What's going on / really annoyed

Brad

It's a well known fact that AS should not be trusted 100% for 'must-haves'...

Your other post was about Bid Groups - was this snipe set up in a previously used bid group. In which case it won't work. Never re-use a bid group. Delete used bid groups.

You'll need to press the UPDATE PRICES button on the my snipes page to get the prices up to their current level (it's annoying but that's how AS works) but no idea (apart from the bid groups idea) why your snipe failed to go...

If all else fails then follow Rick's advice in your last post...

Here's a simile for you about tools. I hit my thumb with a hammer the other day but I didn't throw it away and go back to using my forehead - the hammer is still better (and ususally painless) but I'm a bit more careful now!

R2

It's one thing when the snipe doesn't take because the ebay system is unresponsive, but it's another thing when AuctionSniper doesn't even bother to do the snipe and continues to hold the snipe request in the Active list.

This is the case this morning. Auction Sniper is not providing the sniper service and is not saying it can't. In fact, it is saying it can by showing it in the Active list, and having nothing at all about its failures on the web site.

I've been an active user of Auction Sniper for years and have never seen this before. I did not participate in several key auctions this morning because I trusted Auction Sniper, and Auction Sniper did not bother to place the bid, and in fact the items are still in my active list.

Then when I saw what happened and do not see any information on this site explaining the situation or telling us what is going on, it makes me as angry as the original poster in this thread.

I'm bidding by hand this morning but what about the rest of my Active list - should I look around for an alternative service? And what about the lot I couldn't cancel from Auction Sniper before the 5 minute deadline, that I bid on by hand and won. Auction Sniper bid on that one (unexpectedly?) and now Auction Sniper will claim it as a won auction they delivered and try to bill me for it.

The analogy isn't about a tool like a hammer giving pain because it is used ineptly. The analogy is a service that has matured into a utilility and sells itself as a utility, such as the phone company not allowing call outs just when you need it, or an electric company turning off power for a few hours overnight putting everyone's morning alarm off by a bit.

Auction Snipe is a utility, the same way that ebay has become a utility. It is expected to be there, and has a duty to be there. People depend on it. If it doesn't step up to that reality, then it won't survive.

Thanks for not mentioning my confusion of simile and analogy - d'oh!

I think the old hands have just come to accept that AS has its faults and that AS will never really conquer them despite our best efforts!

Shame really - report these problems as a fault call (via help tab) and who knows, they may give you a few free goes!

R2

Region 2, thanks for the response. No this was not part of a bid group and everything was set ok. It's basically like bye-stuff says, AuctionSniper says that everything is ok, and then just doesn't place the bid, no attempt, no message saying there is a problem (actually still no messages from their management or support people when there was obviously a serious problem), it just didn't bid but unfortunately gave no indication to let me know there was a problem.

Now I've noticed that it has updated the status of this item to "Did Not Win". I clicked on that to find out the definition of it, and that wasn't even listed as one of the statuses.

I'm going back to banging it with my head because clearly this hammer cannot be trusted.

Same thing happened to me last night. AS has been great for years, but am now concerned enough to consider placing my bids the old fashioned way.Not an option I like. A couple of high dollar items end this weekend and I do not want to be shut out. Meanwhile, AS is silent.

Oh yeah, sniper in training? Hmphh.I'm a bloody sharpshooter.

My rant this morning was done while still upset about a nice item going for opening bid, way below what I had registered as my snipe amount, just because AS did not execute the bid, nor explain why it did not execute the bid.

As I said, it's the first time this has happened in tens of thousands of snipes registered with AS.

Brad, Auction Sniper has been extremely trustworthy for many years. It may have become untrustworthy this week. I don't know. I hope what we saw is a recently introduced bug that will get fixed soon.

I'll open a problem report as region2 suggested by way of the help tab. Maybe that will help drive the bug to be fixed.

A dozen snipes in my Action List were executed fine this afternoon.

It's such a nice life having Auction Sniper as a utility - no concern at all about ebay ending times. I like that life, and the comfort of AS being a trusted utility.

Doing the few snipes by hand this morning reminded me of how bad it is to live that way. Whatever happens, I won't go back to hand sniping - I want a dependable snipe utility.

Hey bye-stuff, pleased to hear your logging a support request. Shame that AS are so silent about it, there was clearly something wrong.

