"Not in Time"???????

The only reason I can see is that the auction ended on the hour exactly. There have been several warnings on this Forum about short lead times for auctions like that. So many auctions end on the hour or half-hour exactly, probably due to sellers' use of selling software, that eBay's servers are not able to cope with all of them. It is advisable to allow at least 15 seconds lead time in such auctions. Five seconds is definitely not enough. Consider yourself warned.

Since this sort of thing comes up so often ... why doesn't AS just automatically add an extra 10 seconds to listings which it determines end on one of these killer times (round hours, Sunday nights etc). Or pop up a message to the sniper "do you realise this ends at XXX and experience suggests we should add 10 more secs, do you agree".

We do, and it still isn't always enough.

And even then somtimes the bids end up going in 15 - 30 seconds early and people complain. It's a lose/lose sitution for us. Nearly as many people come here complaining their snipe was placed to early as come here complaining it was missed.

We do place them earlier and do some other special things but it's not always enough, yet if we placed them at 30 seconds it may give another person time react manually or resnipe etc.

We're very sorry about your loss on that item, you can get a free snipe here:
http://www.auctionsniper.com/freeSnipes.aspx

If you notice you are bidding on an auction that ends on the hour or half hour I'd suggest a 20-25 second lead time.

Thank you

This is the first time this has happened to me after over 100 snipes! I have always had a 5 sec. lead. I feel that if I have a longer lead, it defeats the purpose of sniping!

It doesn't defeat the purpose of sniping if everybody else, including proxy bidders, are being affected by the same eBay delay. Go ahead and keep placing bids with a 5 second lead exclusively. If a failure rate of one out of a hundred is acceptable to you, so be it. Just don't come to this Forum complaining when one of your snipes doesn't get in on time.

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Originally posted by coryry:
This is the first time this has happened to me after over 100 snipes! I have always had a 5 sec. lead. I feel that if I have a longer lead, it defeats the purpose of sniping!

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Let me get this straight: You have over a hundred successful snipes placed with AS, and you are screaming because this week you have missed several? That is all it takes to discourage you, and forget about the fact that AS has proven itself to you, time and time again?

Steve recommends eight seconds, which is what I myself use. On Sunday nights I use 20-30 seconds, and auctions that end directly on hours or half-hours, I also use twenty, though I have only had a few of the latter. Sara has repeatedly stated throughout these forums, especially in recent weeks, to use longer lead times on these types of auctions, but you are repeatedly choosing to disregard these advisories from AS staff and from seasoned AS snipers, then complain about them. What more can we do possibly for you here?

As Steve pointed out, you may not completely understand how the whole As-eBay thing works, since you seem to be obsessed with the LAST SECOND bid. It is the HIGHEST bid that wins. If you are having delays, then it is likely that other eBay users are also, both manual and AS snipers.

We undertsand the emotion behind what you "feel defeats the purpose of sniping," but take it from the seasoned sniping veterans here: Add a few seconds to your lead time under the circumstances mentioned above--it WILL produce better results for you!