Hi again,

I just found out that myibidder bid confirmations still show incorrect final prizes. Examples:

http://www.myibidder.com/de/161143689494

Final price: 11.61
Snipe: 20.55
Status from eBay:
Your snipe was too low due to eBay's bid increment system

Real final prize: EUR 37,50. The sum mentionned above could have been valid two days earlier

http://www.myibidder.com/de/151159483850

Final price: 19.50
Snipe: 25.55
Status from eBay:
Your snipe was too low due to eBay's bid increment system

Real final prize: EUR 29,49. 19.50 would have been valid a day earlier.

AFAIK no bid ever failed. Just the info about the final prize was incorrect.

This is a known issue when eBay could not provide the final price. That usually happens when eBay is too busy during peak hours (usually on weekends).
That does not affect the actual snipe.

thanks for the explanation.

But which prize does myibidder actually use? It looks like a random number from days ago. Thus I guess I'd prefer some hint that not the final prize was named, but some random former snapshot.

It is obvious that it can't be the final prize when this one is lower than the bid (minus a bid step). Many other times I guess it will remain unnoticed - but it makes a kind of archive useless where the real prize is higher than the log of so called final prizes.

It does not use random numbers. This is the information since the latest update.

to me it is a random number since it is NOT the final prize.

I feel the script must recognize a server overload which does not return the real final prize.

I never observed that ebay did show an outdated number.

And if the number which I receive from myibidder must be one or two days old, I do not have any other explanation for this value, it appears random to me.

How does the script know that I had a bid not high enough, when at the same moment it just does know a bid which is lower than my snipe. That's a contradiction to me, isn't it?

It does recognize it, that's why it shows the most recent update instead of failing your snipe completely.

The sniper knows that your bid is too low because eBay reported so.

but if the sniper tells me any random number, what's its use to me? And how does it come to a conclusion about its value at all?

Take e.g. http://offer.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rt=nc&item=251377009753

myibidder told me:

Final price: 1.50
Snipe: 33.00
Status from eBay:
Your snipe was too low due to eBay's bid increment system

How can 1.50 € be a "Final Price"?
The difference looks extreme, even if the bid was valid until 17.11.13 15:00:22 MEZ and crawled up to 46,36 € a few seconds before it ended at 17.11.13 20:31:58 MEZ, higher than my snipe of 33 € which was not even accepted.

But the logic requires that the final price must be > 33 when the status returned from ebay is right.

Even if the script is not able to receive the real final price, the logic would be to name "Final price: > 33 €" - and personally I'd wish either to see a real Final price from the end of auction or something that tells me that the final price is not known.

What does it help to learn about a "Final Price" of 1,50 € here?

The use of the sniper is to place your bid on last seconds.
If nobody bid higher, you will win it no matter if the final price in the sniper is correct or not.
If you need to update the information for your snipe, you can do Refresh on the Snipe page.

If you feel you have a need to monitor current price constantly, please refer to eBay for real-time pricing.

ok, I get it. You don't see any need for improvement and do not even feel that a perfectly incorrect "Final Price" is not a problem.

So let's leave it at that. The info given as Final price has no use since you never know whether it's a random, outdated number or the actual final price. I shall ignore it from now on.

Unfortunately, I have little control to improve it.
If eBay refused to provide such information, the sniper has no other way to get it. It tries to get it from eBay several times and when eBay failed all of them, it just gives you the last known information.

Fortunately, this does not happen often and I see eBay improved this for the last few years so I would expect it will get better going forward.

Are you able to recognize that ebay failed to return the real prize? Then this could be a more valuable information than claiming an incorrect prize.

I just observed that myibidder claimed I won:

Item #291019224027: Grundbeschichtung Korrosionsgrundierung Ching Rotbraun Eisenglimmer 13,5kg
Final price: 5.50
Snipe: 10.55
Status from eBay:
You won the item

In fact the final prize of http://offer.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p2047675.l2565&rt=nc&item=291019224027 was 21.00, and I lost.



dt 2013-11-24 at 21.04.49 .png

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Last edited on Sun Nov 24, 2013 08:10 PM.

My stats show that it's getting better from eBay's side, so it seems like they are working on it and doing some good progress.
I wish it was under my control.

P.S.: I adjusted your item manually.

thanks, now all you have to do is to fix the mail I received at
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 20:02:49 +0000




Of course you can't fix what came to my mailbox. But it would be an actual improvement if myibidder would recognize where it missed the final prize and would update the real prize the same way it does with occasional checks of the current bid.

The online list still lacks the filter mechanisms which I have in my local mailbox. I'd welcome a filter option to search the items of my myibidder lists - even more if those show real prizes where the mails didn't.

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Last edited on Sun Nov 24, 2013 08:55 PM.