Today I am writing about a BidBuddy anomaly – something that rarely happens but it’s still something that serious DealDash.com shoppers may want to know. A quick note: this is something perfectly normal but good for you to be aware of. Just be quick to place your first bid before no new bidders can join the auction!
Did you notice the recent auction that offered 350 bids plus an $800 Walmart gift card? I already knew that it would probably take a large number of bids to win a popular auction like that and I also knew that it might not close for a long time. Therefore, I put my usual plan of action into play, but I wasn’t counting on a BidBuddy anomaly that never before happened to me. Let me explain.
I put first things first. Of course, that meant that I did not want to be locked out of that auction. Since it had several hours to go before that auction would become available for live auction, I did what I always do. I placed some bids into the automated bidder, BidBuddy, ahead of time, feeling confident that auction would still be going strong when I woke up the next morning.
Sure enough, that auction was active and still going strong the next morning, but you can imagine my surprise when I learned I was locked out and did not qualify to take part in that auction.
Not a single one of the bids I placed in BidBuddy several hours before that auction went live had kicked in or were placed for me. Instead those bids were added back into the balance of my account.
What Happened?
I have been playing on DealDash since Feb. 8, 2012, and this is the first time that happened to me. So what happened?
I counted on BidBuddy too much. In this rare case, I needed to be there when the auction went live to ensure at least one bid was placed and counted before I got locked out of the auction.
DealDash happened to have a feature where all new bidders were locked out extra early (when the auction reached $3.00 instead of $5.00), which is usually a huge benefit because it cuts down on the competition.
BidBuddy places customer bids according in the order in which they are received, but only when the clock gets down to zero. Apparently lots of other DealDash shoppers placed their bids before I did. That was combined with the fact that the 350 bids with a $800 Walmart gift card is a very popular auction.
Once the auction went live (while I was still sleeping) lots of other shoppers must have jumped on it and cut the clock. By not allowing the clock to get down to zero, none of my bids were allowed to kick in before the auction reached the $3.00 mark. That’s why none of my bids I had placed into BidBuddy got counted and I got locked out.
Not BidBuddy’s Fault
Don’t get me wrong. I believe BidBuddy is absolutely the best automated bidder I have ever seen. After all, I have been using BidBuddy for eight years before I found this anomaly that took me by surprise. Perhaps if it went to $5.00 before all new bidders were locked out one of my bids might have kicked in.
Bottom line: If DealDash is running a feature where all new bidders get locked out after $3.00 we must make sure we are there to place our first bid when the auction goes live. After that, placing the rest of our bids into BidBuddy will work just fine.
This sponsored blog post was submitted by: Barbara L. Sellers. Barbara was compensated by DealDash for this blog post. Blog posts are written by real DealDash customers. The opinions and advice here represent our customers’ views and not those of the company.