letting buyers know what my bid would have been, when this stuff happens, and the item goes for less than I bid. Maybe enough sellers complaining might get it fixed - they are the ones really losing the money.

All of you!
I am using a different sniping company now and this does not happen with them!!!
You need to change

@Jacobsen
You have written that before, but did not say which company. I am not sure how we can rely on any third party bidder avoiding this problem, unless they have negotiated an arrangement with Ebay. Otherwise they are just in a tech race with Ebay.

This seems to be an intermittent problem. I had a series of bids blocked by a captcha filter a few months ago. This time it has been the more intrusive email/telephone mechanism. The solution seems to be for me to leave my computer on overnight and rely on a local app. Belt and braces would be to set both methods. Use a third party bidder as well as a local timed bid. Like disgustedrifleman I intend to inform sellers about bids blocked by Ebay.

quote:

Originally posted by Kenzan:
@Jacobsen
You have written that before, but did not say which company. I am not sure how we can rely on any third party bidder avoiding this problem, unless they have negotiated an arrangement with Ebay. Otherwise they are just in a tech race with Ebay.

This seems to be an intermittent problem. I had a series of bids blocked by a captcha filter a few months ago. This time it has been the more intrusive email/telephone mechanism. The solution seems to be for me to leave my computer on overnight and rely on a local app. Belt and braces would be to set both methods. Use a third party bidder as well as a local timed bid. Like disgustedrifleman I intend to inform sellers about bids blocked by Ebay.

No one can reply because any references to another service will either be blocked or removed.
From Google searches it seems that AS is a PRIMARY target of eBay. all anyone can do is TRY another service and see, or worse yet, set both to something we consider important possibly resulting in higher sniping fees.
Until many many sellers complain, nothing will change.
Unfortunately there is no real competition to eBay, so they can do what they please. The only way anything will change is with a HUGE reduction in sales.

I have been telling sellers each and every time it happens. I also tell them just how much they have lost. I figured if the sellers started complaining perhaps eBay might listen.

However, I also started an experiment. I found 75 items all ending in 7 days - all similar and of similar values under $50 each - all starting at under $1. I picked a snipe value that I would typically place and bid on 65 of the items using eBay (bidding in the open) on the last 10 I placed snipe bids. With one day to go the bids I placed in the open have been exceeded on 61 of 65 items. All 10 of the snipe bids are still viable. By placing the bids early I was setting a market price and allowing others to try to disclose my price. In nearly every case - my maximum has been exceeded by very little. The 4 where I am still high bidder within ONE BID INCREMENT.

So I guess I have proven that eBay may be correct - they want to expose the maximum bids as early as possible to allow them to be chipped away or raised. It is good business for both eBay and sellers to discourage sniping.

So it appears WE snipers are standing alone in this fight.

I intend to keep sniping and where possible to live snipe. They can not stop that if we use our own normal PCs.

Snipers: I think we are just talking to,ourselves or each other. Neither AS or ebay seem to listen to the Customer....what ever happened to the customer is right philosophy? Ebay is already losing lots of money because sellers are not selling like they used to...and there are limited buyers and watchers....out of listing 175 items I have sold only 2....I have read posts of sellers complaining how sales are so down or non existent or if an item sells it is for far less than the worth/value or price they paid for it....selling just to sell....others complain because of the lack of sales their ratings have suffered at ebay's hand. I would think that ebay would be happy if an item sells sniped or not....both companies lose out when they do this to snipers....it all sucks!

Forgive me for this long post but I just wanted to share my experience with Auctionsniper.com's customer 'support' after an 'Ebay verification' captcha error occurred to me yesterday (26/07/15)

This is a widespread and persistent problem, yet auctionsniper's report staff have admitted that they are unwilling to notify their customers because 'it affects a small percentage of our customers'. As this thread and others have shown, this is simply untrue and it's certainly not a small problem! Here is a transcript of my conversation with their support staff, perhaps it can be used as a warning to others trying to find answers via this channel- you will simply get a copy and pasted reply that won't answer your question. Absolutely farsical behaviour!

