Has the failed bid due to captcha issue been fixed?

I've encountered the same problem with a bid I placed yesterday, Jim.

I sent a question to support but haven't heard back.

However, I can't even get to the eBay response page. When I try I'm asked to enter the captcha and when I do it just refreshes. I've made several attempts but no luck. It sounds like you've actually seen the ebay page.

Until I'm sure there's a solution in place I think I'm going to have to try another service just to be safe.

Eddie

Hi, Eddie.

I received a prompt reply from technical support, and they confirmed my issue. Other sniper forums in the past 24 hours have similar reports, so I am going to hold off on trying another service.

eBay needs to realize that everyone loses when they do this. The seller gets less, eBay gets less FVF, and the sniper gets nothing, ha.

There are certainly technical solutions to this issue.

Regards,
Jim

I just had a bid fail to happen about 30 min ago. Everything was set up fine, no reason it should fail, and I won several auctions in the last couple days and today with no problem. If the bid happened, it would have shown up in the bids list, and I would have probably won.

I'm very upset as I have a very special one of a kind item coming up evening of the 27th. I can't be home till an hour after it ends, and am afraid to trust AS now. Any ideas? I'm lousy at trying to get a last min bid in. Thanks,

I've not heard back from the support people so I'm going to send another message

I am rather annoyed that I haven't heard back from them though.

I;m not sure trying another service would be useful if other people are reporting the same thing.

Long time As user here. Lost a bid for unknown reason. My highest bid was $77+ and item went for $54!!!!!! Never had this happen and it happened on something very special. Unbelievable. Sent AS their 'FORM' and haven't heard anything back. When I try to see "why Ebay says I didn't win" I get stuck in the Catcha text loop too!

Well funny thing about that captcha loop...that screen you are seeing IS the ebay reponse. It's not an ebay page requesting the information now but rather what auctionsniper saw when it tried to place the bid, and obviously it's not going to be able to get past that screen

Auctionsnipper replied to my support ticket and explained it to me.

They also said they put something in place to avoid this in the future so we'll see. I'm a bit skeptical because people have been facing similar problems since I placed my bid on Sunday as mentioned above as late as yesterday, so perhaps the problem isn't fixed or there are multiple problems.

Hence, I'll have to rely on manual bidding until I'm sure the issue is resolved, which is unfortunate. I might try one of the other services as well.

Hi, eddiel, Dust Devil, and kre8v1.

Thank you very much for the replies; they are helpful. It would also be helpful to hear from anyone reading this thread who has recently posted a successful AS bid, or a status report from AS Support.

Best regards,
Jim

Hi Jim,
I have had a successful AS bid since the failed bid on 8/24/14...just so unfortunate because the failed item was something very special to me.

Thanks again, kre8v1.

I guess we are good-to-go again. That's great; I have a lot of stuff coming up soon.

I know your disappointment with the failure you experienced. Really sux to see your item get sold for much less than you were willing to pay. It's nice that AS will give you a free snipe without hassle when it happens, but it just doesn't quite make up for the loss.

Regards,
Jim

Nope
Not fixed
Just had a failed snipe this morning
When asking for the reason, got into the same loop

Looks as if this MIGHT be random?
yet another eBay change that mucks up the works
There may NOT be a way around this one??

Too bad, as bids will most certainly fall off because of it

Hi Jim H and all.

I asked eBay about this on the 26th, and was told several times, very carefully and in several ways by the lady that answered at customer service eBay, that they do not, can not (as they have no way of stopping an automatic bid) and will not cause problems for third parties (like AS). However she also stated eBay does not like or approve of third party software. She made very sure that I was fully aware that it was all the fault of the third party software I was using, not eBay's fault. (yeah right)

I explained this in more detail in my case, filed 26 Aug.

I will try to snipe a couple bids for stuff that isn't a 'one of a kind can't live without it' to see what happens. I did get my one of a kind item on the 27th, with a manual bid YEAH!! But how do I find the page that shows why the bid failed?

