07/08/2011

the ebay bid.

my brother had been waiting for it for the whole day ... glancing at the clock every so often. the yugioh card he was interested in would sell to its highest bidder a little past 9.

it was 9. we watched as the count down kept counting ... 5 minutes .... 4 minutes .......

me: why dont you bid?
jason: im gonna bid in the last 10 seconds so then no one has time to outbid me :D
me: but what if you actually have to fill in something afterwards? and then you run out of time?
jason: hmmmm yeah okay i'll bid now

turns out that after you press place bid you do actually have to confirm it and enter the value, etc. so we were lucky we tried it out once.

at this stage we had just put in a $1.75 bid. we kept waiting. 3 minutes .....

then, suddenly, someone placed a bid on top of us!!!!! at $2!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2 more minutes to go ......

we were all hassled. dad and mum were crouching behind my brother, curious with what the commotion was about. i was kneeling beside my brother.

dad: someone outbid you!! quick, put in another one! $2.50, go $2.50!!!
me: OMG HURRY UP! OTHERWISE HE'LL GET IT! JUST SHOVE IN ANOTHER BID!
jason: OMG WHAT OKAY WHAT DO I BID? WAIT I CAN BID $2.25!

then he bid $2.25. for the next 1 and a half minutes nothing happened. in relative silence, all four of us were staring at the computer screen, waiting for something to flicker. i could sense my brother's excitement .... the card was his to keep! he had been long awaiting this card and needed it to make his deck stronger! almost there!

me: why dont you put $2.75 in the box. so if they really bid they're gonna go for $2.50 and we dont have to waste time typing out the next bid.
bro: yeah .... okay. that's a good idea.

then, with 10 seconds to go, i was the one who spotted the minor movement on the top corner of the window. the words 'you are the highest bidder', set onto a blue/green background had transformed into the words 'you have been outbid'

me (screaming): YOU'VE JUST BEEN OUTBID!! QUICK, PRESS BID! PRESS BID!
jason (presses bid): OMG WHY ISNT ANYTHING HAPPENING!!! OMG! (keeps clicking)

the screen changes to the confirmation screen. we click confirm ........ BUT IT BOUNCES BACK SAYING THAT $2.75 IS NOT A VALID BID! THE NEXT BID IS $3 MINIMUM! it redirects back to the item page. 3 more seconds to go. we're all screaming and my mum and dad are saying 'quick!' in canto over and over again while i'm firing directions and jason struggles to work the keyboard.

pressing bid again, the second of loading of the confirmation screen is agony. pressing confirm ..... all is silent. we are all anticipating the result .....

and the new window says, with red text, that the item had been taken off after its time period.

my brother: :( ................ what?! that's not fair :(
me: awwwwwww
dad and mum (canto): did you get it?
bro: the guy got in with 3 seconds to go!

then my dad goes onto a whole explanation regarding why that was a good try. because now we are experienced, we are equipped with the knowledge for our next ebay battle. you get the gist of what he's saying ...

so basically the guy on the other end waited up to the last few seconds to bid, so that even if we saw it we might not be able to bid on top of him in time. as an extra precaution, he sacrificed an extra 25c to place a bid of $2.75 instead of the next minimum bid of $2.50 ... just in case we had prepared ourselves to quickly overbid him. it worked.

BUT IT WAS A FUN EXPERIENCE OMG. im trying to imagine what it would look like on webcam ... two adults and two kids clustered around a computer jumping up and down urging jason to bid, holding our breaths until we found out that we had been outbidded. it was very enjoyable indeed :P

oh and in case this confused you: you have to go up by at least 25c with each bid

money figures may not be 100% correct, but i tried to remember as accurately as possible :)