I guess I'm more burned because I'm very new to AS and this was the first one I'd done where my bid was above what the item went for (obviously don't know whether i would have won it though). I'm a veteran ebayer but have always done it the hard way, setting my alarm so that i go online, opening a couple of windows and refreshing and putting a bid in in the closing seconds. AS seemed brilliant and I heard about it from a guy who bought something from me, stealing it from a couple of nibblers in the closing seconds. I complimented him on his technique and he told me about AS.

So here I am, and have done a couple of bids with it that weren't high enough to win but it worked well, and then this problem. Given that I haven't had success with it, I just feel like going back to the old way, which, while time consuming, relied on nothing but myself.

But you reckon it is generally good? Maybe I'll give it another chance. What would be good though is if AS isn't working right that it doesn't look like everything is ok.

There is a maintenance period of a couple of hours every Friday night/Saturday morning PST during which AS doesn't fire any snipes. IN THE PAST what AS does for snipes scheduled to fire during that period is to place the bids before beginning the maintenance. Even though this results in "snipes" being placed up to an hour or 2 ahead their desired scheduled time, the theory was the bid placed earlier was better than the bid not being placed at all.

The phenomonon described in these posts raises some questions in my mind:

1) Were these failed snipes scheduled to happen during AS's routine weekly maintenance period? If so....

2) Did AS change something that the early placing of the bids during maintenance did not happen/no longer happen?!?

Just trying to think of a possible explanation....

quote:

I guess I'm more burned because I'm very new to AS and this was the first one I'd done where my bid was above what the item went for (obviously don't know whether i would have won it though). I'm a veteran ebayer but have always done it the hard way, setting my alarm so that i go online, opening a couple of windows and refreshing and putting a bid in in the closing seconds. AS seemed brilliant and I heard about it from a guy who bought something from me, stealing it from a couple of nibblers in the closing seconds. I complimented him on his technique and he told me about AS.

The above posting reminds me of a post I made over 3 years ago that >I< think is worth reviewing HERE.

quote:

There is a maintenance period of a couple of hours every Friday night/Saturday morning ...

I thought it was Thursday night/Friday morning.

My support request got a generic answer aimed at someone losing out because the placed bid was done during a busy time and it missed the end of auction time by a few seconds, with the suggestion to increase the lead time.

That is an interesting problem that is outside the control of AS, but it's not the one this thread is about.

This thread is about having a snipe request in the Active list hours after the auction ended, and AS not executing the requested bid on our behalf. And no explanation and no comment about this happening anywhere on the site.

I've pushed back to get a better answer and the problem is moving up the chain.

When a answer comes back I'll share it here in this thread.

While writing up the push-back I thought of a scenario that explains having a missed snipe request remaining in the active list hours after the auction ended.

It's the simple case of the AS system getting bogged down and not keeping up with the ticking clock. When it comes time to get the set of snipe requests coming due next, the main sniping engine should only consider requests for auctions having ending times in the future (to avoid wasting time handling those with ending times that have passed, since they have no chance to succeed). So, if something happens that causes a lost period of processing time, then requests for lots with ending times in the past are not handled.

Another process that runs occasionally with a low priority can run through active lists looking for requests that aren't handled by the main request processing engine (because of ending times in the past, and other reasons) and this other process then puts the request into the Ended list with the "did not win" label.

This is a consistent scenario with what was seen and with how working systems are designed. I don't know if it is the explanation for the particular case of this thread.

If it is, then the pitch will be isn't that how you'd want it to be - don't you want a system taking care of your live requests and not have the system wasting any resources for requests having no chance to succeed. When things get tight, take care of the living and let the dead alone.

quote:

I thought it was Thursday night/Friday morning.

Oops! I think you're right, Rick! If that's the case, then I'm clueless as to what may have happened with the missed snipes.

The auction ended at approximately 19:15pm Friday Australian Eastern Summer Time, which I believe would have been 12:15am (midnight) Thursday night / Friday morning US Pacific Time.

Is this when the maintenance happens? Does this explain it?

quote:

Is this when the maintenance happens?

Yes.

quote:

Does this explain it?

It shouldn’t. If anything, the snipe should have been placed before 11 PM (Pacific Time), which is when ebay’s, and AS’s, maintenance starts. But then, maybe AS goofed and didn’t get those snipes placed early. If you haven’t already, you might want to file a support request: http://support.auctionsniper.com/.

