Unless I'm misunderstanding, I thought the whole point was to swoop in right before the auction ended and place a surprise bid. I just lost an auction that was ended at 6:30 AM PST. I checked the bid status, and my sniped bid was made at 5:51, not anywhere NEAR the closing time. I lost an item that I had really wanted because of this, so I need to make sure it doesn't happen again...is there some setting I missed or something?

Also, in my myibay list of sniping items, I totally do not understand the time column. For instance, the only item I currently have scheduled says 2:20:56, with no date. WHAT time is this? It's not the current time today; it's not the time of that auction's end (8:15 PM). People are obviously using it, I'd like to use it too if someone would clue me in! But mainly, please explain why snipe put in that bid way too early!

Sniping is bidding at last seconds.
If your snipe was placed at different time, you have to check your "My Time" field.
If you want me to check, please let me know your eBay user id.

"Time" field means "Time Left" actually so I just updated it accordingly.

Please let me know if something else is not clear.

>>Sniping is bidding at last seconds.
If your snipe was placed at different time, you have to check your "My Time" field.
If you want me to check, please let me know your eBay user id.<<

My ebay ID is same as this one...TawanaNBD. If you'll go to the keyboard auction I had sniped (link below), you'll see that Snipe started bidding at 5:47 (I myself placed the first two bids listed under my user name but after that I THINK I'm bidder 6). However, the auction didn't end until 6:13, so it seems that it started sniping fully 26 minutes beforehand. Isn't that awfully early? I just don't understand how/why that would happen. Here's the listing, if you'll go into the bid history:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250377925278


>>"Time" field means "Time Left" actually so I just updated it accordingly.

Please let me know if something else is not clear. <

Oh, now I do understand the time field...thanks for changing it to actually SAY "time left" or I never would have figured that out.

TawanaNBD,
I just checked that auction and see that the bid you see in the bid history is your own manual bid.
Your snipe was not even accepted by eBay as it was too low.

So the one you see "too early" is your own manual bid.