Why some of the outbid notifications are not sent

Why am I not getting some of the OutBid Notifications even though the buyer was outbid several times?

When you place a bid, you enter the maximum amount (Proxy Bid) you are willing to pay for the item. If another bidder has a higher maximum, you will be outbid automatically.  Outbid notifications are not sent when this automatic outbid happens.  

Let us walk through a scenario to see how this happens:

Seller1 - lists an item with starting price of $1
Buyer1 - places a maximum bid of $5.  Although the max. bid is $5, the actual bid at that time is $1.
Buyer2 - places tries to place a bid of $2.
At this point, since Buyer1 has a max. bid of $5, his bid is set to $2.25 (bid of buyer 2 + the minimum increment required) and Buyer2 is outbid automatically.

If the buyer uses the website to place the bid, this is the message that they will see:

		Bid Confirmation	Item number: 4508629481

	You are signed in   This item is being tracked in My eBay | Email to a friend | Printer Version You have been outbid by another bidder (if you'd like, bid again) Want to increase your chance of winning? Enter your highest maximum bid. eBay will only use as much of your bid as necessary to win. You could end up paying much less than you think.  Title: NewSchema item title  Time left: 4 days 21 hours  History: 3 bids  Current bid: US $2.50 (Reserve met)  Your new maximum bid: US $   (Enter US $2.75 or more)   How did this happen? eBay compares your bid to those of others. You were outbid because another bidder placed a higher maximum bid. How does bidding work?eBay automatically bids on your behalf up to your maximum bid. If the item ends for less than your maximum, that's all you'll have to pay. See example. Reminder: Even if you don't bid again, you could still end up as the winning bidder if higher bids are retracted or canceled. Continue to check the status of this item until it ends.

If the bid is made by an application using the PlaceOffer call, then you will get a  response similar to this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<PlaceOfferResponse xmlns="urn:ebay:apis:eBLBaseComponents">
  <Timestamp>2006-04-28T21:14:26.945Z</Timestamp>
  <Ack>Success</Ack> 
  <Version>457</Version>
  <Build>e457_core_Bundled_2818483_R1</Build>
  <UsageData>NDM0NDE3LzEzMjY2Ow**</UsageData>
  <SellingStatus>
    <ConvertedCurrentPrice currencyID="USD">2.25</ConvertedCurrentPrice>
    <CurrentPrice currencyID="USD">2.25</CurrentPrice>
    <HighBidder>
      <UserID>Buyer1</UserID>
    </HighBidder>
    <MinimumToBid currencyID="USD">2.5</MinimumToBid>
  </SellingStatus>
</PlaceOfferResponse>

From the response, you will see that:

• the HighBidder UserID is that of Buyer1, which indicates that Buyer2 for whom you made the call has been outbid
• the current high bid is $2.5, so the next bid that you need to place on behalf of Buyer2 is $2.75

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