CONFUSED!

Can someone please explain to me....

I was bidding on an item that closed Monday. A last minute bid went over my proxy bid and I lost. (No big deal, if I wanted it more, I should have had a higher proxy bid). Anyway, yesterday I received a official Second Chance offer to buy the chip at my highest proxy bid and there was an expiration period of 24 hours. I asked the seller if the chip was the same condition as the one that I was out bid on, and although the answer was vague, the price was reasonable enough to buy it. Last night I went ahead and bought it. In order to do you click on a link in the Second Chance offer email that then takes you to an eBay page that looks very much like the auction page, but the item appears only as a Buy It Now item and the Buy It Now price is exactly what my proxy bid was, and the duration of the "sale" is the 24 hour period noted in the Second Chance offer.

There is a button to "Pay Now" and I clicked on it and paid via PayPal. I was emailed a receipt that said that I sent a payment to the seller and that it was for that item.

Today, at the end of the 24 hour period, I received an email from eBay telling me that I was not the winner of an auction. When I visited the auction I lost out on, it was that Buy It Now page for the Second Chance offer item.

Whats that all about?

Jim