I had an auction end on Thursday night at 10:15PM PST. My bid was for $60.00 and the item went for $45.00. The explaination given was "Did not win". I have never heard of this explanation before. Did I fall into the black hole of bidding on an auction on Thursday night?

How annoying! Log a support call via the Help Tab!

R2

I've been a user of AS since 01. Never has it been this unrealiable. If we have to start putting snipes minutes ahead of the close, then why use AS at all? I can snipe myself w/in about 10 seconds pretty reliably.

I've lost 2 items, one had NO OTHER BIDS and the other was only a fraction of my snipe amount. Really irritating to lose two items that essentially had no bidding competition.
Both times got the same msg:

Status Summary: Did Not Win
Your snipe did not win because of the reason above

Well NSS. Thanks for the update.

We are paying for the service. If you aren't going to provide the service, do us all a favor and close the doors. At least that way I'll know I'm on my own.

In fairness you only pay when you win - it costs nothing when you don't...

But you're right - I get the impression that the staff are no longer coming here and that AS is just floating around without anyone at the helm.

Send an email to bill@auctionsniper.com- he's the boss!

R2

quote:

Originally posted by region2:
In fairness you only pay when you win - it costs nothing when you don't...

It cost me not getting the item I need/want.
It cost me because now I have to wait for another item to come up.
It cost me if I have to pay more to get the next one that comes alone.

In the case in point, while there are many items like what I was bidding on, 99% are in terrible condition. This one was in excellent condition and the sellers starting bid was pretty high for the item, thus I figured all the bids would come at the end. So I used AS. Only for no one to bid on the item, including AS and now I have to find another one. (no the seller has not relisted it.)

this happened on a tuesday 9pm.

As the forums keep saying - never use AS for 'must haves' - it's never going to be as reliable as 'you'.

And have you asked the seller if s/he's going to relist?

Let's see how long your list of competitors lasts before AS staff wake up and remove it...

And it still costs nothing (in money paid to AS) if you don't win. Obviously your time and effort are valuable to you but I reckon AS won't refund that!!!

R2

quote:

Let's see how long your list of competitors lasts before AS staff wake up and remove it...

If AS removes my list from this post, I will immediately close my account and NEVER use them again. If they have to resort to censorship to cover their lack of support, they deserve the wrath of the internet community.

What they need to do is wake up and put their energy into fixing the problem that's causing the discourse, not sweep it under the rug and pretend it's not happening.

As I said, I'm a very long time user of AS and have always been very satisfied with their service. But that good will can only last so long. In a free market, good will is no replacement for quality or reliability when there are plenty of competitors nipping at your heals.

quote:

Originally posted by hazmat:
If they have to resort to censorship . . .

“Censorship”? It’s NOW considered “censorship” if a business doesn’t provide the resources to give their competitors free advertising? Hazmat and I definitely have different ideas as to what constitutes “censorship” – especially in a “free market” (assuming our definitions of “free market” aren’t as inconsistent as “censorship”).

quote:

Originally posted by Rick:

quote:

Originally posted by hazmat:
If they have to resort to censorship . . .

(assuming our definitions of “free market” aren’t as inconsistent as “censorship”).

censorship:

counterintelligence achieved by banning or deleting any information of value to the enemy

to censor:
to examine (as a publication or film) in order to suppress or delete any contents considered objectionable

The definition of censorship is correct as is my use of the word.

In regards to what is a "free market" a free market means one not influenced by outside sources. In this case if AS decided to remove the comments, that would be w/in their control and w/in the market. However, doing so would only add credence to the claim that they can't compete in the marketplace based on the performance of their product.

Like I said, if they decide that they product cannot meet the needs of the community based on it's performance and thus they need to try to hide the competition, that tells me it's a company I don't want to support anymore.

BTW, it'd be pretty stupid for them to try to hide the competition because it's only one window away. It'd be much better if they just fixed the product. Until they do, they need to remove the claim of "Ultra-reliability through state-of-the-art technology!" on the front page.

quote:

Originally posted by hazmat:
censorship:

counterintelligence achieved by banning or deleting any information of value to the enemy

“The enemy”?

Tonight lost two more auctions because AS didn't place the bid. Got a msg:

Status Summary: Invalid eBay Email
Your snipe did not win because of the reason above

Nothing has changed at ebay with my email address.

...and what did you see when you clicked on 'Click here to see eBay's response to your snipe' on the email AS sent you?

