Appalling new eBay bidding "glitch", more seconds added, & allows snipers to out bid a winning bid

[sam_in_barbate]

I have been buying & selling on eBay for over 15 years, & have watched whilst little by little eBay tweek elements which have worked perfectly, but this new little trick up the sleeve of eBay when bidding, takes the biscuit.

You find an item you want to bid on, you cancel everything in your day to make sure that you will be home, finger poised over the bidding button, & where I (for example) bid 4-5 seconds before the end of auction, this has been my chosen method for 15 years.

I first saw what I thought was a glitch a couple of weeks back, & where, over the course of 2 weeks, I had been outbid by other snipers, this AFTER I thought I had won the item, for, the seconds clock was timing down, 4 seconds before end of auction I place the winning bid, THEN the clock having almost hit 0 switches back & adds a new 5 or 6 seconds which count down again. I watched as my winning bid was then sniped & over the last 2 weeks lost all 3 items.

This has just happened a scant minute or two back on a fabulous item I had been watching for over a week. With 4 seconds to go I place what should have been the winning bid, then out of the blue more seconds were added to the clock, thank be to all the Gods, on this occasion I had added a far larger figure to my maximum bid, & did manage to win the item but at TWICE I repeat TWICE my original winning bid. Clearly, eBay are allowing watchers/winning bidders to think they have one clock which is slightly ahead of the actual end of auction, & allowing other bidders the chance to up the bid.

Yes, I am now regularly appalled by eBay's shenanigans, but this takes the biscuit, if there was an official body to whom I could report this I would..

[flomarkt2016]

I used to refurbish ipods , it always amazed me when an unrestored from the back of a draw ipod went for silly money at seven o'clock on a Sunday night more than people wanted to pay for one that I was selling with a new battery and garentee 

[fotherbale]

Just had another tonight - entered bid at about 15 seconds to go and with about 6 seconds left went to click 'confirm bid' and the bid window simply vanished without trace.  Lost another wanted listing, and another seller missed out on a better final value. 

[sam_in_barbate]

Hi,

Yesterday I bid on two items, both in eBay.uk.  I bid with 10 seconds left on the clock, when, a second or so later the confirm window appeared, I had only 3 seconds left to confirm, I always count down from 10 seconds confirming at 4, funnily enough I lost both items. Not because of the too short seconds countdown, but because I was bidding agains 2 other buyers who would have paid anything to get the item. But I think I am now going to stop bidding for a while, eBays auction clock just can't be trusted.

[the-upside-down]

I've seen both auctions end early and extended.     There is another thread about the former.  

it doesn't make sense that eBay is intentionally ending auctions early while extending others.  

it would appear to be a clock issue either at eBay's end or at the buyers end, but I see no difference when comparing my clocks to other sources.  

[juliet8820]

With so many complaining now, after being on eBay for years, it is more
than likely an eaBay issue. Implausible that 'suddenly' so many users are
having a problem with their clocks.

They never stop fiddling with it - always looking to how they can make
another buck.

[the-upside-down]

There's always a chance something is broken or they've  not configured something correctly when replacing some hardware.  It's not happening on every auction.  

[juliet8820]

Every auction over the last 3 months for me and I am a frequent flier!

If it was an unintended glitch they have had plenty of time to fix it: they
haven't done so. Why?

Enough people have complained about it, so why is it still an issue?

[the-upside-down]

In my experience 7-10pm on a Sunday night is the best time for auctions to end.  I've always thought it's because people are hammered and will spend silly money.  

[myhomelove5]

We are standing with you on this 100% 

I made a complaint to ebay and explained the timing is out on the second filtered page and the amounts of money offered by ebay's box options will not be enough for the winning bid .

This is an ebay tweet too far and I'm sure is illegal.

I received a email for the first time ever saying I may go to the Ombudsman my complaint was resolved and yet nobody from customer services ever discussed this matter with me it's a very serious matter why oh why is ebay doing this ?Please ebay go back to how the Auction always was stop controlling us ! We pay a great deal of money in fees why ruin our bidding rights too ....this is the END of ebay me thinks ?

[myhomelove5]

You are right Sam you are not dreaming .....

I wonder who  works for ebay customer services or is actually apart of ebay's team .....what part don't you get people's?

Ebays filtered Auction  page takes us off the live Auction  ( Thats the legal Auction live).......and the correct countdown  clock  .......this must be illegal placing a clock that still runs with time left outstanding in a false Auction format illusion........when in fact the Auction has ended .

The biggest  ,most famous Auction in the world  some could say has just doomed itself ....well done ebay !

