Rick Probstein spent 21 years selling nearly $1 billion worth of items on eBay, but took the risk and left the online marketplace last month to start his own auction site.
On Monday, as many of the first auctions were closing on his new site, snype, the platform had massive technical glitches.
The main feature that allows a bidder to put in a “snype” — a pre-programmed last-second bid — instead triggered the auctions themselves to end, no matter how much time was left. For other auctions, the bidding features were completely disabled.
The site was taken down as the glitches were discovered, Probstein told cllct.
“We’re experiencing a system-wide technical issue due to high volume that affected all auctions on the platform,” a statement read on the website. “To protect the integrity of bidding and ensure a fair experience for every buyer and seller, we are temporarily taking snype offline. All impacted auctions will be canceled and relisted with full visibility once the issue is resolved.”
Probstein said he is also looking into the possibility snype was a target of a hacking scheme and is not sure of a timeline for its return.
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Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.