is the Audiogon auction clock accurate?

" Something went haywire somewhere. I had the winning bid for a few days and was only outbid in the last few minutes."

Nothing went haywire. Its bidding strategy called sniping. Snipers watch the auction very closely, and then bid on the item at the last second. The rationale is if they wait until the very end, the item won't get bid up as high because there's no time for anyone to react.

From now on, get a link to an atomic clock, and go by that. Don't use the clock in your computer. 

Sorry to hear about your problems with the site. There were a few rough edges I had to work around when I first started bidding on auctions. Now, everything works perfectly for me. I'm glad you found a solution to the problem as well.