"Category: General Question Case Topic: 'Ebay Requires Verification' Error
m***********7@gmail.com
Customer

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 1:23 PM
To whom it may concern,

While attempting to place a snipe for item number 3**********6 on Ebay my snipe was unable to be placed due to an 'Ebay Requires Verification' error which prevented the bid.

After much research I have discovered that this is an ongoing problem faced by auction sniper.com, yet I was not made aware that this might be an issue. I fulfilled all the necessary steps required to place the snipe, and even double checked that my auction sniper account verified my ebay username and password, yet the snipe was still not placed. If I had been informed by auction sniper that this could potentially be an issue, especially on Sunday evenings that I have now learnt severely increases the chances of this error, I would have bypassed this website's processes entirely and placed the bid manually.

Both my auction sniper account, and my eBay account were in perfect order, yet the bid did not take place.

I am extremely frustrated and disappointed, and feel that auction sniper has breached it's contractual obligation towards me since I have handed over money for this specific service. Going forward I will no longer be using auction sniper.com, as I cannot even be sure that this senseless and unpreventable error will not occur in the future.

Sincerely,

Martin

Operating System: MacOS
Browser: Safari

Involved eBayItemNumbers: ***********

Kenneth Support

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 2:08 PM
Hello Martin,

Thank you for contacting us regarding this matter and I am sorry to hear the trouble you are facing. I certainly understand your point of view, however, while reviewing your account I found that snipe for the provided item number is showing up status message ‘Ebay Requires Account Verification’. The 'View Confirmation' (an eye shaped icon) located at the right of the snipe is displaying following message:

“Enter a verification code to continue

To keep eBay a safe place to buy and sell, we will occasionally ask you to enter a verification code. This helps us to block unauthorized users from entering our site. Please enter the verification code in the image below and click on the "Continue" button to enter our site. Learn more about our security policies.- opens in a new window or tab

Enter the verification code

Change the image | Listen to the numbers
Continue”

The "View Confirmation" page is not an actual eBay page, but a snap shot/record of eBay's request when Sniper attempted to access your account to place the bid. You will not be able to access/verify your eBay account via this page.

As we are unrelated to eBay, we have no control over what eBay may present at log in and eBay may present such a request at any time for any account. Sadly, our service is unable to complete such a re-quest or otherwise work around it when eBay presents it, and so in those cases, Auction Sniper is unable to place your bid. I am not aware of any similar service that can work around such a request. Typically, this situation resolves itself in a period of time and snipes are then set normally

If you have any other questions or encounter further difficulties, please don't hesitate to ask!

Sincerely,
Auction Sniper Support
m***********7@gmail.com

Customer

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 2:25 PM
Thank-you for this information. If I understand you correctly, you are not able to solve this problem. In that case why wasn't I made aware of this issue before I purchased the services of this website? It is clear to me that this issue undermines your services completely, and yet this was not communicated to me until after the fact? Why is this?

Sincerely,

Martin

Kenneth Support

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 3:13 PM
Hello,

Thank you for getting back to us regarding this matter and I certainly understand your point of view. I would like to inform you that Auction Sniper is an automated tool that places your snipes as per the max bid amount and lead time that you set. Once your snipe is placed on eBay it indicates that our system has performed its task.

However, the verification steps are RANDOMLY presented by eBay; in this situation there is no way we can inform you that this is going to occur for your future snipes or not. Typically such requests cease within a day or so and sniping resumes normally thereafter.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused and appreciate your understanding regarding the same. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance to you.

Sincerely,
Auction Sniper Support

Customer

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 4:49 PM
Many thanks Kenneth for your apologies, however I still haven't received an answer to my original question of why this issue was not made clear to me BEFORE it became a problem, rather than after. If I had been appropriately warned by this website, I wouldn't have signed up and paid money for a service that might work 'RANDOMLY'. I was not told by auction sniper at any point during my purchase that this 'RANDOM' ebay error might occur.

