Price Bid War
Price Bid War rules
A Price Bid War is a timed, internet-only bidding round on a single item, opened from a Live Price War. The clock belongs to the server, bids are binding, and the winner collects in person in their county.
Internet-only biddingServer-controlled clockEvery bid is bindingCollected in person
How a Price Bid War opens
- A Live Price War item gets locked by a buyer who has not paid yet.
- A Price Bid War can then open on that same item. Its starting price, minimum raise, clock and extension cap are set on the listing before it opens.
- Once a war is open, its terms are fixed. Nothing about it changes mid-round.
Unlocking your seat
- Bidding is for buyers who unlock the Price Bid War perk ($9.99). It also saves your card, so tokens and a winning charge go through without you re-entering anything.
- When you join or bid, you accept the rules version you were shown, and that acceptance is recorded against that exact version.
What a bid means
- Every bid is a binding offer to pay that amount and to collect the item in person in your county.
- Each bid has to beat the current bid by at least the listing's minimum raise.
- The server is the only clock and the only price. A bid that arrives after time is out is not a bid, no matter what your screen showed.
The clock and the soft close
- A war runs for the duration set on the listing, two minutes unless the seller chose otherwise.
- A bid inside the final 30 seconds pushes the clock back to 30 seconds, up to the listing's extension cap. That is the anti-sniping rule, and it protects every bidder.
- When the clock reaches zero, bidding stops. There are no late bids and no extensions after the close.
Buying extra time
- Extension tokens add time to the clock for everyone in the war, not just the buyer who paid: +15 seconds $0.50, +30 seconds $1.00, +45 seconds $1.50, +60 seconds $1.99.
- Total extensions can never pass the cap set on the listing.
- Tokens are not available during a tie-breaker round.
Ties
- If two bids tie at the top, a short tie-breaker round runs between the tied bidders.
- The tie-breaker is still decided by the same server clock and the same minimum raise.
The highest bid is not the owner yet
- The last bid standing when the clock stops is the provisional winner, not the buyer.
- The winner gets a short window, five minutes by default, to complete payment.
- If payment does not clear, the item is offered to the next eligible bidder in order. Only a paid winner gets an order and a pickup.
Tapping out
- Tapping out removes you from the war and from the fallback order permanently.
- If you are not going to pay, tap out instead of letting the item stall for everyone else.
If a locked buyer is displaced
- When a challenge retires a locked-price purchase, the earlier charge is refunded.
- If a card refuses the refund automatically, our team resolves it by hand and it shows as needing review in the back office.
Fair play
- One account per person. A seller, and anyone acting for that seller, cannot bid on their own item.
- No shill bidding, no bidding rings, no bid-and-vanish.
- Bids placed in bad faith can be voided and the accounts involved restricted. Bids are logged with the server's own timestamps.
Pickup and handoff
- Won items are collected in person inside your county, the same way every other purchase on East Texas Price War is collected.
- The handoff is confirmed by both sides at the pickup before the seller's share is released.
Questions before you bid
Price Bid Wars open on selected listings while we test them, so you may not always find one running. If something about a war does not look right, tell us before you bid.