Thanx

One of my snipes failed for this reason last night. This is annoying, but it could have interesting consequences. I suspect that the biggest seller of the items I look for uses a sniping application to informally set reserve prices. It may be worth bidding for bargains in case his snipes get blocked

Thanks again, everyone.

I have not experienced the problem again recently, but I have several snipes ready to fire today and in the next few days.

Dust Devil, to see ebay's response to your snipe, go to your snipes, click on the "Lost" tab, and then click on the eyeball icon on the top right of the item you lost. If you get a page with a captcha, it's the issue that I had. You can get credit for the snipe (a free snipe) upon request - a simple click somewhere on the page.

Regards,
Jim

Got a win and a loss due to bid too low. Looks like all is well.

Jim

I am here to say that unfortunately all is NOT well. Auction Sniper's admitted systems confusion caused me to lose three auctions on August 31. Fast forward to today,Sept.7, and they did it again. Their system got screwed up somehow, and caused me to lose three more auctions. In two of them, my top bid was much higher than the "winning" bid. In the third auction, there were NO other bids, and I still lost the auction. WHAAAT?? Auction Sniper's system seems to have developed multiple problems when there was the security breach, and we were all told to change our passwords. Same on Ebay. I had also been told my passwords on both of them should be the same password. I complied. And Auction Sniper can't seem to grasp what my password is anymore. Tonight it claimed my password is a very old one, one I haven't used in a long time. This was so, in spite of my going in to my account, and carefully trying to change it to the current one. I suspect the ongoing wrongly "lost" auctions may be related to the confused passwords issues. The most frustrating part is that when I write to Support at Auction Sniper,I receive basically form-letter kinds of replies, and no evidence that Auction Sniper really cares that this is happening.

Hi Mountain7 -

We did encounter some difficulties yesterday at intervals where there were problems placing snipes, and some snipes during those intervals may show incorrect status messages. Our engineers have since resolved this difficulty and current snipes should be placed appropriately.

If you are still encountering difficulty with your password, please file a support case from the Help menu of the site so we can take a look at the specifics of your account.

- Craig

I got two more wins today, and no problems. FYI.

Good luck Mountain7. Make sure your AS user ID and password are the same as your eBay user ID and password. Works for me.

Thanks all,
Jim

I just lost a auction tonight to a lower bid, snipe was never placed so I had to submit a claim.

It didnt work for me about 10 mins ago. Had placed a snipe yesterday. Item sold for way under my price. Snipe was never placed.

When I try to check the reason, I go into a captcha loop and can't get into Ebay.

AuctionSniper, snipes are not being placed. That's your one job. Fix it.

Hi yibada,

Please note that if you are attempting to respond to a Captcha on the Confirmation page from a snipe record, this is not an actual web page, but is a snap shot of the last communication between Auction Sniper and eBay when Sniper places or attempts to place your bid; it is not expected to operate as an eBay page.

A Captcha can occur on any eBay account at any time and, unfortunately, Auction Sniper is not able to complete such an extra step to access your eBay account to place your bid.

If you have a snipe record that you would like us to look into, please feel free to file a support case from under the Help tab of the site using Contact Support and we will be happy to look into it for you.

- Craig

Thanks Jim, I tried it and got the page with eBay's captcha too. I'm really hoping this can be fixed or worked around.

I had the same problem in an auction that closed about 30 minutes ago, so the captcha issue is still there. It's obvious that, for whatever reason, eBay is now selectively targeting AS snipes. Perhaps they are doing that with other sniping services as well.

Hi, another long time user here and I think I just got bit by the same issue, placed a snipe that should have won and the bid didn't even get placed. No explanation when I go to the link specified to see the reason, it's blank, no explanation.
Question for Auction Snipe Support, why wasn't I informed on this issue? An email would have been nice so I would have known that I needed to manually bid on the item myself instead of losing out on something I wanted. From what I'm reading in this forum, it looks to be an issue for quite a while now? How can I trust this service anymore? Should I consider closing my account and requesting a refund on my balance?

