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

I want credits for the "Did Not Win" without having to hunt for the hidden form where I must submit Auction Sniper's failed snipes due to this issue.

Please make this automatic and in the meantime, credit my account for the snipes that failed due to your technical problems.

These credits should be automatic, it's the very least you could do.

I wonder if 'disgusted' will change their user name once they have something good to say? Somehow I doubt either thing will happen.

room4b... - AS bids like it was you so it would be like you bidding twice at the same time - no problem. However, if you win, AS will (quite rightly) charge for the snipe whether it was you or AS-you that won.

AS Support - you seem to be handling the PR of this Captcha problem in a sketchy way - how about a formal statement on the Facebook page so that your customers know exactly what is happening?

R2

Hello region2,

Thanks for the suggestion. I have passed this suggestion along to our product management team for their consideration.

- Craig

quote:

I wonder if 'disgusted' will change their user name once they have something good to say? Somehow I doubt either thing will happen.

I've been using AS for a few years and have never needed to say anything. I've paid and they've done most of the snipes I scheduled.

But now they've let me down with the technology, the customer service and the communication, and so the name fits how I'm feeling now.

My hope is that they will make it right and that I won't need to post anything again.

I see my posts of 09-29-30 were deleted by the forum moderator. 3 Posts. What I did point out in those posts was the new trend in ebay global to implement profiling and how this affects your log in and bids. Profiling includes your IP, your IP provider, web browser brand and operating system of your computer. If there is a miss match from the profile they have compiled on you from previous log ins and bids, they may impose a captcha for either or both of your log in and your placing of a bid. I have been documenting this via both two desk tops and one lap top and from both various inside the USA as will as foreign IP addresses. It happens to me. Further there is on the web, websites for service/companies that describe how this new approached is being designed and applied to not only ebay but other on line auction sites, specifically to block bid sniping by contract businesses. So as I posted earlier and those posts were moderator deleted, it looks like the end for all bid sniping services. I am placing a new snipe on ebay, will see if it goes through or not and am also setting a snipe on my desk top computer by software, and am setting the AS snipe a few seconds BEFORE the personal computer program. So if AS fails to snipe and is held back, the desk top, being timed later, will try to bid. If both AS and my desk top fail to place, then there is some additional factors involved.

quote:

Originally posted by ebaey-empire:
I see my posts of 09-29-30 were deleted by the forum moderator. 3 Posts. What I did point out in those posts was the new trend in ebay global to implement profiling and how this affects your log in and bids. Profiling includes your IP, your IP provider, web browser brand and operating system of your computer. If there is a miss match from the profile they have compiled on you from previous log ins and bids, they may impose a captcha for either or both of your log in and your placing of a bid. I have been documenting this via both two desk tops and one lap top and from both various inside the USA as will as foreign IP addresses. It happens to me. Further there is on the web, websites for service/companies that describe how this new approached is being designed and applied to not only ebay but other on line auction sites, specifically to block bid sniping by contract businesses. So as I posted earlier and those posts were moderator deleted, it looks like the end for all bid sniping services. I am placing a new snipe on ebay, will see if it goes through or not and am also setting a snipe on my desk top computer by software, and am setting the AS snipe a few seconds BEFORE the personal computer program. So if AS fails to snipe and is held back, the desk top, being timed later, will try to bid. If both AS and my desk top fail to place, then there is some additional factors involved.

Yes it seems that ebay is increasingly using captcha for the reasons you state. It's probably why AS isn't saying anything about it. If the whole service is hit and miss it's hardly going to attract users. Better to say nothing and hope the people that are affected don't say much. Throw them a free snipe and there you go seems to be the attitude.

I had another two failed bids yesterday, although those don't seem to be captcha related. I submitted a support question but that last time I did that no one bothered to respond.

I find AS to be quite useless in that regard.

Once I eventually run down my credit on this site I'll likely cancel the service. I may try other services first. Maybe they aren't having the same level of bid failures????

