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..

[davisondevelopments]

Noticed that as well. !!! Where is our ombudsman?

[davisondevelopments]

But you will lose out if you are not on the bidding page time, so ?

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

Ebay are unregulated in the UK.

[jpa61]

I find that the time remaining has some flaws, I resolve this by

first opening time and date webpage, change the time on your computer to exactly match  T&D site

Check the time the listing actually finishes

Open 4 tabs for the listing, the bids, the submit bid and two of the listing

Keep refreshing all pages with F5 key until they are in sync

Double check by pressing bid on one of the two listing

Keep refreshing and comparing to time and date site

Bid when you are ready

Bear in mind that others may be doing the same thing, so having a second bid page ready to rapidly enter a bid is an option.

eBay will tell you that using an automated bid guarantees you pay no more than your maximum, but to me it encourages others to bid, I work out who are the players and what the max recent sale is and I set my amount.  If I lose then there will be another one along soon enough.

[rotay-168236]

Because its an auction ! Whats the point it putting down the maximum amount Im willing to pay straight away ???????? An auction takes time and patience and skill .What the lady is writing about is ebay CHEATING ! violating its promises to customers .

[bromley2008]

Really? Go all through that process to bid in an auction?

No, no and no!

This alone shows that Ebay have created a system that dishonest and cheating buyers and sellers alike. 

It never was for years like this until they changed it. And don't get me started on the 3 preset options you are now given to beat the bids in the last seconds,  is that an auction or a form of gambling once someone is in the moment. 

[myriad*seller]

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@rotay-168236 wrote:

Because its an auction ! Whats the point it putting down the maximum amount Im willing to pay straight away ???????? An auction takes time and patience and skill .What the lady is writing about is ebay CHEATING ! violating its promises to customers .

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Bidders in real life auctions houses do it all the time

It is called proxy bidding

Ever seen an auctioneer add proxy bids during a live auction?

eBay is exactly that, you place a proxy bid and eBay does the bidding for you up to your maximum bid. 

Proxy bidding is used both on eBay and in real life auction houses, and yes, the bidder places one MAXIMUM bid and the auctioneer/eBay do the bidding for you. 

Simple, and not sure where you get the idea this is cheating? Proxy bidding has been used for hundreds of years at real-life auction houses

[myriad*seller]

eBay has ALWAYS used the proxy bidding system

It seems you do not understand it, so are badmouthing it rather than educating yourself about what proxy bidding is....

As I said, it has been in use for a long time in auction houses where bidders cannot be in the sale room or choose not to bid openly during the auction. 

[bromley2008]

I wish you would educate yourself and read and understand what this thread is all about!

So in the hundereds of years of poxy bidding as you call, WHEN did an auction house AFTER  the auction has ended, suddenly restarted the auction and stop the previous winning bid from winning because it allowed the auction to rerun for a period of time after the hammer went DOWN!????

So how about you stop bad mouthing people that UNDERSTAND what has been taking place and get your facts right before you bad mouth loads and loads of very experiecnecd Ebay bidders who had previously bid for years without this issue!

[*devils.advocate*]

If I were to list an auction item just now, the time the auction starts is shown (to me as the seller) as 07.38.41 PM GMT.

If someone were to bid on my item, throughout all the bidding screens all that person will be shown as an end time is 07.38 - they won’t see that there are actually 41 seconds still to go - they seconds are omitted from the bidding screens.

Why?

Only eBay know - and, anyway, it’s a damned silly idea.

There’s always then the possibility of another bid just after a person bids and thinks they’ve won.

As said, it’s a damned silly idea.

[bcstampsuk]

I list 100s of auctions every month, auction end times are set by eBay on listing generation and this end time never changes. When my system generates a listing through the eBay API it stores auction end time (to the second) in its database (for integration with our backend software) so any kind of "auction extension" would be super obvious as it would cause all sorts of weird behaviour in my sytem.

Bidders are clearly being shown an incorrect time remaining in some instances and also sometimes seeing erroneous syncing won/lost/outbid behaviour at auction end - my friend had this happen bidding on her iPhone a few weeks ago. I suspect this is multiple different eBay glitches on various platforms / browsers / devices, but the end time of auctions are not being changed. If you click a live auction bid history you can work out the exact ending time to the second by looking at "starting price" entry. My auction tomorrow shows:

Starting price £1.50 20 Jan 2024 at 8:00:39pm GMT

Its a 10 day auction so this auction will end - 30 Jan 2024 at 8:00:39pm GMT - the only time this is out is when listings straddle the daylight saving change when it will be exactly 1 hour earlier or later.

