Ebay no longer rocks for me...

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If you don't want to be sniped, make your first/only bid the max you are willing to spend, and remove yourself from the emotion and trauma of the auction experience. Then, if you get sniped at the last second, you will be outbid by an amount you never wanted to pay anyways.
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TJR, you are forgetting one important point. When you get sniped at the last second, the loser only sees it at being outbid by a buck or two. You do not know for a fact that that the sniper bid only 5 bucks more, or if he actually bid $30.00 more.



Your bid, no matter how much the bid is, will only increase the bid to the next level, not total price.



I think many of those that get sniped at the last minute think the sniper only bid 5 bucks more and won.



I have been known to snipe with really off numbers. I actually got a guy by 1 penny. I sniped the auction at 2 seconds. I bid $101.01. His max bid was $101.00. Since my blind bid was 1 penny more than his, I won.



I actually got an email from him asking if I knew how much he bid before I bid. He was impressed and congratulated me on beating him.





Tom
 
Caymen--



That's why, when I make my bids (be they earlier in the auction or at the last minute), and bid the max I'm willing to pay, I usually also make the bid for an odd amount. I'll never bid $100, or $101. I'll always bid something like $103.72. That way, if someone like you comes in trying to snipe it at an amount similar to my max, I'm more likely to win. If they bid signficantly more than me, they'll get it anyway, fine by me. If they bid significantly less than me, I'll get it. But if it's close, I'll have significantly combatted strategies such as yours. :)
 
Caymen,



Thanks. Yes, what you mention is probably worth mentioning for those that don't know how eBay works. Of course, everything you describe I already knew, but I appreciate the chime in nonetheless.



I too make bids that aren't an even increment of the minmal bid increase amount. Often if trying to get an item for the very lowest price I will put out a few "feeler" increase bids in the last few minutes. If it keeps jumping up via proxy more than what I want to spend, I stop. If it doesn't, and I seem to have someone online, on the other end, then I will try to guess his bid (people often think in round numbers) and bid that, plus 2 bid increments and then another 1 cent, or 25 cents.



That way, the person gets an outbid notice or they see they are outbid by the minimum interval, and the next, then give up.



For example, if I assume the bidder has a high bid of $50, and the increment is $1, I bid $52.01.



The other guy's next bid of $51 is rejected (pushes the auction to $51), and if he does it one more time he might give up. If he bids over $52, then I probably don't want to start a war, and if the price is getting to high, I bale. If done properly with less than 15 seconds left, most guys can't react soon enough.



The morale...if you REALLY want an item make your bid very high...what you are willing to spend.



TJR





TJR
 
Before I go any further....



And when you put in your bid at the last second, it also gives your opponent a chance to retaliate, AHEAD OF TIME.
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You cannot Retaliate in advance--that's a contradiction of terms. Retaliation implies fighting back for a wrong done to you. If you knew about the wrong in advance, and attacked, then you would be wrong, as the crime would not have been yet committed, giving us a Minority Report situation, just sans Tom Cruise.



How can I strike back justly, or retaliate, at an assailant who hasn't attacked yet?



and what the heck is up with the sour grapes comment? Is that vernacular that I haven't heard? I am at a loss there.





**Why is kenny rogers being brought up again? Didn't we already beat that horse to death?



Paying someone to fight your battle for your is still lame--you're paying someone so that you can walk away. When you can't fight your own battles, substituting money for courage, what good can come of the victory? You didn't really win.



I do practice all the tactics advised here, and as I have said, I win what needs to be won, but that does not stop me from being outraged by cowardice.



Especially when cowardice controls the largest online marketplace. Stupid Natural Monopolies :(



I don't consider myself a Sociopath. Just a Real Man. If they're one and the same to you, then I don't know what to tell you, other than I can pass a psych exam ;)



When you think about it, if everyone is going to bid in the last 2 seconds of the auction, why on earth are sellers posting items up for weeks? Why even bother paying the fees for extended listings? You don't need the time for people to find your stuff--sniping services can search for you--and you certainly don't need honest bidders getting their hopes up, as we know that all the "relevant" bidders will try and blast each other in the final moments.



