FINAL BID TOO HIGH

Not exactly.... Let me see if I can show this best with an example.

Item is listed at its starting price : $1

User U1 likes this item and decides to bid. He decides that the maximum that he would pay for this item is $ 19... and so bids at this price.

The page for Item I would show that U1 has the highest bid at $1. (since he was its first bidder) Now...as time passes.. more people bid for the item - however, no one bids higher that the $19 max that U1 set.

Ok... its near the end of the auction and the bid price is shown at $ 10. (Of course, no one knows what the max bid that U1 set).
You like the item and decide to snipe it with a max bid of $ 20. The bid is placed... and the auction ends with you as the winner. But wait a minute - instead of winning the item at $11-you won it at $ 20. This is because U1 placed his bid first.

Since U1's max bid was $ 19, for someone else to win, their bid would have to be higher than this amount... which yours was at $ 20.

As a whole - Auction Sniper doesn't do anything different that placing your own bid at EBay; except for the fact that it can place it at the last possible moment.

Nice explanation, jshort.

The other possibility is that the auction was a "reserve" auction.

The way eBay works on those is different. They raise your bid immediately to the reserve price set by the seller if your bid is at or above that price.

i.e. seller starts item at $1, but the secret reserve price is $50.

You bid $75 and nobody else bids the entire auction. Your snipe goes in at $75 and eBay raises your bid to $50 which is the reserve price, not $1.25 cents like it would be on a normal auction. You can read more about reserve auctions and how they work on eBays Help tab.

Thank you

Can you tell me why my AS snipe for item# 917483882 on 11-10-02 where the "reserve not yet met" was still the case, put in a bid of $41.00 when my Max Snipe was $66.99? I received an Auction Sniper Snipe Status Report that said my snipe could not be placed because of the reason above Reserve Not Met ? Of course the snipe was placed because the eBay Bid Notice tells me the current bid: $35.00, shows my Max bid: $66.99, End date: Sunday, Nov. 10, 2002 10:47:55 PST and Current price: $41.00.

What happened? Can you please explain why my bid did not go higher and did not meet the reserve? Is it because $66.99 was not enough to meet the Reserve Bid Price? Thanks.

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Is it because $66.99 was not enough to meet the Reserve Bid Price

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Yes, that is why.

The auction functions as normal unless you bid more than the reserve. At that point your bid magically jumps up to the reserve price even though there is no competing bidder to raise it to that price bidding against you.

It's one of those weird eBay things they've done to make more money. They just raise your bid that high even though other bidders haven't bid enough to make your bid go that high. I think they got greedy because I am almost positive it didn't use to work that way. And it sometimes shocks bidders who see their highest bid show up without any of the other bidders being anywhere even close to their bid.