Is Ebay rigging bids?

[Deni]

I have an odd situation here. I saw an interesting instrument on e-bay and placed auto-bid with $250 as a limit.
After a while ended with highest bid but sequence of bids look very strange:

My bids are marked red and you can see my first bid at $55 placed on 13.02.2020 at 9:26, then it was overbidded by
a bidder 6***4 (which has no previous bids on that auction!) at 5:43 but on 12.02.2020 (a day before) !!! And then my auto-bid
increased to $202,50 16 seconds after my first bid.

Perhaps I am just plain stupid or just do not know how things work so please enlighten me...

[tom66]

This happens if someone has placed a bid above your bid but as an autobid...

Say auction is at $50, but they bid $202.50.  It goes to $55 because that is the next bid-increment.  You come in at $200 and the eBay system recognises the auto bid and places the bid on the other buyer's behalf, you lose the auction.

The best way to avoid losing these auctions is a sniping service like Gixen; it avoids the auction price war that happens and you "snipe" at exactly the price you want. The autobidder ensures you pay no more than this, or the bid increment above the highest autobid.

[Deni]

This happens if someone has placed a bid above your bid but as an autobid...

I understand that, but it still does not explain this situation. If bidder 6***4 placed his auto-bid for $200, he should already be top bidder before bidder 6***3
placed his bid (on 12.02. at 10:31) but he's nowhere on the list until I placed MY autobid !!! That's the part which I do not understand. How can you place an
auto bid that is NOT executed?

[PA0PBZ]

I think it shows only the highest bid from the other bidders, and I remember having seen a button called something like "show all bids" which as expected then shows all bids.
Can you share the link to the item?

[Deni]

Here is the full history which still does not explain it. Timeline for bidder 6***4 is simply not right. And I also recall that the last price when
I placed my first bid was $50, not $51 as suggested by this list:

[PA0PBZ]

There are still bids missing, otherwise I can't explain the 2 consecutive bids from r***r for $11 and $50, there must be a $49 bid in between. I wonder if it shows you (as one of the bidders) something else than a 3rd party but since it looks like you are not willing to share the link I can't have a look myself. Is it a sensitive item? If you don't want to put it here for everyone to see you can pm me.

[jogri]

There are still bids missing, otherwise I can't explain the 2 consecutive bids from r***r for $11 and $50, there must be a $49 bid in between. I wonder if it shows you (as one of the bidders) something else than a 3rd party but since it looks like you are not willing to share the link I can't have a look myself. Is it a sensitive item? If you don't want to put it here for everyone to see you can pm me.

I guess person 6 bid 49 bucks when the highest bid was 11 bucks, then the autobid for person r kicked in and bid 50. Or person r just decided to up his bid.

This screenshot looks like it doesn't show every automatic bid, but you can take a look at them on ebay.

[Stray Electron]

I have an odd situation here. I saw an interesting instrument on e-bay and placed auto-bid with $250 as a limit.
After a while ended with highest bid but sequence of bids look very strange:
(Attachment Link)
My bids are marked red and you can see my first bid at $55 placed on 13.02.2020 at 9:26, then it was overbidded by
a bidder 6***4 (which has no previous bids on that auction!) at 5:43 but on 12.02.2020 (a day before) !!! And then my auto-bid
increased to $202,50 16 seconds after my first bid.

Perhaps I am just plain stupid or just do not know how things work so please enlighten me...

   I agree with the other posters, there's something missing here.  For one thing, it shows 6***4 making three different bids all at exactly the same moment. Apparently it's not showing the actual time when Ebay auto-incremented his bid but it clearly did auto-increment it.

    Actually if you start at the bottom and look at the just the time sequence and not the amounts, it does look right except that when the system auto-incremented it showed the time of the bidder's original bid and not the time that it incremented.

   I don't agree with some of the other posters about needing to use a sniping service. Do as E-bay says and bid your top bid to begin with and then sit back and wait and see if you win.  A sniping service is only useful to that emotionally weak people who can't stop bidding and that take it as a personnel challenge when someone outbids them. It is hard to avoid the temptation to keep bidding, that's why I place my bid and then I don't even look at the auction again until it ends.