Just want to add my 2 cents worth, as well. I lost two auctions today for the same reason. My snipe was not placed, and one item sold to someone else for much less and the 2nd snipe wasn't placed but no one else bid, so the seller re-listed the item. Grrr. Pretty frustrating to say the least. Yes, a heads up would be nice so we can manually place bids ~ or just close our accounts???

Same deal for me today at 6:15. Bid not placed, although much higher then winning bid. AS record shows the infamous "Did Not Win". Led to the looping snapshot screen. Interesting to note that "Ended date" is 7 hrs ahead of Date/time of actual Auction "End of Auction" date.time. I researched thru old forums and found this has happened before. Don't know where the problem actually occurred (i.e. on ebay or on AS). Needless to say, I also lost a very important item. An auction later I decided to manually bid (and leave AS bid in place), I won that due to manual bid, BUT same out of synch time stamp date/time once again shown on AS records. Also lost a bid on Aug.31 when others have also...same problem?

I do admit this is not worthy of our confidence. I also realize that AS never guarantees a bid placement or win...they just charge you if it WORKS.

Randomly...you will be hit by this and never know when. Must we all bid manually in advance and up the ante?

OR would SNIPE IT NOW work any differently?

Hi Community,

I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties you encountered today.

Ebay experienced some technical difficulties related to their login process over the course of today which prevented us from being able to login to place certain snipes, so I suspect the snipe placement issues you encountered today were related.

Fortunately, the issue has since been resolved, so we do not expect to have trouble placing any further snipes as a result of this particular issue.

On a related note, this issue has also caused us to have trouble updating snipes to proper end of auction statuses in a timely manner, so some snipes currently show that they are active, even though the associated auctions have already ended.

We are currently working to update these snipes to reflect the proper statuses, and will have that done as soon as possible.

If you have any further questions regarding your sniping activity, please feel free to contact our Customer Support team directly from under the “Help” tab on our site and we will be happy to continue working with you.

-Mike

I just tried AS on 3 auctions ending on 14 Sept. I lost 2 of 3 auctions due to Captcha, then3rd I was outbid about 15 sec before AS would have tried to bid. All of these were after 7 pm Pacific time. None were terribly important, I can get the items BIN later.

My husband mentioned he lost a couple auctions on the 13th and 14th, he hadn't connected my captcha problems with his possibly having bidding problems on his computer.

Below is the message I see on the Confirm pages. In my 7 years on eBay, I've never seen anything like this show up when bidding. I've occasionally been sent to the Sign In page, but never a captcha type page. This seems specifically aimed at something that can not read and type in a captcha, rather than an "unauthorized (human) user"

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.

I'd appreciate it if AS could keep users updated about this issue, it's very important to many of us.

Captcha issue has lost bids for me on 9/2, 9/9, and 9/14.

Would really like to know if this is an ebay issue or an auction sniper issue.

Helps desk responses seem to be all over the place (telling me it won't happen again), and I can't afford to keep losing snipes.

Just want to know so I can do the best for running my business.

I have a feeling that the Captcha situation is an issue for all sniper services.

I found a reference to it the FAQ section of a competing auction sniper service.

I think Ebay may be increasing the use of Captcha for their own security reasons or they're trying to make it difficult to use sniping services.

Eddie

Hello Community -

eBay did have a log in issue which caused Sniper to be unable to log in to place some snipes, as Mike mentioned, this issue has been resolved, and we are working on updating the backlog of statuses for those snipes.

eBay can present a Captcha page at log in for any account and Sniper is unable to work around such a page when eBay displays it; this is not a new occurrence on eBay and can be displayed at any time.

