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..

[gasheff53]

So it's Google's fault now. Not E-bay!

[prutt1]

"ebay don't care, even Mentors don't  respond to this topic"

Because the solution has been posted many times already, it's just not been stickied. 

To everyone:

For Windows - before you bid:

Click the clock in the bottom right corner of the desktop.

Click "Change date and time settings".

Click "Internet time".

Click "Change settings"

Ensure "Synchronize with an interet time server" is ticked.

Pick a server from the drop down menu.

Click "Update now"

OK out of the options.

[a45heaven]

Because the solution has been posted many times already, it's just not been stickied. 

Could you please forward these instructions to each and every potential bidder.

No ? I wonder why not ?

You are suggesting sellers relay this to all potential buyers who have complained about the issue.

Or , maybe the platform who get paid ( and paid very well) to operate a working  process to encourage buying and selling on it, should address the issue where the problem lies - this is a relatively new problem, so something has changed somewhere.

[prutt1]

"You are suggesting sellers relay this to all potential buyers who have complained about the issue."

Did I? Where?

The answer is in the thread.  Several people have posted the solution, not just me. They should have stickied it, but they haven't, so we help each other. 

And it's not recent, the first post is almost 2 1/2 years old. Most people have found the solution themselves, or picked it up in this thread. I think I've posted it about 4 times now.  The last time  was just 2 pages back. Try reading back past the most recent page next time.

[myriad*seller]

---

@etradingonline wrote:

Same here. Everytime I place a bid around the last 4-5 seconds the clock behaves funny and I keep losing items. Now I have to place bid around 30-40 seonds before the end of auction at much higher a price. Ebay are taking liberties. I think ebay are trying to force buyers to buy snipe sofware which is owned by ebay or they are in partnership with the software owner. Another extra income for ebay at the expense of the buyers.

---

Sniping sites are free...

[a45heaven]

 the first post is almost 2 1/2 years old. 

Doesn't time fly when you are struggling - i cant seem to see ebays response to this - 2 1/2 years ago would have been pre  Mentors wouldnt it?

Yes ive read about solutions to an individual PC - but how about potential  bidders? These boards rarely reach that audience. I still struggle to understand why each and every person must accommodate for the problem, when ebay probably have the answer.

[a45heaven]

Sniping sites are free...

and ebay get paid to maintain a functional platform.

[tresoweshillbilly]

your right iv had that several times only way is not even to enter bid in first box until very last seconds then confirm straight away.i distrust the true anonymity of first bid box (even tho u havnt actually confirmed bid at that point.)

  i think once you enter amount in first place bid box other bidders may get the your bid isnt high enough message thus it goes up to your max bid.

      of course it could just be mysterious bidders are appearing in last seconds and bidding just a fraction lower than your top bid .

  overall like you i just completely distrust this platform now for buying ,the bidding on last item i purchased was all over the place with a mysterious bid doubling price of item up to a couple of pence below my exact top bid

[juicylucy53]

Hi, thanks so much for your reply, I appreciate it - yes, I think you are spot on!!! I also resorted to doing as you do, however, now I’ve given up and hardly ever bid, I just purchase or put an offer on an item. Unless I desperately want something, no more bidding for me!! Take care friend
Sent from my iPhone

[bromley2008]

Yep! That's what has been happening for almost 3 years now. It never ever did before that. So it was software designed into the eBay system.

This was only done to allow for more profit by driving up the prices.

All this synchronise your pc with ebay timings is a load of old testicles. No other platform like this needs to be set up to use.

But ebay are paying the price for it, ie the no fee to sell now!

Won't be to long before people first choice will be to buy elsewhere.



Sent from Outlook for Android<>

[titnob]

This has just happened to me but a whole minute. It's disgusting to treat it's members . They've made thousands out of my sales only to do this when I purchase .

[shammyjack]

Muppets like you that use Windows instead of Linux which never has this glitch and don't bother to keep their PC or other updated enable me to snipe lots of items at 99P !

THANKYOU !

[president_slush]

I think it's just bad coding.  ebay is so huge now that the programmers don't know what other parts of the site are invested in the bits that they are tinkering with.

I just bid on an auction that was timed to end in 6 minutes.  The bid wasn't enough but still time to reconsider a new bid.  The countdown was showing 1.30 minutes but was jumping around all over the place, adding and subtracting extra seconds at random.  But the auction listing said 22.26, and the time was currently 22.20.  I went to fill a kettle.  Came back to find the auction finished and the countdown timer saying in red 'ends in'.  and that was it.  Ends in what? - didn't say.

Meanwhile the listing still stated that the auction was timed to finish at 22.26, and looking across at ebay time it was  22.23 at that moment.  Just completely nuts.  This was on the main listing page, not the bidding window.

At one point things used to work, but that was at least 3 years ago and nobody at ebay seems like they are in a hurry to fix things.

[sexloft]

I've had this happen to me a few times over the last few months.

[prutt1]

In case this doesn't get to you via email

I agree. I said it in one of my earlier comments on the issue. They must know but until the cost of fixing it is less than the cost of doing nothing, things will remain as they are.

The fix is to link the computer clock to internet time. It's in the clock settings. Just go to internet time, change settings, pick a server. Do that 5 minutes before the item ends and you're good to go. And don't have other things running during those last 5 minutes. 

[president_slush]

Thanks, I will do that!

