Post #93432 by Kono on Fri, May 28, 2004 9:18 PM

Kono:

Maybe I am off base here, but I take it from your posts that you do your "sniping" by hand, that is you bid late personally.

Yeah, and I rarely do it anymore. Just for special items.

Maybe what Trader Woody is speaking of regarding the unethical practice of "sniping" is that which some use via a program which bids for them without them actually being present to bid. I know I have lost to "snipers." Some that I know used programs to do so and I was dismayed.

I understand, but they would have outbid you anyway. The only thing sniping does is prevent you from reconsidering. You know the feeling: "Oh shit! Maybe it is worth $60! Maybe even more! Why didn't I check to see what it sold for before!? Damn. It's over."

To me, it's good I didn't panic and spend more than I thought the item was worth. I have done it (got freaky in the last few seconds) and usually regretted it.

Ebay can be very weird. I once had in my target sights the VHS pilot episode of Hawaii Five-O. Two were ending on the same day. They were virtually identical. I gave up on the first one when it hit $26. The second one I got an hour and a half later at $9. There was no difference! The first one wasn't sealed or anything. People just got in a freaky bid war.

All that said, IMHO, you can place a maximum bid anytime during the auction. That is what I do. Sometimes I win. Other times I don't. But I don't overpay. It is irritating though to overbid by one bid by someone who is out to dinner using some robot program to place bids for them at the last possible minute.

I've never knowingly been outbid by a sniper program. I suspect that they are used less than people think. What's the diff between a program and an attentive bidder? Either way a bid amount was set and it was the highest bid. The difference would only be a few seconds. Hardly enough to matter in most cases.

Let's face it. For the most part, ebay sniping is a myth.

If you were bidding on a government contract with closed bids, you would submit your bid and the agency would contact you as to if you won or not. Correct? How about if the agency contacted you and said "Pssst... I know you submitted a bid, and it was fair, but Acme Co submitted this bid, think you can beat it?" That's ebay. IMO, sniping is more ethical than that is.

I guess I fail to grasp what the casual ebayer thinks sniping is. You make a bid and that's that. If you make it late then you prevent others from reconsidering their original bid. That's all it is. Bidding late makes other bidders unable to reconsider. So what? Bid what you think it's truly worth to you the first time.