[reevaweaver]

It's not a 'glitch'. This kind of practice is rife on online auction houses that sell cars and do liquidations. Ebay have clearly caught up.

[cheekychippy210]

Auctions are interesting, a battle of witts with all too many making it personal. Gone the days now where i sit and wait as I now have a set of rules, Do I want it, will I use it, what is it worth to me? I dont buy to sell, I buy to use so may differ to you. Now I tend to input the highest I want to pay and let it run the course, if i get it all well and good and if for less than top figure, a bonus.

[myhomelove5]

Reply;
Caught up ?
Ebay Auction the same for over 20 years .......if it's not broke why fix it
? Who really benefits.....not members ....what does this achieve ?
For example last week after watching and waiting the Fireplace with
beautiful tiled iron and slate hearthstone auction began ...my bid again
was taken to the filtered page had 50 then 11 seconds left..... I bid my
top amount £111.77 ....only to find the Auction had ended a minute ago at
£80 !

The seller told me the buyers had '0' feedback and actually never collected
the fireplace ( alot of occasions cash on collection) then they cancelled
their membership ,by the time the seller then offered this again to me I
had purchased elsewhere.

There is only disappointed ebay's member's there's no need for this we
sell our used items and we do pay some high fees and when we can not rely
on our responsible efficient and clear structured Auctions as per usual
everything is going to pot ?
Ebay told me if...if they receive enough members concerns/ complaints they
will inform the Technical team in the back room to alter this but I believe
ebay's right hand DOSENT necessarily know what it's left hand is doing ? On
paper this filter may look like a help?....but how do they really know the
individual items end time to the second ?

I just won't bid anymore ,buy it now and make offer is all I would be doing
,selling my personal items that all I buy is for myself and my families
homes & Grandchildren not for resale and so it's huge loss to us all !😥

[fotherbale]

---

@reevaweaver wrote:

It's not a 'glitch'. This kind of practice is rife on online auction houses that sell cars and do liquidations. Ebay have clearly caught up.

---

No, it isn't rife on other online auctions - what they have is a programmed and publicised auto-extend which (where a bid is entered near to the current end time) extends the auction end time to a set period after the last bid is logged.

What is happening on ebay nowadays is random, unpredictable and manifests itself as either the auction end time randomly increasing when a user places a late bid, or the auction appears to end before the end time shown on a users device, or the bid window vanishes or freezes when someone tries to place a bid. 

It is a glitch/fault, and must be something misconfigured within the ebay setup because this did not used to happen until recently, and does not always happen, and doesn't appear to happen to everybody.

Yahoo Auctions tried an auto-extend feature 20 years ago - it killed their auction platform stone dead.  It will do the same to ebay if they try it.

[myhomelove5]

Thank you for your reply ,this is very helpful info ,my device used is
Android tablet maybe Microsoft devices do not do this ? It happens every
single bid I make wether it's late or not..... maybe it's the first bid
with days to go..... automatically taken to the boxed option page ,this
never happened before ,we used to stay on our front auction page so the
original Auction page has changed period wether your Microsoft or not
.....late bids are completely discouraged meaning this Ebay Auction is not
fit for purpose anymore as this is the way the world's Auctions work for
buyers.... All happens in the last minute .......
Ebay Auctions has lost their Heart 💓 We just can't take it seriously
anymore...I do wonder what the Auction page is like on the last seconds for
instance buying cars? or Antiques worth thousand's? Does anyone know ? That
would be the Cherry on top !🍒

[bromley2008]

Hi there,

Yes, it's very sad that a big concern like Ebay has chosen to ignore this ongoing issue now for 2 years or more.
It asks the question if it's part of how they want so called auctions run, because they have had long enough to sort this fraudulent auction process out but don't.
This severely undermines there name and reputation.
I try using other platforms now first like Facebook market place and Amazon and only use Ebay as a last resort.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[duc.a-95]

This is a server issue and just way too much traffic to cope with

[duc.a-95]

Nobody to report to... All that shinanigans are gone. Ebay is lord master and god.

[bromley2008]

Seriously, that's me done with bidding on Ebay  and its the last place in the world that I use for buying anything unless I absolutely cant get it anywhere else.

JUST WON AN AUCTION THAT i WAS WATCHING FOR 7 DAYS. AUCTION FINISHED AND THEN 20 SECONDS LATER THE SCRENN SAID YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID!

CHECKED THE TIME AND THE AUCTION MUST HAVE CONTINED FOR 20/30 SECONDS AFTER MY WINNING BID?

FACEBOOK MARKETPLACE,GUMTREE AND ALL THE REST IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO NOW!

[lin_10720]

eBay are *bleep*ers .. Craigslist is the way to go