[paper-lanterns]

I recently won an auction with a bid placed 10 seconds before the end of the auction. At that point there was only 2 bids, both mine (I bid the minimum amount when items first list, just so I get reminders etc, or if I forget to bid last minute) and when the auction ended but before the You Won came up, there was still only 2 bids ( not bidders ) but afterwards when the PAY now came up and I had won, low and behold, my 2nd bid with the higher amount was the winner, and now a second bidder was shown to have made 2 bids that upped the price. My winning bid had a time at the side of 6:49:06pm, now I confirmed with 10 seconds to the end of auction, so that would suggest an end time of 6:49:16pm. BUT the second bidder had placed 2 bids with times of 6:49:41pm and 6:49.45pm, both seemingly AFTER the end of the auction. Yet whilst the clock was ticking down to zero, no other price changes occurred, so I was still winning at that point with the lowest original bid of £5. Only after everything ended did the new price I won appear. 
I am rather puzzled as to how, when I bid 10 seconds to the end, and my bid was 6:49:06pm the Auction end  time is now 6:49:46pm, some 30 seconds later than the expected end time.
How 'fortunate' for the other bidder that they got their bid in with 1 second to go, and just missing out on actually winning, by £1. But upping the price I now have to pay by £15 !

In all the years I have been on Ebay, this is the first time this has happened. Oh, I have been outbid a fair few times at the last second, maybe someone was braver than me and left it until 4 or 5 seconds to put a bid in, and I accept that is the risk.
But what happened tonight is a whole new ball game.
Just curious to know if others have had something similar haoppen to them.

[eburtonlab]

@paper-lanterns 

Bidding ends a set number of days after the auction started down to the exact second. Bids are accepted so long as a bid for a valid amount is received by eBay's server before the auction ends, even if those bids are not displayed on individual bidders' pages around the world until a few seconds later.

eBay does not extend bidding. Once you have bid your maximum, bid extensions can not help you, only hurt you.

For some unknown reason eBay no longer displays the ending time to the second at the top of the bid history page, but if there are any bids you should be able to calculate the actual ending time by examining the starting time of the auction at the bottom of the page. Auctions always begin and end at the same time down to the exact second, unless the auction is ended early by the seller. All bidders have the same time to place valid bids, and no one gets any extra time. eBay time stamps every bid as it is received by eBay, and the times are displayed to the second in the bid history if you use a desktop browser.

If you think you have encountered an auction where a bid was accepted after the end of the auction, examine the starting time closely and compare it to the time the bid was received and you should find that the bid was received before the auction actually ended. If not, please post an item number so that others can see it.

If you bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay (taking into account any shipping or taxes) then the only way you can lose is if someone is willing to bid more than you were and actually does so, or if someone bid the same exact amount, earlier.

No one can count on having the last bid, and bidders should assume that other bids will be placed at the end of the auction too late to be reacted to, and set their bids accordingly. Note that the countdown displayed on your device and the bids you see are not updated in real time, and just because you did not see any other bids when your clock reaches zero does not mean that eBay did not receive other bids at the last moment.

You have not won until the page refreshes and you see a note indicating that you have been declared the winner and you see a link to pay or your payment is take automatically. A note indicating you are the high bidder issued while the auction is still ongoing is not the same as being declared the winner by eBay after the auction has ended.

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

Check your computer's time here:

https://time.is/

[paper-lanterns]

The time that the auction ended was indeed the same as when it was listed etc.

In this case 6:49:46pm

So the other bidder bid within the auction end time, with bids at 6:49:41pm and 6:49:45pm.

What I am saying is, that when I placed my second, higher bid, the countdown clock to the end of the auction was showing there was only 10 seconds to go, ie it would be 6:49:36pm. And in that 10 seconds, there was no change in the auction price to indicate another bidder had entered the fray. In reality they could hav outbid me, and I would not have even had a chance to bid again, as I would not even know I had been outbid as it did not update anything.
When the auction was over and it said PAY NOW, that was the first I knew there had been another bidder, and the price that I now had to pay had gone up.

When checking the Auction Bid History, the winning bid, and the time it was placed was shown as being placed at 6:49:06pm. Which would make it that I placed my second higher bid 40 seconds before the end of the auction, when in actual fact, using Ebays own countdown clock, it was 10 seconds until the auction was set to end.

I have checked the time on my PC with the link you suggested, my clock is 0.3 seconds faster than the time shown in the link. Close enough for me!
So Ebays clock must be like bus times, just turn up when they want to.
Or next time, let it hit zero, then count another 20 seconds and hit CONFIRM my bid should do the trick, haha.

All my previous late bids have gone through at the correct time before the auction ended, ie around the 5 or 6 second mark. So previous to this latest auction win, the Ebay clock and countdown clock etc, were behaving themselves and actually did end after the number of seconds I left it till before bidding.
As I say, just puzzled by the descrepency in the auction timings on this occassion.
As saying I bid 40 seconds before the end instead of 10 seconds is a huge amount of time, plenty of time for someone to out bid you, or even for you to place a new bid. But if it does not show the correct, accurate time then you are pretty much doomed from playing the 'last seconds bid' game.
Or is that what Ebay are aiming to do away with ?

[tresoweshillbilly]

arghh having chipped in on these posts in the past couple of years iv mainly had things behaving as they should . the clock issue iv been aware of but no internet time update has got closer than 2 secs to ebays clock .

                                    anyway having bid with 1 sec to go and getting  the youv won this auction message as auction ended . the whole thing jumps adding  another bid 4 secs after original end  time where id already been confirmed as winner . ?

                                 it makes things interesting, and at end of day for me fortunately  it is just fun last second bidding whatever the outcome.