How does this happen

If you post the auction # (auction link would be best) and your lead-time, someone may be able to provide some info.

Hi gascar,

Due to fluctuations in ebay’s response time, AS tries to determine the amount of extra time needed to place a snipe on-time. It doesn’t always hit the mark. Auctions ending on Sunday evenings and ending exactly on the quarter hour are sometimes placed early. The theory is that it’s better to place a snipe early than too late.

If it was by such a small amount in such a short time, it would be interesting to see the actual data by the number/link. Sounds almost like an already placed max bid or another sniper. Trying to place a new bid at such a short time is extremely unlikely (not impossible, but improbable).

You were out-sniped. £0.01p is not enough of an increase over your bid unless it was a snipe. If you try to place a bid that small of an amount over a existing high bid eBay will not let you place it. There is a minimum amount over the existing high bid. Does this make sense to you? RL

If I understand greenninja right, I don't think that's right. Ebay can't distinguish between you in person versus auctionsniper--both log on as you. The bid could have been placed manually, rather than pre-arranged sniper. Say you are winning at 10.00 and your max is 11.00, but the competer bid 11.01, then presto he wins by 0.01, In this, it does not matter whether he bid his 11.01 manually or by sniper. (A manual bid reacting to yours is quite possible within 13 secs, but if his bid came only 3 or 4 secs after yours, then obviously it wasn't reacting to yours.)

Petronius has it exactly right.
Unknowingly, he even has the figures right!

As Rick says, A.S. has put the bid in early because it WAS on an exact hour.

What seems to me to be WRONG, is that we don't know when A.S. places the bids, only when they are recorded by ebay. I have read that things can get busy, but have not seen any times quoted.

I have watched an item, refreshing continually(which only takes about a second) with a bid-screen window open and ready, entered the figure and made a successful bid, well within 10 seconds from the end.

The refresh time increases a little near a whole hour, but not much.

So, unfortunately, I conclude that for anything important, especially near a big time increment, A.S. is unreliable and you have to be there.

Which defeats much of the point of using it.

quote:

So, unfortunately, I conclude that for anything important, especially near a big time increment, A.S. is unreliable and you have to be there.

Which defeats much of the point of using it.

Not at all. You put your absolute max bid in and let AS do its thing. So long as you are bidding in the closing seconds of the auction, it is more important to bid your absolute max, than to obsess over whether your bid is at six seconds or eight or ten.

Those of us who have been around a long time just set AS and walk away. It works just dandy and the issue is usually whether or not we bid high enough--if we do, we win. For me at least, that means I win 95% of the time.

quote:

Originally posted by Chatter:
So long as you are bidding in the closing seconds of the auction, it is more important to bid your absolute max, than to obsess over whether your bid is at six seconds or eight or ten.

. . . or forty seconds or fifty or sixty?

Again, the lower priced auctions don't tend to get that much competition. With higher priced auctions, last second nibbling can cause one to reach their max price. I may be willing to spend my "absolute max" bid, but I'd rather spend less.

Remember - It’s not the last snipe that gets nibbled but the early one.

quote:

Originally posted by Chatter:
So long as you are bidding in the closing seconds of the auction, it is more important to bid your absolute max, than to obsess over whether your bid is at six seconds or eight or ten.

Wrong. What is important is that the bid is too late for anyone to respond. As I have told you, I have no trouble responding within 10 seconds, let alone 13. If the absolute figure were all important, then there would be little point using a sniper.

I am not "obsessing", merely wondering how what happened, did; which has been explained.

"Those of us who have been around a long time " No need to be patronising either. You have no idea how long I "have been around". Plenty long, I can assure you.

If you can't keep your replies pleasant then I suggest you don't make any.


Rick - spot on, thankyou for your comments.

Welcome to the boards gascar, may your stay be a long one

Over and over again - 'why was my snipe placed too eary?', 'why was I outbid?', 'anyone can place a bid 10 secs from the end'...

It seems to me that AS needs to educate its users as, for everyone who whinges here, 10 or maybe 100 bog off to another product. If only AS put up a message box warning people that their auction ends at a potentially busy time and that it might get placed early then many people might understand the reasoning behind it without having to wake up Rick!

Likewise, when a snipe is outbid/sniped then a more detailed response (or even analysis) might cut down on repetive forum questions with their inevitable threats to go 'elsewhere' due to AS's unreliability.

Gascar is a good case in point, comes in here with all guns blazing having 'lost' an auction and claiming to have been around for 'plenty' of time yet asks the same questions which s/he must have seen asked on a weekly basis.

Come on AS - wake up and sort this ongoing problem out...

R2

quote:

Originally posted by region2:
If only AS put up a message box warning people that their auction ends at a potentially busy time and that it might get placed early then many people might understand the reasoning behind it without having to wake up Rick!

. . . AND, while they're at it, add a warning about Thursday PM/Friday AM maintenance:

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...691091151#4691091151

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...201091241#4201091241

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...351070831#4351070831

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...391060531#9391060531

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...901076811#2901076811

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...041076811#9041076811

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...341089901#6341089901

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...581081501#1581081501

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc...591004001#3591004001

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc.../829107919#829107919

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc.../451106758#451106758

https://community.auctionsniper.com/eve/forums/a/tpc.../933106548#933106548

I stopped reading posts prior to 2005. The above threads came from the first 3 pages of a search on the word “maintenance” that provided a total of 10 pages of posts.