mad at ebay!!!

Re: ebay sneak?

Originally posted by 60103
I want to offer a warning to the ebay users. I just received an email asking me to verify my ebay information. As I have never used ebay for anything, I suspect this to be some sort of trolling spam. You may want to be careful before you answer something like this.
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Do what Tom says!! :) I've reported 3 in the last 2 months! E-bay will appreciate it!!

As for "last second" Bidding, I am on both sides of the argument. Yes I hate that if I am involved in an auction & there are 3 people that bid on it - when a 4th comes in at the last second "Literally" - I feel cheated. But out of More than 75 auctions I have won - this has only happened 5 times - not that bad overall.

As a seller - I don't give a hoot Who wins it or how, just so they abide by the trading "Rules" of e-bay - I have been "Cheated" out of payment 2 times out of more than 50 auctions. Both I reported to e-bay & Both are banned. :) :) (I just relisted the items & sold them both) :D

I have no time for those Real cheaters. the Snipers can do what they wish. For better or worse. If I lose the auction it just wasn't meant to be & there will be anoter along within a year. :( :(
 
re: ebay sneak?

Tom: I forwarded the eMail to ebay. They thanked me and said that they had taken action.
I don't really trust personal information to the Internet if I can avoid it -- you note that I don't post my full name or e-mail address, but you could find it with a bit of digging. I've only sent my charge numbers to the people that make my virus protection. I had to take steps with trains.com when they brought in their new system and plastered my full name over all my posts.
 
I just sold something on e-bay that took a jump in price in the last few seconds. I then received an e-mail from the winner that had the following as part of it:

"I used AuctionSniper.com to win this item... Snipe eBay and win more auctions. Use what others are using to beat you! Unattended, last second, auction sniping. It's as easy as
bidding on eBay, and we do the rest. Free trial.
http://www.auctionsniper.com ...."

For what it's worth. I don't know anything about it, but there are services out there that apparently do this kind of thing. Jim
 
But as I said, Jim, no one has proven that the so called "sniper" programs are any more effective than e-Bays own proxy bid system!

And THAT is free!

In the end, the highest bid wins - if you really want it, put in a good e-Bay proxy bid. If it goes over your proxy bid limit, it is too much, so forget it!
 
I think brakie's bidding method is right on. :thumb: I know that sniping can seem
like "cheating" to some folks, but you just have to accept that's how it works!
It makes no sense to bid up the price beforehand, if you can submit your max bid
at the end. If you get it fer what you're willing to pay, that's great, otherwise you're
not out anything. :) :) You gotta use the proxy bid, but not until the last 10-20 seconds,
whatever you feel lucky with :D :D
The bidding war just gets you nowhere fast :oops:
Just my opinion, of course!!
 
I have in the past found myself outbid, but by less than the bidding increments allowed for by Ebay in the price i.e. my bid was $10, the current winner has it at $10.28. Knowing the increment at this level is $.50, I know it can be had with the final bid of $10.78. So I'd hold out to let the auction run its course, placing the final winning bid in with seconds to go. My original bid was what I was willing to pay but, if it's worthwhile, it won't hurt to add the extra bit of umph at the end. Don't know that I'd call the sniping, but it does add to the fun I have in the hunt.
 
spitfire said:
I've heard that there are people out there who make it a practice to get items through last second bidding software. Personally, I think this is cheating,
Val
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Although I have never used any such software, how is it cheating? Even if someone else uses s sniper program, they will never win the auction unless their maximum bid is higher than yours. If you really the max you're willing to pay, what difference does it make if you get outbid right away or at the last minute? Problem is getting outbid makes us want to rethink our maximum price.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Doc
 
I always wate until the last 40 sec to places my bids on stuff. Sometimes i get it sometimes i dont. If my max price is still lower than the guy before me i still dont win. But i dont let anyone know i am there until the last 40 sec. This way i have a chance of winning it at a better price. Say i place a bid on something and it has 15 mins left and the other guy is watching it to. Then it turns in to a bid war and the price keeps going up with me and the others try to get it before time runs out. so you are setting there watching it and have no idea i am watching it to. and at the last 40 sec i place a bid by the time my bid goes in you dont have time to come back and place a higer one. so if my bid is higer than your last bid i have won and you never know i was there. I call it smart. Sorry if it makes you mad but thay is the way to play the Train-bay game.
 
