bizzycrocheting
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posted on February 1, 2007 02:06:24 PM
A customer wrote to me because she doesn't understand why she lost her bid last night. Here is what the bidding history looks like in the final moments:
Bidder 2 $20.00 Jan-31-07 18:44:39 PST
Bidder 1 $20.00 Jan-31-07 18:43:18 PST
Bidder 2 $20.00 Jan-31-07 18:44:17 PST
Bidder 2 $18.51 Jan-31-07 18:44:01 PST
Bidder 2 $16.53 Jan-31-07 18:41:37 PST
Bidder 1 $15.50 Jan-31-07 18:40:28 PST
Bidder 1 lost but she entered a $20.00 bid earlier than Bidder 2. Why did that happen?
Diane
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cblev65252
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posted on February 1, 2007 02:26:13 PM
Maybe bidder 2's proxy was higher? Odd.
Cheryl
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on February 1, 2007 02:27:37 PM
It looks to me like the auction should have ended at $20.50. It looks to me like #1 bid $20 first. #2 bid $20 or higher twice. The second bid would have had to be $20.50 to register. Did anyone withdraw a bid?
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OhMsLucy
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posted on February 1, 2007 03:11:10 PM
Hi Diane and everybody else,
I think it's an eBay glitch.
Here's a link to a thread I saw on the eBay Bidding board.
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?threadID=1000432612&start=0
Lucy
P.S. Hope I did this right, seeing as how it's been about a million years since I posted a link here...
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on February 1, 2007 03:25:37 PM
For those of you not inclined to read the 3 pages over at Lucy's link, the shortest and sanest explanation (well, sane by eBay standards) I found there was:
"This mess appears to be a logic flaw where they were trying to implement code to keep the high bidder when bidding again from "bidding against himself". I suspect it was supposed to keep the leader's amount showing for the new winning bid the same as his old bid when his lead was less than one bid increment above the second highest bid.
However, someone mis-coded that logic and in the case of the OP, the bidder who was NOT the leading bidder, but tied with the leading bidder placed another bid and the mis-code logic kept that new bid at the same as the new bid. This is just a case of the programmer either not being aware of the business logic of bidding or careless coding and testing. The logic evidently was not tested for a case where there was a tie and the later bidder increased his bid to take the lead.
I can't see a reason that they would have changed the bidding logic for this unless it has something to do with the law suit that they just settled. I don't think there was anything wrong with the bid increment rule applying to the new bid, but obviously someone at eBay thought it was a good idea to fix something that was not broken. I guess we shouldn't be surprised considering all of the other foolish things that eBay has done lately."
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bizzycrocheting
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posted on February 1, 2007 03:58:45 PM
Thanks so much for the responses and especially Lucy who found that link for me.
Well, all I have to say about that is ... this sucks! So now we lose money too?
Diane
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irked
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posted on February 1, 2007 06:59:55 PM
If you had a mind to you might contact ebay and ask what is up as you have a dissatisfied customer due to their so called fix of an unbroken system. But you will get the run around I am sure. Get your bidder to contact ebay and also complain.
**************
 I married my wife for her looks, but Not the one she gives me lately!
$$$$$$$$$$$$$
 Check it out
And Feebay stuff at This link
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agitprop
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posted on February 1, 2007 07:26:49 PM
I'd be sending eBay a bill for 50 cents and/or asking for a list of other affected customers so they could enjoin in a [b]class action suit[b]. Maybe you could retire on the settlement?
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toasted36
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posted on February 2, 2007 02:32:36 AM
Bidder 2 bid 20.00 1 second before Bidder 1 and then came back in and set a proxy bid for more but because no one else bid they won for the 20.00.
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agate18
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posted on February 2, 2007 03:47:00 AM
I had an auction end a few hours ago. 1 bid.
A regular buyer was going to bid on it. He placed his bid 7 minutes before it was to end. However when he put his bid on the auction, 30 seconds later it had ended. 6.5.minutes earlier then the time said. I have never seen this happen in 9 years of ebay. Is this related to the same problems your having.?
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ltray
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posted on February 2, 2007 05:06:36 AM
Could also be eBay's evil ploy to discourage sniping. Who knows?