Martin

Kenneth Support

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 5:13 PM
Hello,

You're very welcome!

As informed in my initial message, we are unrelated to eBay, we have no control over what eBay may present at log in and eBay may present such a request at any time for any account. Sadly, our service is unable to complete such a re-quest or otherwise work around it when eBay presents it, and so in those cases, Auction Sniper is unable to place your bid.

Also, there is no way we can inform you that this is going to occur for your already placed/future snipes or not. Typically such requests cease within a day or so and sniping resumes normally thereafter.

Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance to you.

Sincerely,
Auction Sniper Support

m***********7@gmail.com

Customer

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 6:15 PM
Dear Kenneth,

Thank-you for evading my question for the third time. Without copying and pasting the same reply could you please listen to my question and answer it:

Why wasn't I warned beforehand by auction sniper.com that an 'Ebay Requires Account Verification' problem could occur?

If you are unable to answer my question could you please put me in contact with someone who can.

Many thanks,

Martin.

Alexis Support

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 7:15 PM
Hello Martin,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused.

Please note that we cannot inform users beforehand because it is not clear whether captcha will be presented for you or not. That verification page is only presented when systems tries to place your bid on eBay.

So, there is no way we can inform our users for verification code.

I hope you will find this response to be helpful.

Sincerely,
Auction Sniper Support

m***********7@gmail.com
Customer

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 7:24 PM
Hi Alexis,

Thank-you for you reply, however you are misunderstanding my question- I fully understand that you are not able to predict when a captcha will be presented, but that was not my question.

I'll try and ask my question for the fourth time:

Why wasn't I warned beforehand that this error even existed?

I did everything correctly yet my snipe was not placed.

Not once was I warned that there is a chance this could occur. Why?

Many thanks,

Martin

Alexis Support

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 9:21 PM
Hello Martin,

Thanks for following up with us. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Please note that this verification step is recently introduced by eBay to make eBay more secure. Earlier also this message was used to be presented but frequency was very low. Currently eBay is presenting this captcha randomly for random accounts and for a period some period of time.

I hope that you will find this response to be helpful. Please do let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Sincerely,
Auction Sniper Support

m***********7@gmail.com
Customer

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 9:47 PM
Hi Alexis,

Thanks for your reply but you've just repeated yourself again. I must admit my patience is beginning to wear thin.

I fully understand the problem. Please stop repeating the problem back to me. Please stop explaining ebay's security captcha protocol, it is now fully understood, and does not need repeating.

I've now had five replies from auctionsniper's customer service and not once has my question been answered.

For the fifth and hopefully last time I ask:

Why wasn't I warned about this potential problem?

You said yourself that this issue has been occuring for some time now.
Why didn't an auctionsniper.com representative send out an email notification to warn its users about this potential issue?

If I had been told about it I would have taken extra steps to safeguard my bid, but I wasn't. I have been left in the dark and now it's too late to do anything about it.

Please answer my question or forward me to someone who is willing to.

Many thanks,

Martin.

Michelle Support

Posted Sunday, 7/26/2015 11:56 PM
Hello,

Please accept my deep apologies for the inconvenience caused you due to this.

We are trying our best to support you. You have not been informed about this because it is not 100% sure that you will get this captcha verification while placing your bid on eBay. We have hundreds of thousands of customers and they all are not facing this issue. So, we cannot just generalize this issue for everyone.

However, I can understand if there would be anyway to determine it beforehand, it would be very useful for our users.

Once again I apologies for the difficulties you are facing. Please note that our engineers are trying to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience on this matter.

