Hi - not sure what happened here. My bid was well over the then-highest bid, enough to clear the minimum additional bid several times over. What was the problem?
I tried checking your site at some point after the auction. According to my phone's browser, at least, it was down. Perhaps that had something to do with it?
Please do respond. You folks have been very reliable. If there's an issue, I'd like to know.
Thanks so much,
Hank B

Hello Henry,
Thank you for your question about this item. We investigated to see what we encountered when we placed the snipe for you.
Unfortunately we cleared our logs, so we can't look up the exact reason, which is a part of the service we offer. It does not appear to be buyer strikes, but the seller has restrictions set. Please let me know the answers to these questions:
How many buyer strikes do you have on record right now?
How many items have you purchased from the same seller?
Have you completed the phone verification step in My eBay?
Does the seller ship to your country?
Please let me know and we can take the next step.

Hi - Thanks for your quick response.
I don't have any strikes. My seller feedback many times states that I'm a quick and reliable payer, as is the case.
The seller ships to the US. I won another of their auctions the previous evening. I then messaged them to inform that, consistent with their listing notes, I'd request a joint invoice as soon as the second auction ended. I've since paid for that first item.
And yes, I've completed phone verification from eBay.
This was basically the same process I've performed scores of times. Not sure how it went wrong. Even if I hadn't ended up being the top bidder -- I'm certain I would have been -- I can't see why my bid wouldn't have been placed.
I've got a couple more auctions coming up this week when I'll be busy with work and/or travel. So it would really help to know whether I can or should use your service. I understand that errors occur, and I don't get too worked up about them, although I think it's important to identify the cause. Until now, my experience with you folks has been quite good.
Thanks for your help, and best wishes,
Hank B.

Hi - I just noticed another issue from a month or so ago. On 2/24, I placed a snipe on item 155405873708. The item sold for $26.01. My snipe, however, was for $28.96. That's $2.95 above the sale price, and almost three-times the minimum additional bid. I thought something weird happened with that 2/24 auction, but didn't look into it.
Other than two prior "win in group" snipes, the 2/24 and yesterday's snipes are the only that appear in my "archive" with a blue background. All the rest are red (lost) and green (won). I presume the blue means something, i.e., that a bid wasn't placed. Please let me know, as I'm now a little more concerned than before.
Thank you,
Hank B.

By the way, the 2/24 auction was through a local train club. I know the folks there very, very well. My son and I visit them every month or two, and I've purchased perhaps 50 items through them. Next weekend, we'll visit one of the club's open houses and, while there, will pick up a stack of five-or-so items that have been waiting for us. So I'm certain that they wouldn't have blocked my bid.
Thanks again,
H

Hi - any ideas?...
Thanks,
H

We did place the bids because the times were recorded. Blue means we don't have enough info to determine win/loss status. Determining win/loss status is a lot harder to do than sniping because we have to traverse every possible scenario and don't have access to your account.
In any case, we have turned on very detailed logging for your account so that if this happens again we will know the exact reason.
While I understand where you are coming from, the high bid doesn't necessarily mean you'll win as most of the time there is a proxy bid waiting that will just match your price plus the minimum bid increment.
You might do the phone verification again to be sure, as that is critical.

Well, my eBay account doesn't reflect that any bids were placed. And all my snipes were sufficiently above the selling prices that they more than comfortably cleared the required minimum additional bid.
Plus, I know the market for these items pretty well. When I say I'd have been the winning bid, I'm fairly certain of the fact.
Anyway, I'll (re-)do the phone verification with eBay. I've not had any other issues of this kind, but I admit I don't know as much about the machine as you folks. I appreciate the advice.
Thanks again, and best wishes,
H

Also, as I mentioned earlier, after the second incident I couldn't access your system. It appeared to be offline. If that were the case, I imagine you'd have logs -- meaning internal server logs and not logs reflecting customer activity. But, again, I can only speculate. You folks seem to run a good service at a more-than-fair cost. I appreciate that.
Best,
H

The main problem is that I deleted the logs entirely instead of leaving a months worth or so. I went through a similar discussion with another customer that was quite rude, and it turned out that the seller he was buying from had blocked him. Obviously, that’s not the case here.
Sniping is the easy part. It is 100 times more difficult to determine the win loss status and the exact reason.
For the money you paid, you could’ve bought a six month unlimited subscription, so I just added six months free. This will give you time to evaluate further. Thanks for your courtesy.