If you report to eBay support that auction end times are being changed then I don't think anything will be done because technical support know this can't happen. If you report that you were shown an incorrect auction time remaining and give details on what eBay platform etc then the glitches might get looked at 🤞

[tresoweshillbilly]

ha over a year and half since i chipped in on this one, all well for a bit.timers were  fine ..i always jiggle screen to show both my bid countdown timer and actual auction end time.

       came to bid tonite   lo and behold they are out of sync again with bid timer closing  2 secs ahead of actual auction end , .anyone else noticed this ?

               very confusing / annoying surely you need to be able to bid even in last sec of auction thats properly run ?

[bromley2008]

I can't remember the last time I used Ebay let alone even waste my time bidding.
Ebay got to successful for its own good and don't give a flying hoot about customer satisfaction. So I bid with my wallet and do most of my business elsewhere whenever I can.

Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[a45heaven]

Its ebay - do you really have expectations of a quality experience awaiting you these days ?

Them that do (or more accurately do not) do not listen and couldn't care less.

[eburtonlab]

lo and behold they are out of sync again with bid timer closing 2 secs ahead of actual auction end , .anyone else noticed this ?

If your auction countdown is not behaving correctly, check to make sure your computer's time is set correctly, and the date and time are synchronized with an internet time server such as time.windows.com or time.gov.

Check your computer's time here:

https://time.is/

If your computer's time is ahead or behind -- even by just a few seconds -- that can affect the countdown you see when bidding, and you likely will have problems bidding in the last few seconds of an auction because of this.

[a45heaven]

Whilst this may or may not work for the individual who is looking on this board due to being affected by this LONG TERM ebay problem, just how is this remedy to be communicated to all potential bidders who may participate in the sellers auctions?

What ever caused the problem is something that occurred in the fairly recent past, dare i say probably due to little fingers messing around from a paid ebay employee?

We pay ebay for a platform to sell on , this fault causes concern over credibility of the specific auction - surely the responsibility lies with ebay to solve this issue - fit for purpose?

[proudandmary]

Well just lost what would have been the winning bid to find that eBay UK bid clock is not fit for purpose. I would have thought it would be a real time count down but it isn't. I refreshed the item page, put my confirm bid £180 in at 2 - 3 seconds to go only to find it had just ended at a winning bid of £137 , unbelievable. Been waiting all night for this item and then this happens. I had an earlier bid in place around the £134 mark till l was outbid by someone with (1) feedback which always makes me wonder if there's shilling going on. So upon eBay's community advice forums on shilling , put the bid in late to avoid that scenario to be greeted with the above scenario. Sorry but this is just unacceptable and although probably f-@ll will be done about both scenarios, this is probably just yet another warning to eBay UK buyers to be aware of this situation. If an actual rep for eBay could come on please and address the issues raised lt would be interesting to see the response. Yours Mr not very happy at all with it.

[proudandmary]

And low and behold, surprise surprise the item has literally just been relisted. If that isn't shilling I don't know what is . So in theory l should have won the auction with the earlier bid. Can eBay UK look into this please as I've taken a screenshot of blatant shilling going on , this is supposed to be 'illegal' and against eBay terms and conditions.  

[gasheff53]

They are tinkering alright! It did it twice on me. Plus, I think the outbidder is seeing a message to bid more than the top bidder max amount!  I lost an auction with 5 seconds to go, one bidder had sent it to £58. The winner outbid me by £2 taking it to £92. Mine was a bid placed long before the end.  And why £92, not £91.

I am seriously considering quitting E-Bay.  Or just sticking to buy it now or best offer deals.

BLOODY CON.

[eburtonlab]

@gasheff53 

The winner outbid me by £2 taking it to £92. Mine was a bid placed long before the end. And why £92, not £91.

The bid increment for bids between £60 and £149.99 is £2, so you do not know how much the winner actually bid, just that it was at least £92.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/buying/bidding/automatic-bidding?id=4014

If your auction countdown is not working correctly, make sure your computer's clock is synchronized to an online time source such as time.gov or time.windows.com.

Check to see if your clock is ahead or behind here:

https://time.is/

If you clock is ahead or behind by even just a few seconds, that can affect your ability to place a bid in the last few seconds of an auction.