Yup, the clock is messed up. So if the clock says nine something when you start and then it catches up to ten something before you finish the quest, it takes it as you taking an hour to complete the quest.

So I'm doing an item hunt, buy the item and click on "I have it".

Chase says, "Ooops! You took too much time. Try again?" or something close to that, and the clock at the top of the site is an hour behind the correct time!

Now I'm back on level 1. :(

sigh I hated having to start over. Thanks for the responses!