[thinkfat]

There are still bids missing, otherwise I can't explain the 2 consecutive bids from r***r for $11 and $50, there must be a $49 bid in between. I wonder if it shows you (as one of the bidders) something else than a 3rd party but since it looks like you are not willing to share the link I can't have a look myself. Is it a sensitive item? If you don't want to put it here for everyone to see you can pm me.

No, this is a completely fine bidding history. You just don't realize how the autobid mechanism works. Look at the timestamps, it is completely transparent.

The 2 consecutive bids from r***r are his first bid (autobid to $50) which is shown as $11 first, since this initial bid trumped the previous highest bidder (6***3, $10,50)
The next bid was by 6***4 (autobid to $200), which is shown as $51, because it trumped r***r's autobid to $50 (which is directly below). Note that the timestamps on all r***r bids are the same, it's the time he put in his $50.

Then you placed your bid to $55, which got immediately trumped by 6***4's autobid, raising the price to $56. See the timestamp on 6***4's bids, it's identical.

Then again you placed your final bid to $202,50, which trumped 6***4's autobid to $200 (it's listed directly below yours to maintain sequence). Note again, all timestamps on 6***4's bids are the same, he interacted just once and put $200 as his max. All other things happening were automatic doings of the Ebay system. The only one who raised their stakes in the auction was you.

It's all completely normal.

Correction, it _would_ have been completely normal if 6***4 had shown up earlier somewhere. You're right, there seems to be something missing in the bid history, an initial autobid to $200 by 6***4 should have shown up _somewhere_.

[sleemanj]

Looks normal to me...

[ebastler]

@Deni, did you by any chance neglect to mention that you first placed a $55 bid, and then (a bit later) a $250 bid? That's what it looks like to me. Your fist bid was overbid by the one which 6***4 had made the day before, your sencond bid went higher than his.

[tunk]

The times confused me at bit at first, but according to wikipedia 12:29:39PM could (should?) be read as 00:29:39PM.

[george.b]

The times confused me at bit at first, but according to wikipedia 12:29:39PM could (should?) be read as 00:29:39PM.

Well, there's no such thing as 00:29 PM. 00:29 is 12:29 AM (ante meridiem, before midday). 12:29 PM (post meridiem, after midday) is 12:29 in the 24-hour format.

[Deni]

[ Specified attachment is not available ]

@Deni, did you by any chance neglect to mention that you first placed a $55 bid, and then (a bit later) a $250 bid? That's what it looks like to me. Your fist bid was overbid by the one which 6***4 had made the day before, your sencond bid went higher than his.

Actually, you're right. But it still does not explain everyhing - see below:

Auction ended just now and here is the final list with all bids shown (unless e-bay is not showing everything).

So there's still one thing which does not fit the picture - how can 6***4's first bid ($51) be on the 7'th position from the bottom? If he placed auto-bid for $200 on 12.02 at 5:43 it should first
appear 5'th on the list, just after 6***3's. Instead, there's r***r's bid.

Also, note that the bidder's names are some random letters - if you click on a bidder it will show stats with some other random name but number of transactions is the same.
As everything else is obfuscated, it is impossble to tell what data are actual and what are, well, not...

Please note that I do not want to post any ebay links as it will reveal my ebay name and I am not comofrtable with that.

[sleemanj]

12 PM on the 12th of February is before 5 PM on the 12th of February

The order is correct.  Are you confusing AM and PM?  12 AM is midnight, 12 PM is lunch time.

r***r bid at 12:29 PM, Lunchtime
6**4 bid at 5:43 PM, early evening

[Deni]

Yes, it seems that there's incorrect time display. According to NIST 12AM and 12PM should not be used, since they are ambiguous :
https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/times-day-faqs.

Sequence of bids looks like this:

r***r placed auto-bid of $50 at 12:29 (24-hour format). This outbid 6***3's bid and when reached $50 triggered 6***4's autobid (set to $200) and stopped
with 6***4's bid to $51. But when did 6***4 placed his initial bid that caused r***r's bid to hit $50? Still does not make sense or e-bay nevertheless does not
show all bids...

I was always wondering - now when everything is run automatically and you can't see your opponents, it looks like playing poker with a machine...