Sincerely,
-Auction Sniper Support

m***********7@gmail.com
Customer

Posted Monday, 7/27/2015 4:54 AM
Auctionsniper.com and its support staff have shown themselves to be negligent in the extreme, and unwilling to inform its customers of potential problems that could severely and catastrophically effect their service simply because 'it affects a small percentage of our customers'. This is unacceptable and frankly borders on negligence. The conversations and actions of this company will be forwarded to the UK's trading standards, and I hope others in my position do the same. You cannot keep your customers in the dark like this. Utterly disgraceful.
Status: Closed "

Hi
I had replies like this constantly when I asked this same question.
I found it less stressful and much easier to simply pay a different sniping service. Auction Sniper has been worst hit by this new Ebay policy of trying to stop snipes and they don't seem willing to update their programme to evade this.
I googled the problem and read that AS was worst hit. I am now using another company and so far have had no problems. I am still getting email alerts from this noticeboard and am shocked that AS are not dealing with the situation.

Thanks for reply and info. I will try another service and go from there. I wonder how eBay is determining login in needs verification since I have never run into this when I log in my self. Is it possible they use the IP address being used to login versus the most frequent IP address used to login?

I am shocked at the ridiculous evasion by the AS representative to the simple question or complaint THAT AuctionSniper has not provided a warning to new users, and every user, that the verification problem MIGHT occur, and make their snipes fail to get placed.

Snipers and snipe-aware users are missing the point of why eBay does not want sniping.

Most of eBay's interest is in new and inexperienced users, the vast majority of their potential market out there .... These new users, the first-time bidders etc. become very discouraged at losing auctions, and complain of being blind-sided by snipers. They give up using eBay, and eBay doesn't like getting the reputation of failing to satisfy their new users. Sniping does not usually provide huge increases over the winning bids, only the next higher incremental bid.

I have also just lost out on 2 important items that I was bidding for, having received the message "EBAY REQUIRES ACCOUNT VERIFICATION". After reading the various comments about this in Auction Sniper's Community, this problem is obviously very widespread, although this is the first time that it has happened to me after many years of using Auction Sniper.

This problem with both Ebay and Auction Sniper passing the buck will almost certainly frighten their customers away. Sniping has a very useful purpose in providing the facility for buyers to bid during times when they might otherwise be unavailable to check up on bidding progress and to avoid much of the 'leapfrogging'. My recent maximum bids that Auction Sniper was prevented from placing for 2 items was about 4 times higher than the amount that they finally sold for. If the actual winning bidder's maximum bid was anything near to mine, then the seller only achieved a quarter of the amount that he would otherwise have received (for both items).

The reply that I received from Auction Sniper to my complaint was virtually identical to those that others appear to have received, so they are just using a standard template with no intention of getting to the root of the problem.

I may well dispense with Auction Sniper's services if my current bids fail for the same reason. I'll certainly look for an alternative sniping provider or won't even bother spending my money at Ebay.

My reaction to those that have suggested using two sniping services for the same item in order to safeguard their bids, is that they may well leapfrog themselves so that they end up paying their maximum bid instead of a potentially much lower amount if a competing bidder's maximum was much lower. There's no point in competing against yourself!!

It's such a shame that this problem has reared its ugly head, when Ebay and Auction Sniper seemed to have co-existed for so long, satisfactorily. As it stands, the sellers will definitely be the ones to lose out.

Brian

tonybrams - as a former disgruntled consultant who worked for eBay - you are attacking the wrong target. The auction sniper boilerplate you agreed to day one indicates the service at times may not work. That is the AS disclaimer that protects them. That used to be necessary because of poor connections or maintenance. Now it is essential because eBay keeps changing the "type" of question, when it is asked and how often it happens. The latest in a whole string of issues is this account verification question.

The actual "problem" is eBay. The key (some say only) concern of the bay is profit. Their studies indicate that on average sniping reduces their profits at the bottom line. I know they would like to prohibit sniping all together but face potential litigation as a result. At one time, sellers could indicate that they would not accept snipes from people who did not bid previously in the auction. That was challenged and to avoid legal action by AS the practice was prohibited. Sellers (at least until the date I was terminated) could no longer prohibit sniping. They (eBay) fear litigation most of all. They will do the absolute MINIMUM to avoid a law-suit and there is essentially no concern whatsoever for the buyers and sellers. That is life with eBay.