Should you lose a snipe that shows such on the confirmation page for the snipe record, you can redeem your loss for free snipes at:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/freeSnipes.aspx

- Craig

Since 12:00 noon today, Sept 15, I used MANUAL bids in addition to AS backup bids to test things out. 3 out of 4 snipes were placed on top of my manual bids which is okay, but the 4th did get placed, however it was not related to ebay captcha. My manual bid was the same amt as the snipe bid (oops). I still won the item due to the manual bid.

I'd like to ask just what does "resolved" mean and in what way has AS remedied the problem?

On my part, I additionally changed my passwords for both ebay and AS. Probably a good practice anyway, but I don't think the issue has anything to do with that. I think it is more related to third party IPs placing your bids...as several have said. Any other ideas?

Would appreciate a AS reply. Thanks...

Back to

Oops...I meant to say "did NOT" get placed in first statement.

quote:

Originally posted by Craig A:
Hello Community -

eBay did have a log in issue which caused Sniper to be unable to log in to place some snipes, as Mike mentioned, this issue has been resolved, and we are working on updating the backlog of statuses for those snipes.

eBay can present a Captcha page at log in for any account and Sniper is unable to work around such a page when eBay displays it; this is not a new occurrence on eBay and can be displayed at any time.

Should you lose a snipe that shows such on the confirmation page for the snipe record, you can redeem your loss for free snipes at:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/freeSnipes.aspx

- Craig

In all my years of using AS, I've NEVER had this happen. Just lost an item that went for $10.50 because of this. Yeah, I'm not happy. You say this is not a new occurrence on eBay yet I've never had this happen. And I've been bidding and sniping since pretty much forever.

I don't like that this problem HAS NOT BEEN FIXED and that Auction Sniper is LYING about it.

And I don't like that the "compensation" is a free snipe.

I am absolutely disgusted by the poor handling of this issue.

quote:

Originally posted by Disgusted:
I don't like that this problem HAS NOT BEEN FIXED and that Auction Sniper is LYING about it.

And I don't like that the "compensation" is a free snipe.

I am absolutely disgusted by the poor handling of this issue.

The item I lost I could kick myself over, had I know about this issue I could have easily placed the bid on my own.

How about some kind of notification system from AS to say "Hey, we're having this problem placing bids so you might want to place them manually until we fix it".

That would have been nice.

quote:

The item I lost I could kick myself over, had I know about this issue I could have easily placed the bid on my own. How about some kind of notification system from AS to say "Hey, we're having this problem placing bids so you might want to place them manually until we fix it".That would have been nice.

I couldn't agree with you more. I absolutely would have bid myself tonight.

Additionally instead of answering my support request and stating that they'd fixed the problem, they should have been honest.

What I realize now, is that Ebay is intermittent about posting the captcha challenge. So when they do it, no sniping works. Then when they stop doing it, Auction Sniper says, "we've fixed it."

I really pissed at Ebay too. There are so many bugs on their site and instead of fixing them, they're constantly doing everything they can to add more garbage to the site and so much of it doesn't work.

Hello All -

Our engineers are continuing to look into the issue where eBay presents captcha's far more often than usual and are seeking a solution from our end. At this time, I have no ETA on when such may become available, but will update this thread again as soon as there is more information.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

- Craig

quote:

Originally posted by Craig A:
Hello All -

Our engineers are continuing to look into the issue where eBay presents captcha's far more often than usual and are seeking a solution from our end. At this time, I have no ETA on when such may become available, but will update this thread again as soon as there is more information.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

- Craig

I've got an item set to bid in a few hours, if I place a bid manually and AS actually places a bid as well, will that cause any issues on eBay? I can't afford to lose this item.

Hello room4booboo,

We recommend that you cancel a snipe with us if you are planning on carrying out a manual bid on eBay for the same item. While we are not aware of any particular issues on eBay when such occurs, it may create some issues with the way the status of your snipe is resolved in Auction Sniper. This issue is covered in our FAQ:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/help/faq/#basics15

- Craig