[sleemanj]

It's not that complicated.

  09/02 03:11 7***l places an auto bid for $10, it sits at $9.99
  12/02 10:31 6***3 places a bid for $10.50, this maxes out the previous bidder at $10
  12/02 12:29 r***r places an auto bid for $50, it sits at $11
  12/02 17:43 6***4 places an auto bid for $200, this maxes out the previous at $50 and sits at $51
  13/02 09:26:22 you place a bid for $55, 6***4's auto increases to $56
  13/02 09:26:06 you place a bid for $202.50, this maxes out 6***4 at $200 and you now lead the bidding

[Deni]

It's not that complicated.
  09/02 03:11 7***l places an auto bid for $10, it sits at $9.99
  12/02 10:31 6***3 places a bid for $10.50, this maxes out the previous bidder at $10
  12/02 12:29 r***r places an auto bid for $50, it sits at $11
  12/02 17:43 6***4 places an auto bid for $200, this maxes out the previous at $50 and sits at $51
  13/02 09:26:22 you place a bid for $55, 6***4's auto increases to $56
  13/02 09:26:06 you place a bid for $202.50, this maxes out 6***4 at $200 and you now lead the bidding

Yes, you are right -  AM/PM thing messed it up, but that's correct sequence... It would be too obvious - but now when I think of it - since e-bay charges a
percentage of sale, it's in their interest to get the highest price possible. When you enter auto-bid value, it's pretty easy to manipulate bidding process,
since you can't see actual account names (and links can point to basically anything). Say, you enter $500 as your maximum bid, algorithm can decide to
create a few fake bids and pump out more money from you than you should actually pay as long as the final amount is less or equal to $500.
You do it randomly, with various end-price differences and at various times, so there won't be visible pattern. Randomize the whole process good enough
and buyers would not  be able to spot it, sellers does not care since they will get more money for their stuff and everybody is happy... Best of all - you can't be caught !
Of course, if buyer is not using auto-bid then the whole scheme falls apart, but I guess there's a lot users using auto-bid, as you normally cant' spend the whole
day looking at e-bay.
Or I am just paranoid?

[nctnico]

Looks normal to me...

I agree. This looks like a normal bid history to me. It is Ebay's auto-bidder at work just like it should. The only thing is that the auto-bidder shows the bid time as the time the original bid was entered and not when the auto-bid was made.

[I wanted a rude username]

12AM and 12PM should not be used, since they are ambiguous

They are unambiguous. They are just illogical to us, because we are aware of the concept of zero.

If you keep in mind that PM is post meridiem (after noon), it almost makes sense (12:00:00 is technically not after noon).

Anyway, another example of the supremacy of 24 hour time.

Or I am just paranoid?

Yes. 

[Muttley Snickers]

If the OP made only one bid of $250 why then do they have two time stamped bids 16 seconds apart ?, yet the opponents time stamps are all the same. I thought the autobids were always applied and stamped at the time of the initial ceiling bid.   

[Deni]

I have explained that - first I placed $55 bid and then decided to place $250 auto-bid a few seconds later.

[Deni]

They are unambiguous. They are just illogical to us, because we are aware of the concept of zero.

Well, NIST does think so (https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/times-day-faqs) - see first line after sub-title "Are noon and midnight referred to as 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.?"
And I take them as pretty good authority on the subject 

[Muttley Snickers]

I have an odd situation here. I saw an interesting instrument on e-bay and placed auto-bid with $250 as a limit....

I have explained that - first I placed $55 bid and then decided to place $250 auto-bid a few seconds later.

Thanks, I interpreted your opening post as meaning you placed one single bid of $250.

[I wanted a rude username]

see first line after sub-title "Are noon and midnight referred to as 12 a.m. or 12 p.m.?"

I already mentioned that technicality, and the practice is that every device that tells the time in this way (12 hour with AM/PM indicator) flips the indicator at the same time that the hour becomes 12.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Show us a single instance of a device that does not behave this way and we might believe you.

However, this is a distraction from all the other problems inherent in the 12-hour system. And it raises the question: why is a Croatian using eBay in 12-hour time, in the US Pacific timezone?