Eddie

I THINK the profiling is also looking at the ebay user log in page IP. If you log into ebay at the www.ebay.com address or some other point, also the time frame of the log in. Bid snipes are very fast log in and place (i think) but a human takes longer to log in, go to an item and place a bid. So point of log in and time frame to place a bid might also be part of the profile for bidding. I know when I was in Asia I tried to log into ebay and place a bid and it was near impossible. It kept saying it needed to confirm I was the real owner of the ebay identity. It wanted me to do some kind of confirmation I was me. So that meant ebay was looking at my IP and thus my location also my IP service provider. It was not my normal profile nor area of registration, ie California vs in my case the Philippines. Even thought I was using the same laptop computer in each case. The concept that bid snipers are EVIL and cheaters of profit to ebay and the seller ?? Bull feathers. It's an auction. It sells for what it is bid at. Nothing but a mind control game, like gamblers setting around a table. Smart bidders figure their price and set a snipe. Stupid bidders set around a computer and get caught up in a feeding frenzy and a childish attitude of who is going to get in line first to the drinking fountain during recess. Childish bidding makes for higher bids and more profit to ebay, and bulk sellers.

AS was great in the past, but must learn to adapt or like all other bid sniper services, they will die off. That I hope wont happen.

We're now in October and I lost 2 items on eBay today because of the catchpa problem. Given it's been 2 months since this was first reported and I can no longer rely on AS to place my bids, this service is no longer of any use to me - in fact, it's a liability.

Well so much for my little test of logging in and bidding via two different sniper services, off my desk and the original purchase.

Looks like it is a mix bag. I bid on an item, 20.00 in the first two days of the auction. I won the bid off the first on line bid. AS failed to place a bid and said I did not win the item. If AS was able to log into ebay it would have seen that I was always high bidder and did win, even though AS notified me I had lost the bid. I did get a successful bid placement via another but higher cost service. But that was only the single test. Will continue to run multiple bidding services against each other and see what is going on.

quote:

Originally posted by ebaey-empire:
I see my posts of 09-29-30 were deleted by the forum moderator. 3 Posts. What I did point out in those posts was the new trend in ebay global to implement profiling and how this affects your log in and bids...

This is certainly shameful of AS. I got hit by this Captcha anomaly for the first time today. Yet, I come here to investigate only to find out it's been going on since AUGUST?! Yet, I've never gotten an email with any heads-up about such. And to read ebaey-empire's message above certainly makes me wonder what's up with AS nowadays?? As a business, you're either up-front and honest with folks or you're not. From what I'd read this evening here (this entire thread) it seems there may be an effort underway to ignore the issues and hope folks will keep using AS.

wow - absolutely sickened by this - told a friend I would snipe a few things for them on ebay - rare hard to find things that don't come up to often - snipe failed and come to find out its a known issues SINCE AUGUST?!?!?! What the hell?

Despicable is the word that comes to mind - bordering on criminal business neglect - selling a service THAT NO LONGER WORKS. I do believe the Better Business Bureau needs to be notified of their business practices. I am so done with AS - and I will discourage others from using it as well as the risk of getting burned is far too great. I will warn AS user since their own customer service refuses to do so.

My snipes seem to be going through. Only using it sparingly but I do make sure to log out of every ebay site before the snipes are placed.

I'm not sure if that is making a difference though. I don;t really want to try it while logged in just in case.

I hope As and the other sniping services can work out away around the captcha issue eventually.

Eddie

Hello All,

Our engineers are continuing to make adjustments on our end to minimize the issue with captcha's occurring in such a way as they have been at intervals in the recent past. I have no ETA for when these may be complete, but will update this thread should more information regarding this difficulty become available.

Also, while it is not entirely clear if these are the posts that have been referred to as having been removed, as I am not aware of any recent posting activity being deleted, but there are three posts to another thread made on 09-29-30. Perhaps these posts are the ones that eBaey-empire refers to? Please see the thread "help lost two to a lower bid": http://community.auctionsniper...667088276#6667088276

As this other thread has a similar theme, it seems possible that these posts may be the ones referred to.

- Craig

Thanxx for the update Craig A, if you have the capability why not MERGE the thread you referenced with this one? That way, all the information would be within one thread that's being discussed.

And I can understand AS's frustration with the changes eBay seems to be making, however I'm still a bit shocked this has been going on since August and I've never an email regarding it. However, I have received two emails promoting your 11 Main service.

I had the "captcha-issue" today resulting in losing an auction. This is the first time this happened to me so that made me wonder why this happened today and not before seeing this issue have been around for a while.

Well today I logged in to EBay from work, something I never had done before, so my guess is that Ebay sees 2 different IPs in a short time span and this captcha thing kicks in when a bid is laid...
But then I also realised that Auctionsniper uses a different IP when they are placing my bid so it doesn't make any sense either that it worked before today, if Ebay are reacting to different IPs I mean( or maybe 3 different IPs are setting of alarms etc etc)...