R2

Look down this list - I love the way AS haven't bothered translating most of the error messages!

http://fr.auctionsniper.com/SnipeStatus.aspx

quote:

Your snipe could not be placed because your Ebay email address is invalid and action must be taken before proceeding. Please either update or confirm your eBay email address before placing another snipe.

R2

hazmat,

Sounds like there’s something wrong with your account (either ebay or AS). If AS was experiencing a bug, it’s likely several users would have mentioned this problem on this forum - no one else has.

Here are the possibilities:

1. File a support request with AS: http://support.auctionsniper.com/. The support staff rarely makes appearances on the forum, so if you’re waiting for them to answer your posts, you might have a long, and frustrating, wait.
   
   
2. Place a manual bid and see what response you get from ebay. At least that will determine whether it’s something to address with ebay or AS.
   
   
3. Do nothing and continue to lose auctions.
   
   
4. Start using another service.

I did find this in ebay’s help, but it doesn’t provide much help:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/identity-invalid-email.html

You are right Rick, there is something strange going on. Ebay is telling me my email address is no good. However, I'm getting my daily lists of watched items from ebay everyday. I get my outbid notices from ebay everyday. I get my notices from AS forum (which I use the same email address) all the time. IOW, I'm still getting email on this email address, but for some reason ebay thinks I am not. In fact, they even have that "confirm your email address" function, which I did, and they sent the confirmation no. to the same email address I have always used for ebay and I enter the code and it confirms it, only for it to take me to another screen that says I have to confirm my address.

This is a real problem, unrelated to AS, however, this just started yesterday. My problems with AS started about a week or 10 days ago. (I think it was the 8th or 9th the first auction I didn't get due to AS.)

You are right, time to quit using AS. It's too bad, I liked the service, but if they don't answer my email, and the service doesn't work... not much else I can do.

quote:

but if they don't answer my email

Hazmat - Not sure what email you’re talking about, but your best bet (always) is to file a support request. Of course, “time to quit” is always an option.

My opened bug report led to a dialog with support that had to be escalated past the first line of support. After a lot of boilerplate nonsense about timing failures, there was finally a description of the failure that caused my snipe to not get executed and for it to remain in the Active list.

quote:

However, in this particular case, a technical error on our end was the culprit. The reason "Ready" status was displayed on this snipe after the auction‘s end, which is also the reason your snipe on this item was not placed, is because the bidder server that this snipe was allocated to was not responding and the auction ended before it was brought to our attention, and we were able to get in running again.

I pushed back asking how we as users could alert AS that a biddder server had gone down, with the idea that we are paying attention and could squawk if that would help lower the total number of missed snipes before a server is fixed and working again. My point was that my report of the symptom was not immediately understood as a clear indicator of a bidding server being down or having been down. Would reporting the same symptom in the future alert anyone that a bidding server was down?

Answer:

quote:

To correct this problem moving forward, we have begun monitoring out status statisitics around the clock so, when such a problem arises, it should not go un-noticed for an extended period of time. Through the use of this system, we will also be able to rely less on support requests to detect when things are amiss. Regardless, we will still appreciate your input whenever you believe the system may not be performing properly.

What we are seeing is system failures that prevent AS from keeping up with the backlog of bids in the queue. Some number of snipes are not executed when this happens.

I'm not happy that the margin between system capacity and the sniping queue is so small. I'd prefer that there was enough headroom so that a machine could go down and the remaining machines could keep up with the queue.

Bottom line is that if you see the symptom of a snipe still in your Active list after an auction ends, open up a bug report with support immediately. The automatic system they have planned might work but it might not.

quote:

Let's see how long your list of competitors lasts before AS staff wake up and remove it...

Wakened.

I havent had too many problems with AS but I am having a problem with a seller because I used AS. He relisted the item that I had won then hours later took my paypal payment.He says he wants his listing fees, ebay selling fees and postage from me before he will return money.

on what grounds?! complain to ebay!
and how did he know you used AS?

R2

quote:

He says he wants his listing fees, ebay selling fees and postage from me before he will return money.

Refund postage on an unshipped item? Either a very ballsy seller, or his parents have the same parents.

He doesnt know I used AS he just wants me to pay more because he doesnt beleive that you can bid so close to the end.

I have sent his emails to ebay so just hope they do something before he does this to next buyer. The postage he wants is for him to send my left over money back after he has taken his costs!!!