I said I was live on the auction. I saw my snipe didn't go through but decided not to bid in the last 2-3 seconds. When I have the time, I always bid live.

Bobby and I'm sure many others definitely left money on the table through no fault of their own and it sucks for them. I'm sure most all of them will honor their sales, since I don't really see an alternative.

I won a few items for what I thought were very good prices, however do wonder now if they were affected by this.

Ebay actually condones sniping. They tell you as a seller that all of the bids come in the final seconds. Trust me, as a seller it is nerve wracking. To see an item that is worth x amount be only a fraction of that with mere seconds to go. If anything, this will help speed up the death of the 99 cent auction for the small seller. The only two people that will be left will be Probstein and PWCC for 99 cent auctions. And both of those sellers have their own different problems that I won't get into here because they have been rehashed to death elsewhere.

I was trying to be a different type of seller than those two. By bringing back the 99 cent auction WITHOUT some of the issues that plague those two gentlemen. I'm going to do some soul searching to see if I want to go down that route.

Too many people complain about the lack of auctions and the overabundance appearance of overpriced BIN's that plague Ebay. Most sellers have had a little help, namely the ineffective bumbling by Ebay themselves, in regards to why the auctions are disappearing with bloated BINs in their wake.

Obviously there isn't much that can be done and I am not one to let things bother me for too long, but I agree in that for larger dollar items I don't think I will be doing straight auctions if at all, and I usually do quite a few a week. The chance of an outage, error, something else happening and preventing the last second or snipe bids is just too risky. For fun I am going to go through some of the high end items that ended on straight auctions last night and see what else was picked up for a good price.

As an aside from the snipe issue which is frustrating... I understand the frustration but I fail to see "death" of the 99 cent auction. Ebay receives more eyes from the public than any other auction site. Generally speaking a 99 cent auction that lasts 7 days should sell at close to a true market value. The fact that sellers want more is irrelevant. Sports cards have almost always been a margins collectible. If a seller feels that the auction prices that cards are realizing aren't enough, then either they need to find a new business venture or sell for above market BIN's that will likely languish for months/years. Either way, nobody wins.

That is all good and all, and I agree that a collectible should sell close to market value, but we have an issue here that needs to be addressed. ALOT of people snipe, especially on higher dollar, rarer cards. It hides two facets. #1 - It doesn't alert anyone that they are interested in the item until the very end. #2 - it allows them to win items on the cheap. When Ebay is restricting these snipes from coming through, then we have items selling a lot cheaper than they normally would.

If Ebay is "crashing", or doing something that is limiting these last second bids from coming through, then that is very much a problem for sellers/consignors. These items are selling for only a fraction of their market value. No different than stealing.

I agree that crashing and software issues need to be addressed. If the software (as in this case) doesn't work then the seller is getting hosed and I have no qualms with the seller being ticked off.

Having said that, it seems many sellers lately generally complain about low selling prices which just seems like sour grapes.

Personally, I think the selling prices for straight auction items...good items that attract a lot of attention, is still pretty strong. Some go a little less than expected, some a little more, but it evens it out in the long run and it guarantees a sale that week. The issue isn't with prices received in a straight, start at 99 cent auctions when bids are received, at least for me, it was having items end for lower than expected...and then getting messages from folks that their snipes did not go through and they would have bid significantly more. And yes, I did have a reserve on some larger items, but with the exception of snipes, reserve auctions typically do not generate the same amount of interest or bidders. The last minute snipes might be similar, but not usually the ongoing bidding...which one again is an issue if the snipes are rejected.

I don't understand the disgust directed at people that use a sniping service. I got tired of constantly being outbid by $1 at the last second and decided to try a free snipe service. I could just as easily set a maximum bid on ebay, and I wouldn't be sitting there punching buttons to bid. Whether I bid in person or via a snipe I AM BIDDING. So what's the problem?

Snipe bids can serve a good purpose (not allowing for shill bidding), but there is no difference to putting in a bid with five seconds to go at your maximum compared to setting a snipe. The main problem, IMO, is expecting a free third-party site to be 100% reliable when working with a huge engine like eBay.

I don't have a problem being outbid by a snipe bid, because it just means that someone else was willing to pay more than I was. If there's an auction I care about, I'm there when it ends (especially now that I have a smartphone with the eBay app).

