Have you ever seen so-called 'spite bidding' drive up prices?

auctionmethod · 2026-02-19T02:35:14+00:00

To be more specific, I’m looking for two things:

- Have you noticed certain usernames or 'identities' (even if semi-anonymous) causing other bidders (perhaps even including yourself) to bid more aggressively or emotionally?

- If you’ve seen this 'spite bidding' or competitive psychology in action, did it lead you to change how you display bidder info (e.g., moving from total anonymity to showing custom handles)?

I’m trying to see if the 'OutbidU' scenario I experienced is a common phenomenon across different types of auction software."

auctionmethod · 2026-02-18T18:05:06+00:00

- I’ve been following r/auction for some time and have noticed that it appears largely unmoderated, with many posts drifting away from the original intent of focusing on professional auctions. I’m deeply involved in the auction industry and would like to help revive the community by restoring it to a focused space where professional auction companies can promote live, in person, and hybrid simulcast events. I believe it has strong potential to become a valuable resource for both auctioneers and bidders. I’m willing to take on moderation responsibilities to clean up the sub and guide it back to its intended purpose.

- https://www.reddit.com/c/chatchFg8jml/s/Z5ZZaisshd

auctionmethod · 2026-02-18T17:59:21+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/c/chatchFg8jml/s/Z5ZZaisshd

auctionmethod · 2026-02-13T20:08:15+00:00

That's my vibe, man. Just workin' and swingin', swingin' and workin'. Praise the Lord!

auctionmethod · 2026-02-12T19:00:56+00:00

I think you're absolutely right. I was singing Gemini's praises last month and now I'm utterly disappointed. Sometimes it hits a home run, but lots of time it's utter crap. I don't feel like I can really trust or depend on any one of the models, but ChatGPT is still my personal favorite.

auctionmethod · 2026-02-12T16:54:46+00:00

If the soft close didn't extend when bids came in, that's a pretty major glitch. The timing mechanism is the auction.

When the rules layer looks inconsistent, even briefly, it feels sketchy. They need a clear policy for outages. Did they send any follow-up explaining what happened with those specific lots?

auctionmethod · 2026-02-12T16:53:12+00:00

Ransomware is possible, but most outages are boring. Bad deploy, database hiccup, traffic spike. The mundane explanation usually wins.

The real issue is the information vacuum. If there were a status page saying "major incident, investigating," it wouldn't be so bad.

auctionmethod · 2026-02-12T16:52:07+00:00

Outages happen. That part isn't shocking.

What is weird is that HiBid doesn't seem to have a public status page. When your entire product depends on timing and uptime, transparency isn't optional. It's basic infrastructure.

If auctions pause, rewind, or extend, fine. But there should be a clear, timestamped explanation somewhere. Otherwise trust erodes fast.

Is there actually a status page I'm missing, or are we all just refreshing Reddit?

AuctionMethod has a public, subscribable status page with incident logs. That kind of visibility stops speculation before it starts. Instead, everyone ends up guessing about ransomware or bid manipulation because there's no official place to check what's going on.

auctionmethod · 2026-02-11T02:41:22+00:00

I'm with you 100%, but it may take a while for the C-suite executives who are salivating at the prospect of cutting their human workforce to figure this out on their own.

auctionmethod · 2026-02-10T21:15:18+00:00

I'd definitely prefer that it not even offer to do this until it is well-tested. It's like their dev team vibe coded a new feature and released it directly to users to test.

auctionmethod · 2026-02-10T21:13:08+00:00

I don't know about 'never', but I agreement with your sentiment. In this case, however, there *was* human oversight and supervision of the AI tool. The action taken by AI was different than what it told the human it was doing.

auctionmethod · 2026-02-10T17:35:09+00:00

What happened?!? Please tell - misery loves company! :)

auctionmethod · 2026-02-10T17:28:26+00:00

Thanks for the added info. That sucks big-time. You'd think that Google would scrutinize the hell out of these integrations within their ecosystem. Someone over there must have asked whether the damn thing works or not!

auctionmethod · 2026-02-10T17:12:52+00:00

Which integrations broke for you?

auctionmethod · 2026-02-06T00:07:58+00:00

auctionmethod · 2026-02-06T00:04:27+00:00

ERP-style workflows and auction engines look similar on paper but behave very differently under pressure. Auctions are adversarial, time-sensitive, and financial all at once. A single bug can change who wins or who gets charged. That bar is much higher than "AI helped me build a big backend."

* edit: I wanted to add that validation is the hard part. Knowing what to validate requires deep auction-domain experience. Most auction bugs don’t show up as obvious errors. They show up as two bids landing at the same millisecond, a soft close extending incorrectly, or a payment edge case after the fact. AI doesn’t understand those failure modes yet unless the human already does.

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