 
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Kevin L,



"Son you don't have to snipe to be a man..."



I still think you have it all wrong. You somehow equate an eBay bidding war to some actual, real battle that is a fight and a test of one's manhood.



I know many people that get emotional during a bidding war.



Sniping, especially by using automated tools, is a high-tech way of removing yourself from the petiness which is that war. People that snipe do so hoping they will get an item at a reasonable price that might otherwise go for some lesser amount.



Maybe it's the real men that bid high and bid early???



Maybe it's the panty-wastes that lowball and snivel watching as the auction closes hoping to save a buck?



;)



TJR
 
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If your opponent had put in a larger bid than you ahead of time, when you try to snag the item in the last few seconds, even if you manage to hit it at the VERY LAST second, Ebay's proxy bid system will "retaliate" for the initial bidder and reject your bid. Its not techinically a retaliation in advance, but rather an automatic defense system.



Either way you look at it, if you put in the TRUE MAXIMUM amout you're willing to bid, it doesn't matter when you bid, the sniper will only win if he's willing to pay MORE than you, so you would lose anyway. END OF STORY!
 
I collect coca-cola stuff and only purchase thru Yahoo Auctions and never deal with Ebay....just that I have found better stuff and easier to deal with Yahoo over Ebay.
 
LOL Buzz...considering the "A" group is now determined on when you check-in. Online or at the airport. Not by who is standing in line first.



Which, everytime I went to the airport, people were sitting down in the seats which I consider them NOT in line. I'd go right to the very front and stand. You should see how many looks I get. A few actually have the courage to say something and I always tell them. "You sitting down your not standing in line".
 
and Southwest quelched the service that was started by an outsider that would allow you to pay them so they could use their computer program to grab the "A" seat for you. In case you were too busy doing something more productive than sitting in front of a computer 24 hours before your flight.



Now..........back to the rant about Epay.
 
Commercial airlines sucks--to think that it is a federal offense to leave a plane once you board. That's BS. I always wondered about those complaints from people who are stuck on grounded/diverted planes for 8+ hours. If I was in that tin can, with overflowing toilets and fugly stewardesses trying to tackle me if I used my cell phone*, then I'd be pushing that emergency door exit and getting the heck off. If the plane had one of those inflating chutes to get out, all the better.



Now I know why they stay--the law keeps them down. I would not be fighting to get in the "a" group on southwest--I'd be fighting to be the singular ("a") person to get off the freaking plane.



War is petty? War on a global scale, perhaps. But the war of one man and his honour? When that is petty, the world is lost.



If you pay someone to find the auction, then snipe the auction, and then you pay someone else to deliver the package to your doorstep, then you're using your wealth to walk away. Even if you can swallow the pride to walk away, I have to ask: If you are not determined enough to get the product yourself, do you really want it? Should you deprive others who might want it more? What quantifies "want"? Your money does not--that quantifies your ability to get the item. From my perspective, if you won't get it yourself--as these snipers refuse to do--then you truly do not deserve the item. You clearly don't want it, and you certainly don't need it.



While we're on the subject, is the Sniper bumper sticker which reads: "you can run, but you'll just die tired" supposed to evoke any sense of awe or reverence on the behalf of the car driver? To me it is rather lame. You can kill some guy from 3 miles off, and with technology, you don't even have to actually hold the weapon yourself. If the movie Shooter is to be believed.



"If you get me within 1 [second] of [that auction], then Bang--no more [bidding competition]." That is the motto, the epitome of a pathetic nature, which comes to mind when I think of eBay sniping. While you guys lounge around, while a paid 3rd party snipes for you with their "sophisticated dedicated server", do you look at your watch, and seeing that there is only 30 seconds or so left in the auction, start reciting biblical verses to solidify the low that you have brought yourself to? What happens when it is sniping service vs sniping service? When you win. do you then join the many, the pathetic, the Successful Snipers in sending out a gloating message to the bidder? Tell me--are those gloat messages part of the paid package deal, or are they just the futile attempts of an underhanded winner trying to bolster his pride, the only semblance left of the manhood that he presumably once had?