I don't think there is anything wrong at all with the concept of sniping. In a lot of cases, it probably allows bids to come in that might otherwise be forgotten or if you didn't want to bid early and weren't able to be sitting right at the computer at auction. I don't personally use a snipe serice, but if I did there probably would have been a few more items I would win, and a better price for the sellers. But if a snipe service in not reliable then it can cause issues for both buyer and seller. Perhaps ebay is planning to put together an in house snipe feature.

+1!!!!

And to all those buyers in this thread that don't have any empathy or that don't understand what this means...if this isn't fixed or becomes the norm, many sellers will no longer use eBay for auctions and everything will be either a BIN or have reserves placed on them. eBay has allowed sniping programs for as long as I can remember and it has been an integral part of the auction process for both sellers and buyers.

Jeff

I guess a lot of us can't remember what it was like before sniping services. Before sniping, I would have evenings where my internet would slow down to a crawl, or go down completely. I still have those issues at times - I'm currently at a coffee shop because there is something wrong with my connection at home. With snipes, I am much more confident that my bid will occur. Sellers should like that.

I can remember ten years ago, having ebay members contact me the day after an auction and tell me that their computer crashed and they were unable to bid on my items. I'm sure I left a lot of money on the table because of things like that. Let my customers snipe away.

I receive ebay email notifications on items I am interested in. I usually miss bidding in the final moments of an auction because old cards & collectibles are not the #1 priority in my life. This thread prompted me to finally sign up with one of the snipe sights mentioned in this thread. This way when I get an alert I can set the bid and forget about it. Seems like a time saving efficency measure that makes sense for my limited time in following and bidding on items.
I fault ebay for a lot and have many issues with them but I don't believe they would intentionally have bids and higher prices not occur, unless their in house snipe feature is about to be unleashed.
In the past the more I bid long before an auction closes the greater the chance I don't win. When I only bid at the last moment my chances increase.
I'm 10 years behind signing up! I wonder what percent of folks here use a sniping service.

The vast majority but we will see....maybe I am wrong....- yeap, I was wrong. I am surprised :)

I can confirm Bobby left money on the table on his Williams. I had a snipe in at $850 that didn't fire off. I originally had it at $900, but lowered it in the last hour based on winning some elsewhere. I wasn't aggressively pursuing the Williams, but set my snipe at that amount because it would've been a really good deal at that price.. Especially knowing it had gone for about $1050 at JVAC weeks prior.

My specific snipe wouldn't have yielded a huge difference in end price, but I've gotta think there was a least one more person (maybe a few) that had higher snipe bids at the ready.

I do not think eBay would want to block these because that leaves money on the table actress the board. I agree with the other poster that said the problem lies with fully relying on a 3rd party service (hence I manually bid whenever I can). That said, looks to me like it was an eBay issue since Gavelsnipe was not the only one that couldn't get bids through on Sunday.

I also agree with Bobby in that I think this Sunday's low prices will have at least some effect on value. Given how commonly used CardTarget and VCP are, I think people will be more apt to wait to get an $800-$850 Williams as opposed to spending $1100+. I understand the concept of each bidder "paying what it's worth to them" but most/all worth is perceived and a large part of that perception is based on past sales history. Think this is especially true on cards that are pretty regularly available. For cards like these, people are more willing to wait until the next one comes along.

IMO these low prices were probably aberrations based on snipe issue, and will eventually correct themselves, but if you get even one bidder to back off a current auction and/or lower his max due to a lower recent sale price, the card is effectively worth less.

I don't use sniping services, they are frustrating though I am not against them as I both buy and sell. I don't use them because I would buy a lot more if I did. Being forced to make a decision at the end of an auction, or care enough to be there has kept me out of spending more, so if I'm there, it's because I really want the item.

Missed hundreds of dollars in bid today with bidding scheduler. Is there a fix?

I am not positive but have been reading about it more today. It appears it may be be an issue with the serice trying to log in to ebay to bid with a password that is not deemed strong enough...perhaps if you have a password that is rather simple for ebay, to change it to something more complicated and then update it. Worth a try.

If this issue is still ongoing, it has to make sellers seriously reconsider how you sell on eBay. Or perhaps you just go elsewhere.

