High bid (AuctionSniper) did not win auction

The item sold for $80.99 and your bid was $81.00

That's 1 cent more. eBay has a thing called "minimum bid increments." And they are on every auction.

If you would have clicked the bid confirmation link next to that ended auction on your my snipes page you could clearly see the message that eBay replied back to our sniper service with. In short it told you that you needed to bid at least $81.99.

Sara B.

First thanks with your help. You finally got the server issued resolved.

Good answer. But not right answer. I bid $81.00 when the highest bid posted was $69.00. I got beat with a bid of $80.99. It looked like a snipe it bid! I should have won the auction by $0.01 and AS tells me I under bid. What am I not getting here?

Thanks

Remember your snipe doesnt go in until 5 seconds left. So you didnt really bid $81.00 when the bid was $69. You bid $81 when the bid was $80.99

Wrong again. I bid $81.00 with 5 minutes left in the auction. What' with that?

Thank you.

O.K. Now I get it. I couldn't possibly know someone would bid $0.01 under my snipe. So, anyone bidding under the incremental bid will always beat AS. How can we AS users protect ourselves in the future? Besides bidding more.

You still don't get it. The last bid was $80.99. The next incremental bid would have to be $81.99, and that wouldn't guarantee that you would win the auction. The last bid could have been higher. AS is doing nothing different than you could if you were placing a manual snipe.

Actually, re-reading your post, I'm not sure which one of us doesn't get it. You do understand that AS couldn't place your bid because you were below the next increment?

Are you asking a different question than that?

Holey Cow yall.
Sarah B. answered the question in her first reply.
Let it alone.
Sheez.
MINIMUM BID INCREMENT!

Rick, Susan B. Snipe, and everyone thanks for your input. This forum allows us to learn more about AS. I have much to learn. Thank you for your patience!!!
To summarize, I bid $81.00 with 5 minutes remaining with "Snipe it now". At that time the high bid was $69.00. I left the eBay site. When I returned, I discoverd I had lost the auction by $0.01. Someone bid $80.99 after I placed my "Snipe it now" bid.
I understand that my "Snipe it now" bid wasn't automatically place via AS placed until 5 seconds before the auction ended. This would have been after the winning bid of $80.99 was placed.
My question is.....what can you do to make sure this doesn't happen. I guess once you place your maximum bid, that's it! In my cased $81.00. End of my participation in the current auction!
Would you be happy to know you lost an auction by $0.01? My question is...doesn't AS have a feature that is supposed to notify you if you have been outbid? Shouldn't this calculation, include that my bid was below the increment bid needed to win the auction? It has in the past, it didn't in this case. Thank you for all your help. I promise to drop it after this.

Are you sure the top bid was $80.99? How can you be sure that it wasn't more. If the 2nd highest bid was $79.99, the high bid could have been more?

Can't answer about Outbid notice. It would seem reasonable that if AS had the time, that at the current price, your snipe couldn't be made and AS should be smart enough to know that.

No need to drop this until you get your answer.

Wanted to answer a question posed by Old Yellar: "My question is...doesn't AS have a feature that is supposed to notify you if you have been outbid?"

Yes, if you've checked that option under "Preferences" in "Modify Account." AS also puts a red-on-yellow banner under the item on your bid page that tells you to increase your max bid. Not only these, but eBay gives you the option of being e-mailed anytime you're outbid.

The problem with these features is that often you don't get notification from either source until it's too late to do anything but cry in your beer. Why that happens is beyond me, except that each notification system is probably a sub-routine which is run, say, every hour or so. Running it more frequently or even continuously for every snipe set up by every subscriber would likely take up too much server memory space and run time.

Don't know if this will help, but the following is from AS' faq:

31. How come I’m outbid but my snipe doesn’t know it yet?

We check if you are outbid in certain waves. This is a HUGE bandwidth waster and costs us money, so we do it the most economical way we can:

If the item ends within 30 min, we may check 10 every min
If the item ends in an hour, we may check every 20 min
If the item ends in a day, we may check every 12 hours
If the item ends in 7 days, we may not check yet.
Please note that you can click on View Extended Info just above your snipes, and it will give you this information immediately, so you're only one click away from the info you want.

Rick, Steve,Susan B. Snipe, and other Snipers. Thank you all for your input. I know a lot more than I did less than 48 hours ago!
I guess I will have to bid more than I'm intending to pay so I don't lose anymore auctions that I want to win.
Do any of you having any sniping hints for a junior sniper? Thanks again. I have found the forum very helpful.

Yellar,

I think a "Junior Sniper" becomes a "Sniper" after they have 15 posts. It might be 20 or 25, but I'm fairly sure it's 15. Has nothing to do with how many snipes have been placed. Only has to do with how "addicted" you are to this forum.

p.s. - My only advice, which I have learned from others, is use a lead time of 8 seconds, and maybe more. What you bid is based on how deep your pockets are.

......just bid your MAXIMUM. That's what sniping is all about--bidding your max, with as little time as possible for others who DON'T bid their max to react.

Sometimes you will lose, simply because someone else was willing to pay more. That's part of it. But you will find with AS, you will win the vast majority of your auctions.

And as for the $80.99 winning bid, you have no way of knowing what that person's max bid was. It could have been $250; it's just that $80.99 was all that was needed to beat whatever the second highest bid was, presumably $79.99. You never know what the winner's true maximum bid was.

I do suggest that you never bid an even dollar amount. Many, if not most, people do, so an unusual amount may help you win, especially if someone else bids the exact same amount before you. If the auction carries a .25¢ increment, bid an amount ending in an amount slightly more than a quarter. If the auction carries a .50¢ increment, then bid unusual amounts between .51¢ and .99¢. If it carries a dollar increment, bid off-dollar amounts.

Rick & Chatter,

Thank you for your insights! Great tips for winning future auction! I really appreciate this forum. Thank you for participating. You should be given "gold medal" standing. I'm looking forward to my next auction bid with AS.
Thanks to all.