Gavelsnipe Question

[Cozumeleno]

Unfortunately, I finally was burned by Gavelsnipe yesterday as it failed to bid on several items for me. It was a little disappointing, but nothing that I really needed.

Quick question - the lots I missed out on all ended within a couple of minutes of each other. Mostly, they ended only a few seconds apart and there were a bunch. Does Gavelsnipe have any known issues with such situations when it has to place numerous bids that close together or was that just a fluke? I've used the site to win hundreds of items before with no prior issues but can't remember if there were similar instances like this one for me where there were a bunch of items all ending in a row like that.

[mybuddyinc]

Gavelsnipe has never fail me, sorry it dropped the ball on you.

Think it's just an unfortunate fluke. Can't imagine close together ending times has much to do with their program. But my computer knowledge is limited, at best

[CW]

I don't usually have multiple snipes going off at the same time, but I have never heard of that being an issue before (and the software should handle it).

What may be the issue is if you have a somewhat simpler eBay password, then eBay may be asking for a "captcha code" when gavelsnipe goes to execute the snipe. Because they cannot enter the extra code, your snipe fails. One way to possibly fix this is to create a new eBay password that is more complicated (eg. with capital letters and characters like #$%@, etc.). Be sure to enter your new password into the gavelsnipe site as well! This should prevent eBay from asking for a captcha code.

I cannot confirm this works, but I have heard it's a possible solution so you don't miss out on snipes in the future

[wolf441]

That's odd, Gavelsnipe failed on me as well on Sunday night for the first time ever. An item sold for about $75 and I had a placed a ceiling of about $115. I've had about 300 successful snipes, so no real complaints.

[Luke]

Happened to me on Sunday as well. For 3 items all ending at about the same time. I wanted one of them very badly and would have almost certainly won

[D. Bergin]

Wonderful. Whenever I seem to go through a round of auctions with no snipe bids in the last seconds, it's usually always followed by direct evidence Ebay has blocked various snipe programs from placing bids.

[ooo-ribay]

Maybe this (as CW mentioned), although it's odd that multiple snipes failed. There was a definite CAPTCHA issue a while back but they resolved it.



My snipe failed to execute. What happened?

GavelSnipe may encounter problems on an auction site that can cause a snipe to fail to execute. Network delays and server timeouts can cause the sign in page or bidding page to not respond. GavelSnipe is designed to continue attempts to sign in and bid during the user-defined snipe buffer until a bid is placed or the auction ends.

eBay has security measures in place to detect weak passwords. This security measure can cause your snipe to fail because the eBay log in process is interrupted by the weak password notification. Click here for tips on creating a secure eBay password.

eBay randomly uses captcha verification codes. These codes require human intervention to proceed with the sign-in/bidding process. Captcha verification codes will cause a snipe to fail because GavelSnipe is unable to sign in and bid.

[ooo-ribay]

It happened to me last night on a Giants pin I had never seen before It seems like last time there were issues, they also happened on Sunday nights.

[bobbyw8469]

Whatever happened to good old fashioned bidding?? I know people try to win stuff as cheaply as possible, but what happened when a one of a kind item comes around and your 3 second snipe doesn't go as planned?? Then you are kicking yourself for missing out. Just a thought......

[Cozumeleno]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

It happened to me last night on a Giants pin I had never seen before It seems like last time there were issues, they also happened on Sunday nights.

Yeah, I hadn't planned to update this again but since you mention it ...

Something's definitely up with my account, anyway. My eBay password has not changed, and it missed two snipes for me on Sunday. Ironically, the snipe on the item I wanted the least was executed, so it appears to be an on/off thing. Last night, I tried a test one and that failed, too. Will have to email them and see what the issue is.

[ooo-ribay]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

Whatever happened to good old fashioned bidding?? I know people try to win stuff as cheaply as possible, but what happened when a one of a kind item comes around and your 3 second snipe doesn't go as planned?? Then you are kicking yourself for missing out. Just a thought......

Old fashioned bidding was about to ruin my marriage

You make a good point, though. I recently won my Holy Grail and if that snipe had failed, I would have been very, very bummed. My next "must have" item may be manually bid on.....especially if it's on a Sunday night.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ooo-ribay

Old fashioned bidding was about to ruin my marriage

You make a good point, though. I recently won my Holy Grail and if that snipe had failed, I would have been very, very bummed. My next "must have" item may be manually bid on.....especially if it's on a Sunday night.

I have used Gavelsnipe for years and it has worked great 99.9% of the time. Since there is the .1% when something goes awry, if it is something I don't think I can live without I will put the snipe in as a backup.....and then let the adrenaline take over and manually bid.

[ALR-bishop]

Leon-- how many items have you come across on eBay that you could not live without ?

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ALR-bishop

Leon-- how many items have you come across on eBay that you could not live without ?

A decade and a half ago there were tons of things on the bay that were great, though I guess technically I could live without any of them. Some of my favorite items came from ebay. This E221 Bishops Team card with Buck Weaver was sold on there by Mike Berkus, one of the founders of the National Sports Collectors Convention (RIP),( for those who might not know). There were many carfds of similar quality over the years. And nowadays with the big ebay players getting solid results on expensive items, it seems the bay's mojo has come back a little bit. It will never be the way it used to be, but is anything? This isn't mine anymore....

[Cozumeleno]

Wanted to update this since I believe I found the problem - and it wasn't my eBay password.

I changed my snipe time to bid from ten seconds left to 20 seconds. I looked at my settings and realized it said that bids placed within a time with less than 20 seconds left were not guaranteed to go through. I believed this threshold was previously ten seconds so that's what I had been using.

I set a few snipes on items I wanted but didn't particularly care about as a test after changing to 20 seconds and they all went through successfully. Hopefully that might help others having any problems as well.

[irv]

I am curious how this would work, if, just say for instance, those that have commented here in this post all used the same service and all used it to bid on a particular card they all wanted, who would win?

I assume the person who put the highest max $$ on would, but with the crazy amount of bids I sometimes see in the dying seconds of an auction, does the guy who was willing to bid the most always win?

[Stonepony]

If yours is the highest bid, and it exceeds Ebays bidding increment, you will win. That is provided the bid goes thru.