Generally speaking, eBay takes 10% and Paypal is another 2.9%. Depending on what you are selling, I have to believe a lot of auction houses can beat that price.

eBay should just do this in house as an added feature.

Adding- that being said, bidding would probably devolve into 10-15 last second snipes... Though I expect it will eventually do so anyway, as more people discover sniping services. There have gotta be other combos that can help keep auctions alive, like the Japanese example given, or AH type extended bidding, possibly larger bid increments that would incentivize locking in the price you want early.

I'm calling Ebay tonight about it. So far, to my knowledge, they haven't acknowledged any outage.

Hold time has been around one hour now.

Well...that was interesting. Not sure what to make of that. I do hope that Ebay has their glitch fixed, and will allow the snipers to start bidding again. I know several members hate them, but I for one, welcome them with open arms!

Hi Bobby, would be curious to hear if eBay had any comments about this when you spoke to them. I would assume it is just security/password related, but I have learned not to assume too much regarding that. I can't imagine they would intentionally not want bids to come in, as it takes money out of their pocket as well...unless like I mentioned earlier it has something to do with an upcoming, in house snipe service of some kind.

Well...Ebay recommended that I just give the guy his money back, and get my FVF's back. They said he can't neg me cause he will have been refunded. Seems odd to me.

Here is a story with a moral related to this incident:

Along time ago, I used to hang with a pretty interesting crowd. Bookies and gamblers. If you have ever seen the movie A Bronx Tale, that is really close to the crowd. We even had our own version of Eddie Mush. You could have made a small fortune just betting against the man.

Anyway, one of the gamblers was named Big Frank. Not because of his size of his stature, but the size of his bets. He would routinely play between $500-$2,000 per game, and bet the games he did. A lot. He didn't just pick one or two. He would bet the board. Maybe skip a game here or there, but it was not unusual for him to be 30-50 games per day.

One day Frank bet a total on a baseball game. For those of you who don't know about sports betting, not only can you pick which side to win, you can also pick whether the total runs score will be over or under a certain total. For this particular game, the total was 11. Big Frank bet the over for a dime or more. I don't remember the exact number, but it was big.

The score was tied 4-4 in extra innings, with the home team batting. I believe if the home team won, they were in the wildcard game for the playoffs. Anyway, the bases were loaded, two outs, bottom of the 13th or so. The guy at the plate hits a grand slam!!!! Game over. Big Frank wins the over, 8-4 with a total of 12. Or so he thought. Fans jumped onto the field to give the players hive fives and pat their backs as they were rounding the bases. The ump made a ruling. Players out. Instead of the home team winning 8-4, the final official score was 5-4. They only let the batters run count. Big Frank was livid!

When it came time to settle up, Big Frank told the bookie "I won this bet. I don't care what the ruling is. I am not going to pay you, you are going to pay me!" The bookie paid Big Frank that amount that was wagered on that game.

This incident about the failed snipes made me think of that story.

Not only is that odd, but it is completely inaccurate, at least as far as anything "automatic" that would happen. I suppose an eBay rep could divinely intervene to make those events come about, but that is definitely not standard operating procedure.

Standard would be you refund his payment, submit to have the transaction cancelled (to get the FVF's back), he denies the request saying he still wants the card, and then whether you complete the transaction or not, he leaves you a neg.

Yeah, I wouldn't believe a word that CS operator, or just about any Ebay CS person at this point.

That whole outfit is drowning in their own stupidity right about now.

I hate to ask, but curiosity is getting the better of me: Did you cancel the transaction?
Thanks
Paul C.

Nope....I shipped the card. Like my story stated, the guy played by the rules. He deserves the card. That would be the same if I went to play bingo and the weather stopped the competition from going. If there were only 3 people in the building, and I hit the coverall jackpot, I would expect to get paid. It is sorta the same thing I guess.

I respect your decision 100%++ . Complete integrity-
Thanks!

Trust me - it absolutely sucks having to sell a card with a market value of around $1,000-$1350 ($1,350 was a BIN as recently as 3 months ago) for "only" $800. And then have to pay a 12% penalty on top of that! The buyer was one of the biggest card dealers on Ebay. I am sure it will be an easy and profitable flip for him. I'm not mad at the buyer at all. I am mad at Ebay for throttling snipes and not allowing them to go through. I wouldn't mind if Ebay would refund me the difference. It would be easy for them to do, since they charge me around $1,000 per month in fees anyway. I expect to have as much success in that as I do getting Kate Upton's phone number and getting her to eat Japanese with me.

