Auction closed with me winning then it carried on and someone else won it.

You probably need to go back and look at the time stamp of your bid and the time stamp on the winner's bid and then the closing time. Sounds like your device was not refreshing the listing and you missed the last bid

Kia Ora Rose,

Sorry to hear that's happened to you also.

Yes! I have had this experience and I have seen others report it through Community here.

I wrote a full report of the happening for TradeMe and have since reported suspect methods in which this may be caused. I am sorry to hear it hasn't been resolved yet as this was a few mths back now! 

Were you bidding through the Desktop site or the App? - My experience was through the Desktop site - Cheers.

yes, it was through the desktop site. I have alerted Trademe to the problem just now so I will be interested in what they have to say on the matter, I'm guessing it won't be much. 

The 2 checks TM had me do was to check I was running the latest version of my web browser and then to check my time and date was set to automatic on my system - I screenshot both of these steps for TM as Yes! I was running the up to date version and my system is set to auto. - At the time I had the TM site auto counting down from 8mins then 5mins then 8mins again - definitely something on the TM site out there - Cheers.

I had exactly the same experience recently, through my iPad app. Also had the countdown jumping around in another listing. Today, in the desktop site on my desktop PC, refresh at 1m, I had an auction closing, with an auto bid, winning, closing, but closing dragged on for about 7m after which I saw my auto bid had gone up to its maximum, though I had not bid any further, neither had anyone else. Fortunately it had only gone up by $1.

Thank you for sharing Graham,

Sorry to read it's happening to you also!

When your bid hit it's maximum without showing any other bidders this means some one bid the same as your max bid - the system can't record 2 bids at the same value so as your auto-bid was placed first it accepts your bid.

The most Recent iPad App update was rolled out on 7 August 2023. - you may like to update if you haven't already.

With your Desktop, other than the 2 system checks I mentioned above, ensure you have the latest Browser update version - next clear your Browser Cookies & Cache so you're connecting back to TradeMe with a fresh start.

There's definitely a system glitch somewhere within the TM platform - clearing and updating our devices before reconnecting fresh hopefully overrides whatever the causing issue is. - Cheers. 

Same thing happened to me last night. Pretty sure it had closed. Checked this morning to arrange payment and boom! someone else had slipped in. Something wrong there. It was beyond the countdown. So annyoyed.

Kia Ora M W,

Thank you for sharing,

Yes! this is a frustrating experience which should be well in hand to resolved by now after 9 months of reporting from various Members! - My initial report was early March 2023.

I recommend to keep reporting, with unique listing number(s) and screenshots if available - giving TM the focal point direction for resolve - Cheers.

I have just had this happen. Not happy at all, my bid and the clock counted out the final seconds It had ended I went to tell the family and came back to show them to find bidding had started again. How do you report anything to Trademe every link just leads to a dead end with no link to email or contact them. So this is still happening. 

If this is because someone is trying to be smart and leave their bid to the last second and the clock counts down while they are trying to load a bid it should be their tough for taking so long. If it is 2 or 3 bids at the same time that mixes up that end and the clock counts out again tough. There was enough time to bid before the last second. 

This is not acceptable nor is it acceptable under the terms and conditions of the use of Trademe. Being the end of the auction is legally binding. 

(Edited by Trade Me to remove unacceptable language) 

1. Ensure I was running the latest up to date browser / App version.
2. Ensure my device has the date and time set to automatic. 

Kia ora Brent. Sorry to read you've had a disappointment there.
If bids were being placed in the final moments of the auction as you've described, this would be a case of auto-extend.
If it doesn't look like it is from the bidding history, you can get in touch on Chat as S has set out above and we can look into it for you. 🙂 

S, This sucks. I have done that. 1 and 2 are all good on my end. It happened just like it did with you. The auto extended run down. I kept refreshing so that if another bid came I could counter. It ran down and ended and the banner across the top in blue I think said I had won the auction. To me this is not I lost something I wanted, this is what I do for a living buy damaged vehicles repair and resell them. This was looking like a $20k+ payday for me. The seller runs an auction linked to Trademe simultaneously, Now if that interferes with the running of the auction and timing someone has to accept responsibility for this and fix it. I was confused as to why it was doing a 1-minute 10-second auto extend and not the 2-minute. All I know is that Trademe declared me the winner of the auction at the end of its countdown. 

You know the worst thing about this is that Trademe makes it impossible to contact them through their contact link. But I did learn here is there is a chat (A little blue bubble right bottom corner) when you go to contact us at the bottom of the page

Hi Lucy, bids in the final minutes are what I theorized may have happened. I don't know for sure. I don't know what happened all I know is the timer counted down, the auction ended, and I got a banner at the top of my page declaring me the winner of the auction. 

That sounds like something we need to check out for you, Brent. If you got notification of winning the auction, that won't be auto-extend. How frustrating!

Go ahead and use Chat and you can speak to an agent right away and they can get the listing info from you. 

This Happened to me last night on 2 Auctions. I had the winning bids on 2 sheds. I refreshed the page every 20seconds right up until it said auction closing, then auctioned closed, then you won! It showed my winning bid in the bid history. There was no option to place another bid. About 10mintues later i checked again for it to show this listing was sold to another member!

