Model Railroading > Strangeness on eBay

Intended to bid on two eBay auctions tonight from the same seller. Both auctions ended while my timer was still counting down, 10-15 seconds left. Very weird, never had that happen before. There was only one other bidder ... maybe the seller was watching and just ended them early because there was one bidder? There would have been two if he waited a few more seconds. :-)

Was there a reserve?

Victor Baird

No, they were just photos. No big bucks involved.

Maybe the seller discovered he didn't have the photos to sell? I was once fumed that a seller made a mistake and the item I won could not be found!

Victor Baird



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/23 15:56 by wabash2800.

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Maybe the seller discovered he didn't have the
> photos to sell? I was once fumed that a seller
> made a mistake and the item I won could not be
> found!
>
> Victor Baird

I once bid on an old Jeep brochure that turned out to be non existent but the seller rooted around in his collection and found another and sent it to me. I reckon he was a big time collector to have two of the same rather obscure brochure....for the 1973 models!

You are correct that the seller is selling himself short by ending the auction a few seconds early. Many people don't bid until the final seconds to avoid people bidding against their bid.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

If I am not mistaken, a seller cannot pull the plug on an auction, within a certain amount of time before it closes.  I think like one hour or???

funnelfan Wrote:
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> You are correct that the seller is selling himself
> short by ending the auction a few seconds early.
> Many people don't bid until the final seconds to
> avoid people bidding against their bid.

Gee, how did you know? ;-) There was one other bid. Seller would have made a few more bucks from me.

Could be that eBay's clocks are off ... I recently put in a couple of bids with 2-3 seconds to go, which usually works, but the auctions came up as "ended" before my bid was tallied.

I've had trouble in the past trying to do bids in the last 10 seconds off my cellphone. They always seem to time out with time left showing. Never had this problem using a laptop or an ipad.

Baltimore

Baltimore, this was on a laptop.

Oh, maybe eBay is trying something to counteract snipe software? Nah....

Victor Baird

wabash2800 Wrote:
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> Oh, maybe eBay is trying something to counteract
> snipe software? Nah....
>
> Victor Baird

Or just to counter sniping in general (with or without software). 

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> Baltimore, this was on a laptop.
 Well can see trying to use a cell phone as the route it could take varies due to amount of usage on lines. People rely too much on them being on top of things. 

Smug remark department: I am so glad I don't use eBay. The evidence mounts daily (and besides, if I did, I'd soon be bankrupt and living under a bridge.)

Art ("No eBAy for ME") House

aehouse Wrote:
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> Smug remark department: I am so glad I don't use
> eBay. The evidence mounts daily (and besides, if I
> did, I'd soon be bankrupt and living under a
> bridge.)
>
> Art ("No eBAy for ME") House

Oh well been using it from almost its start and do understand spending only too well on things. Only got burned because I didnt read carefully and miss read the discription, thought it was O scale um ended up HO, my bad.

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> Intended to bid on two eBay auctions tonight from
> the same seller. Both auctions ended while my
> timer was still counting down, 10-15 seconds left.
> Very weird, never had that happen before. There
> was only one other bidder ... maybe the seller was
> watching and just ended them early because there
> was one bidder? There would have been two if he
> waited a few more seconds. :-)

That’s interesting. I just won an auction for some Ho cars I wanted and I waited until the last minute to enter my bid and lucked out. I’ve seen churn at the end as the system tries to figure out who has the highest max bid - lost a few of those. But haven’t ever seen one end early, that seems unusual. Hopefully you can snag another version of whatever you were looking for.

Nathan

Posted from iPhone

The timer isn't always perfectly accurate if you havent refreshed the page in a while.

5511_ Wrote:
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> The timer isn't always perfectly accurate if you
> havent refreshed the page in a while.

Ah. Good tip! Thanks.