Honestly, the last year or two I had a lot of faith in the ebay no reserve, let the market yield what it will, auctions for nice items. Sometimes better than expected. This last weeks issues changed that for me. I would have have left so much on the table ( had items on very modest reserve with no closing bids, yet tons of folks emailing me afterwords about their bids not working) that I would have a absorbed a huge lose because of the bid issues. That just is not a risk I can take. It's more the reason just to keep adding buy it now items to the ebay museum.

And yes, I sold my items without reneging this week even though the prices were drastically low.

Well, eBay posted this today:
http://announcements.ebay.com/2014/0...84.m2301.l3955

"Earlier today, some eBay users experienced issues when visiting our site. The issue has been resolved and site functionality has now been restored.

Based on our initial investigation, this was the result of a technical issue that occurred during scheduled server maintenance. While many users were unaffected, we know any interruption for our users is frustrating. And we know that some of our affected sellers may have questions about their selling activity; in the coming days, we will provide them with additional information separately on possible fee adjustments and related seller protections.

We’re very sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused to the buyers or sellers involved.

Sincerely,

The eBay Team"

So it's okay to list an auction now ?
 

...so then it's safe to list an auction now ?

...and exactly what these ''seller protections'' mentioned ?

...I've read horror stories on this forum about a buyer keeping the item and E-Bay and Paypal refunding his full payment ? How is this remotely possible ?
.. Or is it just an internet legend ?

Only in rare cases does this happen. I think I've had it happen twice over the years, and in both cases is because the buyer absolutely squawked about having to return the item to get their refund. Ebay finally released the funds back to me AND refunded the buyer (meaning the refund came out of EBay's pocket), and allowed the buyer to keep the item. Again, this is VERY rare, and in my experience, only happens on relatively low-priced items.

Much more common is the scenario of a buyer forcing a return, squawking about having to pay return shipping until the seller finally foots the bill, then the buyer leaves a neg feedback anyway when it's all over. You definitely have to have thick skin when selling on eBay, as they have removed nearly every means for well-meaning sellers to defend themselves from the abusers.

Another glitch-- manual bidding
 

It looks like there may have been some more issues on eBay tonight. I was trying to bid/snipe 4 items, all ending within seconds of eachother. To help counter their ending times being the same, I had 3 devices open- computer, tablet, phone. I was able to enter bids on each, but when trying to confirm the bids, all three screens froze up for several minutes (buttons didn't work, counter/clock froze, etc). Two were using my wifi, but one was 4G so it is doubtful is was just a home wifi issue.

Once my screens started working again, all items had closed. They all sold for less than I'd expect, so not sure if anyone else had similar issues.

Wow. Just DDOS attack the servers that the snipe software is on and bam win auctions at low price.

My 1954 Bowman Ted Williams SGC 5 that recently sold for $820, because Ebay had snipe issues?? Well, it sold last week. $1,395. Thanks ALOT Ebay!!!! God, I wish someone new would come along!

http://img2.sellersourcebook.com/use...jpg?1416765674

I had two snipes not go through last night. One said "bid not placed" and the other said "bid too low" (it wasn't). Anyone else having these issues (again)?

esnipe
 

I use esnipe at least once per week and just won an item using their service. NEVER had an issue.

I swear by it.

peace, mike

to answer my own question...

"Ebay has evolved their security protocol after their security breach in May and has started the use of random CAPTCHAs. A CAPTCHA (an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. When this occurs, you will see a no bid placed response and the eBay bidding log will note the request for an eBay authorization code. We will keep you updated on the use and frequency of eBay CAPTCHAs as we learn more. Thank you for your understanding."

it would seem to me that the CAPTCHA use would derail ANY sniping service. :(

sorry for the bump, but the above ^^^ has got me a little freaked out. I missed two snipes, an hour apart, for this same reason (according to tech support). If ebay uses CAPTCHAS a lot, it is going to make ANY sniping service useless. Thoughts?