Failed to Snipe When Snipe Was $50 Over Winning Bid

[garlaen]

I had a snipe that was supposed to fire last night however it didn't even though my snipe was $56.48 over the winning bid. Gixen's reasoning was "BID UNDER ASKING PRICE" and then gave me the "Why did I lose this auction?" link.

The only thing I can think of is that someone had a bid higher than my snipe from a 2nd account and retracted it so that their primary account could win the auction at a very good deal. I think I've seen a forum post about this...

If the above is most likely the case is there a way a message could be added to Gixen that at the time of the snipe the current auction price was higher than the snipe. This way we can see this happening.

My snipes are set to four (4) seconds. Should I set it lower?

[garlaen]

eBay item number in question: 203652530293

[garlaen]

Okay, so I started looking at the item closer and I did not realize that an item's bidding history shows retracted bids... so there as a retracted bid on the item 30 minutes after it was placed ONE (1) second before the item ended. That is some serious lack of margin for error.

So the scenario I posed is most likely what happened. Which is unfortunate as I'm not sure there's a way to beat a one (1) second bid retraction.

[Cupid]

Yes, it's a clear case of bid shielding.

Gixen does now attempt to place a last second bid in these circumstances, however when there's only one second between retraction and auction end it's going to be difficult even for an automated system to be able to get into that tiny slot.

The practice is against Ebay rules so you should consider reporting it both to them and to the seller.

Of course, had your bid been successfully placed in the last second, you still would not have won, since the winning bid was also evidently higher than yours. that's fundamental as to how this fraudulent behaviour works, but at least it would have caused the winner to have to pay a bit more for it.
_________________
Mark

[Gixen]