Im going to try to put in some more snipes without logging in to Ebay from another computer than my stationary at home and see how it goes.

As someone else said in the thread, Ebay are shooting themeself in their foot with this BS, I have no time to put in manual bids and sit and guard auctions. So if this fail I will most certainly stop using Ebay all together

Edit: I just realised that I actually had placed a low manual bid on this auction also, something I rarely do. so thats another factor that also adds up I guess

Recap:
- I logged in to Ebay on 2 different computers(different locations) in a short time span(less than 12 hours), excluding the bid that Auctionsniper puts in which makes it 3 locations
- I had manually put in a bid on the auction beforehand (2-3 days ago).


I guess its hard to know what exactly triggers this and I bet Ebay will never let that information out. But if its that simple to avoid putting in manual bids and logging in from different IPs I can live with it.

Edit #2: Did some quick googling and found this which kinda confirms my suspicions: http://esniper.sourceforge.net/captcha.html

Edit #3: I also realised that my Ebay password is kinda weak so maybe that is a triggering point in combination with some of the above factors also...

For info, I encountered the captcha issue today. The snipe I placed did not take effect. The Auction Sniper email gave the link to the ebay Reason for not winning Page and on clicking on the link, ebay asked for the captcha which, regardless of how many times I entered the correct captcha, kept asking for another captcha. I am placing another snipe tonight - what are my chances of this going awry as well?

Hello mrmikie -

Please be aware that our engineers consistently make adjustments on our end to reduce the chances of captcha's being encountered. As for the Confirmation pages for snipe records, please note that these are records, snap-shots if you will, of the last communication between eBay and Auction Sniper at the time of placement for your snipe. As such, they are not viable eBay pages since eBay made that request when we attempted to place your bid, so you would not be able to use them as anything other than a record.

As we are unrelated to eBay, we have no means to tell ahead of time if eBay will make such a request at log in and Auction Sniper is unable to work around such a request when it is made.

- Craig

I've not had a captcha problem in awhile now. But am much more diligent about logging out of ebay when I'm not actually on the site.

Not sure if that is really helping or just a coincidence though!

On two different days, a week apart, I talked to eBay customer service people, and complained about losing auctions because of their capcha. Both people said eBay is using them to stop Snipers, and that if enough Buyers and Sellers contact eBay to complain, they may stop using capcha to stop snipes. I don't know how well informed they were, or if this would work.

I have written every seller, every time I've had an AS bid that didn't go through to let them know I lost their item due to my snipe being stopped by eBay capcha, and how much more than the winning bid my snipe bid was. They were all were very unhappy about it, some were furious.

Have lost 7 auctions in 48 hours due to this issue. So frustrated. Do we have any idea if a fix is coming?

quote:

Originally posted by cek1967:
Have lost 7 auctions in 48 hours due to this issue. So frustrated. Do we have any idea if a fix is coming?

My guess is NO. I've stopped using AuctionSniper for ANYthing important.

In my mind, as Dust Devil said…

quote:

Originally posted by Dust Devil:
On two different days, a week apart, I talked to eBay customer service people, and complained about losing auctions because of their capcha. Both people said eBay is using them to stop Snipers, and that if enough Buyers and Sellers contact eBay to complain, they may stop using capcha to stop snipes. I don't know how well informed they were, or if this would work.

I have written every seller, every time I've had an AS bid that didn't go through to let them know I lost their item due to my snipe being stopped by eBay capcha, and how much more than the winning bid my snipe bid was. They were all were very unhappy about it, some were furious.

...seems like the best available avenue for a long-term solution. After all, $$$ talks!

AN update from my end...I haven't had any issues since I initially encountered this problem and posted on here.

I haven't used Auction Sniper as much (as my ebay buying has decreased overall recently) but when I have there have been no issues. I do log out of ebay as a precaution though.

I would suggest to others having the captcha problem to make sure you are logged out of all your ebay accounts before the snipe is placed. The only one I don't log out of is my cell phone app one.

Eddie

Don't quite understand why eBay is doing this - it actually means a lot of items are going more cheaply than they'd otherwise sell for so it's screwing the sellers AND eBay. Mind you, with the GSP and floods of Chinese stuff, I'm not using eBay much any more.