I think the proof is contained in the fact that eBay does not offer a sniping service themselves. If the fees to be gained from sniping exceeded the impact sniping had on the bottom line eBay would do it themselves.

Complaints and our anger, if any, should be directed at eBay not elsewhere.

It's just business, and if we don't like eBay, we can go elsewhere. They are not a public utility, nor a non-profit corp. Of course they will cater to their maximum profit.

What we are looking for is a program that can be installed on our own computer, that will place the snipe emulating as if we were doing it manually. Not a big problem having a slightly slower connection, make it 10 seconds before the end, ok by me. It is really down to proxy against proxy, regardless of the snipe timing.

I went to another Sniper company and got on their forum. The same issue came up about "Account Verification Required". They only have two complaints. Only two and they are a company with a large number of subscribers. Their service people said all you need to do was change your Ebay password and it should fix the problem (and don't forget to change it in your sniping program too). Anyone try this?

If I have many snipes placed on AuctionSniper and I change the password on Ebay, do I need to delete all my snipes and resubmit them after the password is changed in AuctionSniper?

Looked at a second sniper comapany and they have zero complaints about "Account Verification Required". Seems to be AuctionSniper problem to me. And if it is as easy as a password change to fix the issue, then why haven't the service department alerted us to a simple change like this?

My account hasn't been able to verify, or snipe now for 3 hours, ironically right after AUction Sniper billed me.

quote:

Originally posted by Silverfox:
If I have many snipes placed on AuctionSniper and I change the password on Ebay, do I need to delete all my snipes and resubmit them after the password is changed in AuctionSniper?

Looked at a second sniper comapany and they have zero complaints about "Account Verification Required". Seems to be AuctionSniper problem to me. And if it is as easy as a password change to fix the issue, then why haven't the service department alerted us to a simple change like this?

I just tried this, doesn't work. Auction Sniper still broken.

5 Hours now, still no response from Auction Sniper, snipes still failing. No response to the support ticket either.

I've been quite happy with AS for many years - and I can totally understand not only why eBay is doing this, but why it's outside AS' control.

However, AS have and are handling it badly, although I'll miss some of AS' extra features (bid groups), I'm now using a rival service. They have a more usable mobile site, and - ultimately - work reliably so far.

So long AS, it was good while it lasted. If other posters want to know who this other service is, look at my post in the other forum for a big clue.

It worked for a few hours last night, but now Its needing verification again, and I lost more auctions.

General Notice
We are currently unable to verify your username and password. This could be a temporary connection problem to eBay from our website servers. Our sniping service has multiple server locations, so even if you cannot verify from the website at this time, your snipes should still be placed. If this problem persists, please contact support via the 'help' tab.

if you care about winning you need to go on another site. At the moment this site is not caring to do anything about it, but others still work. Until people start leaving AS aren't going to care it seems.

One of the attractions of auctionsniper for me has been that it costs me very little. Services with monthly subscriptions would certainly cost me more. That may mean that the profit available is not worth the trouble of dealing with Ebay's new security measures. At least that is the impression I am getting.

After a battle with Auctionsniper about this happening a month or so ago, it worked for a few bids. Now, it's not again. I just lost two items I would have won.

I am going to look for an alternative auction sniper, after using this site for probably 5 years. Sorry, I just can't keep losing from erratic programming.

Stupid me, I decided to use AS one more time on an auction closing this morning while also being logged in and active on eBay manually. A sunstantial incovenience. Same problem occurred, no bid was placed, and I lost the auction.

eBay is definetely targeting snipers, at least AS. And AS is clueless. I'm going to try with other web-based snipe programs, but AS no longer. AMF

And I'll be changing my eBay acct password.