Agate, I had the same happen to me last week. Found an auction that had 5 minutes left. Entered my bid and it was not high enough but still had 3+ minutes left. Entered a higher bid only to be told the auction had ended. It darn sure did not take me 3 minutes to enter the second bid!
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cashinyourcloset
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posted on February 2, 2007 05:21:03 AM
eBay would deter sniping by running auctions LONGER than indicated. They don't mind sniping per se, but want items to end as high as possible (for FVFs). You get that by running the auctions a bit longer than the sniping software thinks they will run.
I don't think that there's anything evil in the bidding snafu, beyond the evil you find in any lazy, unconcerned, unaccountable, supercilious, and blithe behavior towards one's customers.
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twig125silver
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posted on February 2, 2007 06:25:23 AM
what cash said...
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OhMsLucy
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posted on February 2, 2007 09:18:10 AM
Hi all,
Here's some additional info from eBay, a post to the thread I mentioned earlier.
[email protected] View Listings | Report Feb-01-07 17:26 PST 108 of 122
Hi everyone,
I have a quick update. As most of you know, historically if a high bidder fell between bid increments and increased his or her maximum bid, our system was originally designed to increase the bid to the next bid increment (this was also explained in our Help system). We’re basically changing it so this will no longer happen. Soon -- if you're between bid increments and you increase your maximum bid, your current bid will remain the same until another bidder bids against you.
Yesterday, as we were launching this change, a bug was discovered that affected a very small number of transactions. We’ve rolled the change back, fixed the bug, and we’ll be launching again sometime in the next week.
Thanks for giving us the heads-up!
Regards,
Sohil
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ST0NEC0LD613
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posted on February 2, 2007 10:40:21 AM
What was the exact closing time for the auction?
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chathamsue
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posted on February 3, 2007 05:14:50 PM
I had something similiar happen. How can bids be a penny apart?
Sue
Only actual bids (not automatic bids generated up to a bidder's maximum) are shown. Automatic bids may be placed days or hours before a listing ends. Learn more about bidding.
Bidder (show email addresses) Bid Amount Date of bid Location* Shipment Status
jonnie( 26) US $13.00 Jan-30-07 15:48:16 PST 48430 --
marie123( 3 )
Send Second Chance Offer US $12.99 Jan-29-07 18:56:23 PST 80631 --
patfan_mystic( 28)
Send Second Chance Offer US $11.00 Jan-30-07 12:40:13 PST 06355 --
marie123( 3 )
Send Second Chance Offer US $10.99 Jan-29-07 18:55:50 PST 80631 --
See how to cancel bids if you need to.
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ST0NEC0LD613
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posted on February 3, 2007 08:15:31 PM
Oops,
must have hit submit by mistake.
[ edited by ST0NEC0LD613 on Feb 4, 2007 09:25 AM ]
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ST0NEC0LD613
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posted on February 3, 2007 08:21:40 PM
Sue,
Yours is quite simple.
marie123 orginally place a proxy bid of $12.99. However her bid would have been place for your opening bid price. From the looks of it, less then $10.00.
Then patfan_mystic bid $11.00 which is over the minimun raise of .50 cents. At that time, marie123 bid would have shown 12.00.
Now the minimum bid would be $1.00.
Now jonnie comes in and bids the minimum raise of $1.00 above the $12.00 actual bid of marie123, to make it $13.00 and is one penny about the proxy amount of $12.99.
Now if patfan_mystic would have bid $11.50, then marie123 actual bid would have been $12.50 and jonnie would have had to bid on dollar above that and the final price would have been $13.50, even with marie123 proxy bid still at $12.99.
Hope that clears it up for you.
SC
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birgittaw
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posted on February 4, 2007 06:32:05 AM
How about this one? I sniped as bidder 1 with 4 seconds; apparently bidder 2 used sniping as well, also with 4 seconds. This to me was an odd one and I still haven't figured it out.
bidder1 $35.29 Feb-03-07 19:47:53 PST
bidder2 $34.29 Feb-03-07 19:47:53 PST
bidder2 $34.29 Feb-03-07 19:47:53 PST
bidder3 $10.01 Feb-03-07 19:35:47 PST
B/
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