(Saving Private Ryan reference. Could anyone think that such sniping was manly?)



(*Only a woman was tackled by a stewardess when trying to call someone, so I wouldn't have that problem. I wouldn't want to be tackled by any stewardess that I've ever seen, so this works out well.)
 
If you are not determined enough to get the product yourself, do you really want it? Should you deprive others who might want it more?....From my perspective, if you won't get it yourself--as these snipers refuse to do--then you truly do not deserve the item.
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Wait a second--Now you're saying that if I buy something off Ebay, or for that matter off amazon.com, and pay FedEx, UPS, USPS, DHL, or whomever to deliver it, rather than driving two-thirds of the way across the country to pick it up myself, THAT'S unacceptable to you???? To think that I thought your irrational rants about Ebay auctions were ridiculous...



Man, Kevin. You really have stepped off the deep end here, haven't you?
 
Kevin L,



It's called proxy bidding. Try to figure out it.



You absolutely CANNOT be sniped or fall prey to a sniper if you would simply figure out the maximum an auction item is worth to you and how much you are willing to pay and make that your first and only bid.



Then, if you get outbid, or gasp, sniped at the last second then it really doesn't matter because you were never willing to pay that much anyways.



Why do you refuse to bid like that? Why do you set yourself up to be sniped? Why set yourself up for all that artificial drama?



TJR
 
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Why do you refuse to bid like that? Why do you set yourself up to be sniped? Why set yourself up for all that artificial drama?
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Because like every other auction, the bidder wants to pay the least amount possible and if it wasn't for the ONE scumbag sniper, they would have gotten it that cheap.



I love to snipe myself, but I do it the old fashoned way. I hit the submit button at the last second.





Tom
 
Caymen said:
Because like every other auction, the bidder wants to pay the least amount possible and if it wasn't for the ONE scumbag sniper, they would have gotten it that cheap.
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Oh, it seems that what you are saying is that the person who is sniping "ruins" the "good deal" that the original bidder thought they might get.



If that's the case then I guess what we are all saying, and what this thread is saying is that snipers have taken away the "good deals" on eBay. Now, instead, things are selling more for what they probably should and there are no bargains.



Also, why call the sniper a "scumbag?"



You yourself said:
I love to snipe myself, but I do it the old fashoned way. I hit the submit button at the last second.
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Whether that sniping is done with a free program, a paid service, or manually it's still the same thing. The affect is that you place YOUR HIGHEST bid with little time for people to react.



If others placed THEIR HIGHEST bid there would be no reason to react.



BTW, consider this...the sniper wants to do the same thing as you and others want...to get the item as cheaply as possible. By them figuring out what the maximum they are willing to bid that might win the auction, and sniping the auction, they avoid a potentially irrational bidding war with an emotional bidder or two. It's the emotion and irrational bidding wars that have killed eBay moreso than snipers, IMHO. Snipers are a symptom of that larger problem of irrationality.



TJR
 
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TJR,



Never said I am better because I snipe the old fashoned way. I was just making a statement.



As for calling a sniper a scumbag, hey...I like to call people names. Since I am a sniper mysef, I can call snipers names.



Like Carlos Mencia calling hispanics "beaners" is because he is one.





Tom
 
TJR SAID It's the emotion and irrational bidding wars that have killed eBay moreso than snipers, IMHO. Snipers are a symptom of that larger problem of irrationality.



Now you are stepping on my toes. :angry: I have made a lot of money selling junk on Ebay for way more than it is actually worth. So far, the best one was a 12-year old cheapy and worn-out McCulloch chainsaw that I sold for $145 plus $30 shipping and handling. (I found the original purchase invoice 12-years earlier for $89 in the owner's manual.) I didn't feel guilty one bit, because I had 6 close-up pictures and described it honestly and accurately.
 

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