Sounds to me like a misunderstanding regarding two things:
1) The whole auction continues for another 15 minutes whenever a bid is placed on any item in the entire auction.
In other words, if you're watching one specific lot, the timer could very well reset over and over without you seeing any bids come in for that one lot, simply because other lots in the auction are receiving bids. The software does have a sort filter that allows you to see which items have received the most recent bids. If you refresh that search over and over, you will see which items are being bid on, resulting in the clock being extended for ALL items in the auction.
2) If you didn't bid on a particular lot prior to Extended Bidding, you cannot bid on that item after Extended Bidding has begun, no matter if the entire auction is still live or not.
From what I'm reading above, Eric and/or his compadres were expecting to see individual 15-minute timers on each lot counting down to zero, and were confused as to why the clock was resetting without the lot(s) they were watching having received any bids.
There may also have been some frustration with not being able to bid on a lot(s) that they saw as still being "live," but which they were locked out of bidding on due to not having bid on them prior to Extended Bidding. I'm basing this on Eric's comments above about not being able to bid, though this does not appear to have been communicated in his e-mails to Ken that were posted above.
I will also add that I bid on several lots in the auction, both prior to and after Extended Bidding, and had no problems doing so. In all of the post-Extended Bidding bid cases though, I had bid on those lots prior to Extended Bidding as well, so my lack of problems appears to have been a result of not trying to buck the system. Other than that, I don't have a dog in this fight, but get frustrated myself when I see problems and accusations arise from what appear to be simple misunderstandings.
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