I have begun to notice people winning bids without ever having appeared in the lists until the coup de grace but with bids dated days earlier. Is there some software available to do this? It rather does make bidding futile or am I erring on the hysterical as usual?
Peter A
Probably Sniping software. do a google for Ebay Sniping, and you will find many free and pay-for services.
You're erring, but I wouldn't call it hysterical. It's a very common mistake. There are two things you should be aware of:
1) eBay's bid history is sorted by date, not amount, so someone can bid the winning amount on Day 1 and they will "float" on the top of competing (lower) bids. 2) eBay, in its infinite wisdom, chose to highlight the leading bidder with a yellow background on the bid history page. This has proved to be a highly effective camouflage that prevents many viewers from seeing the actual leader's name.The fact that the date stamps on the bids are days before the end of the auction proves that it isn't a "sniper".
And obviously I've managed to get that backwards. They are, in fact, sorted by amount, with the winning bid at the top.
Everything else I said is correct (I think :).
And you don't need any special software, that's just the normal way bidding on ebay works. Explained in great detail on the site. Keith
Under normal - well advertised- rules, I would expect to see the ultimate & pre-emptive bidders name appear at least once before the end when it then floats gracefully to the top. If it were the first bid then it should appear and then always be the top dog thereafter surely - or can it be masked as some "private" lists are?
"peter abraham" wrote
Yes so would I Peter, I suspect they're using sniping software which places a bid on your behalf in the dying seconds of the auction.
On the other hand I bought an item on eBay the other day by simply placing the ONLY bid just ten seconds before the auction ended.
John.
As Peter has stated, the date stamp on the bid was DAYS before the end of the auction. That's not sniping.
Yes, the early bidder's name will be in the history immediately after they bid (remember the yellow highlighting I mentioned). And if they are the eventual winner, they will be listed as the current high bidder on the auction page from the moment they bid.
Another possibility is that your browser is not refreshing the page, so you're looking at old data that was cached on your computer.
There's no way to place an early bid and hide it until the end. You can schedule a bid with a sniping service, but that's not what's happening here if Peter is correct about the dates.
wrote
Right, sorry I missed that bit.
John.
The latest example (yesterday) showed myself as the highest bidder for some 3 mins just before the end time. In the dying seconds a bid beat me by a smidgeon - dated 3 days before but never having appeared before. A 3 day old pre-emptive would surely not have allowed me to be the highest bidder at that point.
"peter abraham" wrote
Have you thought about asking eBay for an explanation, or even raised the matter on their Community Discussion Boards?
I've had useful information from there in the past.
John.
As far as I can make out that shouldn't have happened. If your bid is beaten by an earlier bid you would get an 'outbid' result with an invitation to have another go. The bid you made, however, would appear in the bid history, coming below the eventual winner, even if his was made days earlier.
Steve
Peter,
Without a screen snapshot showing you as the leader, you won't get very far with eBay. Posting this to the discussion boards will get you the same answer you've received here (though you're welcome to try :)
Yes exactly!
Yes, it is the "no witness" scenario as usual.
Try
Martin.
I get notified by ebay when my bid places me as current high-bidder. Surely this would be evidence that you were high-bidder AFTER the date of any pre-emptive bid? Cheers, Bill.
aBay's central server is notoriously unreliable these days. I get demands for fees already paid and messages about items I have nothing to with all the time. I suspect this is just a server error on eBay's part.
(kim)
"kim" wrote
Some could be scam emails from crooks trying to get you to log in to a spurious cloned eBay website so they can steal your password and then get control of your real account.
I've had several from sellers threatening to report me to eBay for non-payment on items which I've never viewed let alone bid on. I always report these to their abuse email address, but suspec they do little with such reports.
John.
There's little they can do, actually. They have to find a living, breathing human to link to the phishing spam, and just how are they going to do that?
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