What went wrong Trademe! This is incredible frustrating. We missed out on $20k worth of shed.

I did some playing with this issue and found that if your time on your computer is not match Trademes then you get screwed at closing time. I don't know how Trademe accesses your computer to set closing times. If you are a minute fast the Auction will close your time for you but not for the rest of Trademe it carries on until Trademe time closes the auction but if you put your time back a minute it still closes Trademe time so you can't get the last bid in. Tested to see if it worked both ways. What this means is that Trademe has access to your computer and that access is a lot more than you believe. 

True. That's Dumb. The closing time should be a fixed line in the sand that comes directly from the listing page you're viewing. I basically got locked out of the Auction. 

When you place a bid trade me lets you know you're legally obliged to follow through with the purchase. Trademe declared me the winner in these 2 instances. Are they legally obligated to give me the Auction. I mean how can their algorithms allow for such discrepancy.

Yes, I just did some testing and the time till closing changes in the last 2 mins depending on your computer time. I normally have my computer to set the time automatically so it regularly checks internet time clocks, but, I set manually just now and managed to see an auction that had just over a minute to go, then extend for another 2 mins although it was a Buy Now only and there were no bids. I also manually set my clock sooner and an auction jumped from 2 mins to go to 20 seconds. The error seems to be within the last 2 mins of closing when the auction page checks your local computer time rather than using the auction server time. Not good to have this error.

Best thing to do until Trademe fix the problem is to make sure you have your computer set to automatically update the time.

Kia Ora All,

Yes! Even though I have my laptop time set to Automatic I still receive variances in the Trade Listing closing time - It often goes from 1min - 13mins though more regularly from within the final 2mins the time jumps up & down at free will, making no sense at all. - There is a problem with the TM clock setting altogether, this is not set to the Global std clock setting our devices are - All auctions closing I refresh are out by the Global clock std setting of up to at least 30secs. - Cheers.

Clock Closing Examples...

Device time shows 1min to close - TM Clock is still 1:min 20secs.

Device time shows this Listing should have closed - TM Clock is still 18secs before it closes.

Device time shows 1min to close - TM Clock is still 1:min 33secs.

Device time shows 1min to close - TM Clock is still 1:min 12secs.

The TradeMe Clock Countdown is Not on the Global std Clock our Devices are.

Kia ora Jonathan, that sounds frustrating, can you hop onto live chat to talk to someone and give them the details of the listing so they can look into it for you. 

I'll have a chat to the team with the info Gary and S have given too.

I'm not happy for my winning bid i won i bid until the last hour and it closed the item that i won but later when i would like to pay the payment there's another won person to the item i won ,sad

Yes, this has happened to me multiple times, especially over the past few weeks. In some cases, I have been the winner, waited for it to turn up in my "won" items folder, which it hasn't, so I have gone back and checked, to discover the bidding has still increased, and yet, I don't have the option to bid again, however, I have discovered that if I have a current Autobid loaded, I can still go and increase that provided the auction has not gone over my last Autobid.

In a couple of cases I was chasing a couple of items and it took me 2 or 3 minutes to go and check out the "won" item to find I had now lost it and the price was just above my final bid.

I have questioned T/M and will see what their response will be. I think it is extremely unfair on both the buyer and the seller, especially if the buyer may have wished to increase their bid.

I am VERY suspicious of this at the moment!!

Here's mine just tonight 11seconds I bid shows closed I've won
NOT
Last bid is mine
Action closed
Message seller
He say it doesn't close till tommro
I send them pic they send me closing tommro not on glich or ? Not
I'm not happy

Kia Ora Leevi,

Sorry to read that's happened to you also,

Does the Listing still show as closed for you with you as the winning bidder? 

Please refer to my comment above regarding the 2 checks TradeMe staff requested I do and to follow the directions for reporting this into staff - I've attached the Link to my Comment below for you...

https://help.trademe.co.nz/hc/en-us/community/posts/7574760303759/comments/9015883832591

Re-check that Listing in the morning incase it is Live again for you to continue - All the Best! - Cheers.

Can anyone explain that when i am placing 1 hour before the closing of auctions it keeps droping off and I'm now missing several emails an hour before the end of the auctions. I miss so many now that its extremely dissapointing

Kia Ora Rick,

Sorry to read that email function isn't working for you,

Are you receiving all other TradeMe emails okay?

Run through the Troubleshooting page Problems receiving Trade Me emails – Help - Trade Me

If these steps don't sort the issue for you there is a Contact us Link within the Troubleshooting page which takes you to the correct form to fill out which goes direct to the correct Team of staff who can look into this for you.

You can also contact TradeMe staff through "Live Chat" for assistance in confirming which emails are being sent to you and whether there has been an 'Exception' placed on your account which is preventing these from coming through. - Cheers.

This' bids after close' thing has just happened to me, several times, on the same auction. First time in all my TM auctions that it has happened. I assumed it was a glitch, but it seems not. But at least I'm not the only one...