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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Auction Issues

A friend was bidding on a Morris Minor on a lesser known auction site. There were only two bidders and since he wanted the car he waited until the last moment before closing time and submitted a heafty bid. On closing he was informed that he was the highest bidder. Shortly after he was again informed he was the unsucessful bidder. After querying this with the auctioneers they said that to stop bid sniping, where a computer notes the highest bid and at the very last moment submits another one plus ten pounds, if a very late bid has been placed they extend the auction by a variable number of minutes. Obviously my friend's bid had been so late it appeared he was sniping. The other bidder, knowing the auction system, had submitted a better bid, after closing, and won the auction. The auction house pointed out he had been the highest bidder and not the winner. They also referred him to the very small print and my friend lost the Minor. Laudable as it is having a system to prevent sniping it should be made very clear that such a system is in use.

Jan T
J Targosz

Jan
Your friend is not alone
There was a major estate clearance auction here a few months ago, held as an online auction by a major auction company.
Well, the internet got overwhelmed with bidders in the closing periods of some of the more desirable lots and the site froze--Some bidders received notifications that they had won and paid up online thinking they had bought their classic car----but no----The auctioneers decided to restart the auction the next day with very short closing periods
A mate had won a couple of cars and had paid approx $150,000 for one of them and was out the next day organizing transport to get his new additions home and missed the new auction notice ,missing out on his prized new possession -----peeed off doesn't come anywhere near close to what he thinks of the auction company any apparently they're allowed to do it and not even sell to the highest bidder if they don't want to. It's a crazy mixed up one sided system-
willy
William Revit

The simple way to stop snipping is to keep extending the Auction after a bid for a fixed period. If no further bids are received in this period then the last bidder is the winner.

Chris Madge

I dont see what's wrong with sniping. I use it when I cannot be online to watch as a sale comes to an end. If you have put in an advance bid higher than the sniped amount you will still win. And if the sniped amount wins, well you clearly underestimated what it would sell for! And snipes can also be out sniped by other snipes a well.
GuyW

Me too. Auction sniping is good fun! Bit of a nailbiter sometimes though.
Greybeard

All in the fun of bidding-
No extended time at the end of auctions here, it's all pot luck of getting your bid in just before the bell and hopiing that noone knocks you out with automatic bidding----all good fun
William Revit

Pre-internet auctions didn't work like internet auctions particularly as regards the end. An auctioneer would continuously scan the room in case there looked like someone who was likely to put in another bid, until he felt there was no-one likely to do so, then he ended the auction. Even today when a live auction has internet bidders the auctioneer will do the same whether or not the bidders were in the room, before ending the auction. Internet only auctions are not like that and it's because they have a defined time limit it encourages snipping.
In the days of Yahoo auctions if a bid was received within 10 seconds of the end time then another minute would be added, in case anyone wanted to put in a higher bid.
In general I found, as a seller, final prices were higher on Yahoo and lower on Ebay who have always had a fixed end time. This may have been the downfall of Yahoo auctions because it is the buyer that sets the final price so the buyers migrated from Yahoo to Ebay.
Rob

MG Moneypit

with the Japanese online car auctions, when it gets to the end time, if someons puts a bid in then the time gets automatically extended to allow more bidding, and this gets repeated until last man standing, just like a live car auction, and it works quite well for the sellers-----takes the fun out of it a bit though for us gambler bidders trying to snip a bargain.
William Revit

I bought my Sprite from Morris Leslie Actions as a telephone bidder so no sniping was involved. I think I have ben sniped on ebay but have never been involed in an auction that has been extended. The only issues I have are that I am not computer literate and wouldn't know how to load up sniping software and I think auction houses should make it very clear that anti sniping systems are in use and the closing time could be extended. After my friend complained about the auction for the Morris Traveller being extended he was referred to the F.A.Q. section of there web site. Perhap he should have read these but a specfic mention of the possibility of an extension appears reasonable.

Jan T
J Targosz

This thread was discussed between 30/10/2022 and 03/11/2022

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