Zachy's Auction website down for last 10 minutes of auction

Did anyone else experience this?
The website was down for approximately the last 7-10 minutes of the auction and down for about 10 minutes after the scheduled end time.
It kept me from sniping anything but also kept me from getting any of my stuff sniped. (Those morally opposed to sniping should feel some justice) Regardless if this was widespread it probably cost the sellers and auction house some money. I’ve never experienced this before. I can’t imagine in this day and age it was due to too much activity.

Probably Russian hackers

Actually the computer activity was traced back to Taft Correctional Institution California

Zachys auction site seems totally unable to deal with the traffic. The auction web site is kind of annoying anyway; lots of minor irritants.

I am not morally opposed to sniping, but as far as I am concerned, Tough SH!T because I hate snipers and think they should get a real life rather than just sit around in their underwear in their mamas basement messing with other people. AND people who use sniping software should have their finger nails ripped out.

AND if you were trying to snipe my one bid for the Sterimberg northern Rhone, you can KMA. And the guy who actually sniped it - just remember that I pick it up down the street at the warehouse, so you grossly overpaid due to your need to pay shipping when I have that economic edge.

There is many more reasons to snipe than just being annoying, although I am sure there are people who enjoy outmaneuvering somebody. Personally I consider anybody who bids against me to be an enemy, and have no compunction about doing anything i can to make them regret going up against me.

Most people work on budgets, and last minute bidding enables you to know when you have been outbid, you can go somewhere else. And if you are not on a budget, or trying to balance several items, you put in your best bid early and not worry about it.

I find sniping as a concept rather strange. Surely the only thing that counts is the final price. How it gets there is irrelevant. If you put an early (lo) bid in and expect no competition is a little naive, no?! Or am I missing something?

The bidder is already thinking of that wine as ‘his’ or ‘hers’ before they even own it.

Perhaps they have even entered it into their Cellartracker already.

And posted tasted notes of how amazing they imagine it will be when they drink it.

Not sure if this is meant to be funny!

Sniping is legal - and it has it´s advantages - one is to prevent myself going over my upper limit, because I cannot be forced to raise it when being outbid.

Usually it also makes some items cheaper … those who bid early thinking they´ll get something at bargain prices are outbid only by a tiny margin …

Everybody is entitled to snipe … so no whining please …

As Shakespeare said, half the world’s truths are said in jest. I think there is an important collegial element to wine collecting that involves sharing. Yes, you collect to amass, but you also collect to destroy your collection, often by sharing with others. It makes in fundamentally different from so many other types of collecting. I find something about sniping that cuts against that approach.

An example to make the point. A few years ago, I was looking at an auction and there was a bottle I wanted. I think it was a 1963 Quinta do Noval VP. I happened to be talking to a friend who collected Port and I mentioned the bottle, on which I had not yet made a bid. He said, “yeah, I’ve got the current high bid on that.” I did not bid on the bottle and I didn’t give it a second thought. Your mileage may vary, but if I view wine collectors as members of a community, then I view sniping as a violation of the unspoken social contract of the community. I prefer to sleep at night.

Always have been one of the worst auction sites around for many reasons.

From what I understand, they designed their own web site, which is expensive, and have been trying to improve it, without any success. Probably better off starting from scratch rather than try and fixit with patches.

I can think of four major things I would like to change, and even with those fixes, it would make it as user friendly as a second tier operation.

But the fact that it invariably crashes ten minutes before the close is something they should be able to fix.
This is not the first time it has happened. And actually the real losers are not the bidders, but the vendors. A lot of people who would be sniping, can’t.

Boy, if I was a seller, I’d be rightfully pissed. A lot of value realized in those last 10 minutes for sellers.

Me too, but unless they were checking in real time or look at this forum, I bet many (most) will never know.

This was pretty much the point of my posting. There have been several threads about whether sniping is not cool but if you are the seller you want to end up with the highest return. Jay you are right in that this hobby brings out the best in us with our generosity in most circumstances when it comes to destroying our collection but perhaps not when amassing it particularly when its anonymous. You didn’t go after the VP when you knew someone who was bidding on it and that was noble (did he end up getting it?). Have you ever placed a bid in the last few minutes of an auction when you did not know who you were bidding against.

Anyway not to relive the previous discussion on this topic but Zachy’s in particular benefits last second bidding because when the auction closes, it closes. (I know that Acker extends the time to the end) With Zachy’s it doesn’t set up a situation where there can be that competitive back and forth. If the original bidder put in a higher auto-bid then you can be SOL. Regardless, I was going to go after a couple more things when the website went down-I’m sure some sellers suffered as a result of this.

Yeah…but you had to pay tax…so…

My POV on sniping is that it is not just totally fine, but a natural function of creating a timed auction bidding system. It’s too bad that the term ‘sniping’ is even used because it has negative connotations. I don’t think that last minute bidding damages the community, is unfair, or is somehow immoral. I think people who find it annoying are confusing their own personal interest (“hey, I wanted that cheaper”) with an overall value system for appropriate bidding behavior.

You might even argue that it’s immoral to try to limit sniping (e.g. by putting community social pressure on potential bidders in forums like this) because by not allowing the market to find the highest natural price among all bidders you are harming sellers unreasonably.

My habits? I bid early sometimes if I see I price I really like and I want to test whether the market will let me enjoy it. But my experience is that if there’s something I really want, and it falls in a bid range that is acceptable to me, I have to be looking at the auction in the last few minutes. Much (most? I don’t have any data other than my experiences) of the bidding seems to take place in the last few minutes of auctions. Take a look at auctions on K&L – they show every bid with a time stamp.

Perhaps there was a time in the glory days of Internet wine auctions (i.e. 2012) when there were very few bidders and early bids would stand. But the secret about wine auctions is out, and there are many many bidders around the world. If you want to participate, then you have to be prepared to bid at the last minute.

If you mean that seriously you shouldn´t BID AT ALL - every bid of yours could be a “violation of the unspoken social contract of the community”.
Every bidder bids (hopefully) with his upper limit - if he´s the highest one he will win.
Where´s the problem?
The only problem could be that the SELLER gets slightly less for his wine … but he should have rather druk it up than sell it …

And regarding your Noval-example: If I knew that a friend of mine wants a certain bottle I wouldn´t bid at all, neither early nor sniping … but I´m not friend with everybody who buys wine!

Last bird gets the worm.

The less early bidding, the lower the eventual price. If I ever try to put in a “placesaving” early bid, I regret it. Territorial pissing is all it is, and, on the internet, no one gives a crap.

I would snipe all the time if I had more free time to do so. Half of the bids I lose I lose by $5-10, and that’s everywhere from wineBid to K&L to Heritage and HDH. “Oh, shoot, that auction ended five minutes ago and I forgot to go back and outbid the last guy by $5! Darn it”.

I have been sniped a hundred times. I wouldn’t snipe if I knew someone on WB was the buyer, but, for good reason, that is rarely public knowledge.

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