The problem with snipe programs (if you are a buyer) is that sometimes you would like to feel like you got a bargain on the bay :( :( If you set your maximum bid to possibly outthink the snipe programs.. You almost always pay more than you would normally want to...

As for the sellers, the snipe programs are great - you never really know how much someone has driven up the price... until the auction ends...

Now, the way this all works is this:

Starting price 1.00 .50 cent bid increments... Worth 3.00

Human -- Snipe 1 --- snipe 2 ---- Human 2
1.50 ------- 2.00 -------- 0 ------------ 0
-- 0 ------------ 0 ------- 4.00 -------- 2.00
- 2.50 --------- 0 --------- 0 ------------ 0

From this chart, we can see ... that the humans, bidding up to 2.50 are changing the "minimum bid", but the snipe program ($4.00) is not... since it's not an actual bid.....yet.

The Humans have no idea that they are already outbid... This is what makes it a bit unfair... If you want to outbid a "possible" Snipe program, you must put a bid in of 5.00 or more...... (Just a guess in most cases). Now refer to the "Worth of the Item": $3.00

The human has to - in most cases bid higher than the item is worth - based on getting it locally (without shipping) or through e-bay with shipping, whichever is the lower number. In a real auction you have the option of biddin g or not, like with 10 seconds to go.. put "one more" bid in (or not).. but you can see the bid and make an intelligent decision.. not enter a maximum bid and hope a couple or 3 or 10 snipe programs don't come in and make your maximum bid the winner :( -- something else that makes it not fun or fair.

Now on the final day... the Snipe 2 program will outbid the Human with 30 seconds left - or 10 seconds - whichever the snipe 2 person set it for... and Huiman 1 sees at the auction end that a "mysterious" 3rd bidder came in...

Anybody and everybody can set their maximum bids for the actual item's worth... but this also depends on how easy it is for you to get the same item somewhere else or if it's a one of a kind item.. :(

The "real Cheat" happens because the humans that set up the Snipe programs could be anywhere - even asleep somewhere... and the "Real" Humans (like me & trainnut65) must physically be at the computer hitting our "enter" key trying to win something and Still get outbid by the snipe programs.....

This is all from experience too... I have lost to both Humans (With a faster finger :) ) and snipe programs.. I have also on 3 occasions been the seller :D :D :D Something that was at $95.00 JUMPED to $135.00 in the last minute because of 2 Snipe programs :D That's when I don't mind the "cheating" hehehehehe
 
I watch items I want on ebay for days or weeks before I actually bid on one to get the good price. I have seen a lot of bids put in by these programs. Sometimes the program runs up the price higher then the next highest bid. For example I saw an item that the high bid was about $35.00 before the program bidder, then after the program bidder placed a bid it jumped up to almost $60 and the program bidder was the only bid within the last minute or so. So that person could have gotten the item a lot cheaper. I usually wait until the last second to put in a bid too, but it almost seems unfair because even on cable modem it takes atleast second to two or three seconds at minimum for a human to click "bid again" button and plavce a bid, I know that seems fast but compared to a program that has the bid pretty much already sitting at ebay's "door" it can put the bid through in a matter of nanoseconds. For the people that really know how to use the programs, they are at a large advantage.
 
trainnut65 said:
I always wate until the last 40 sec to places my bids on stuff. Sometimes i get it sometimes i dont. If my max price is still lower than the guy before me i still dont win. But i dont let anyone know i am there until the last 40 sec. This way i have a chance of winning it at a better price. Say i place a bid on something and it has 15 mins left and the other guy is watching it to. Then it turns in to a bid war and the price keeps going up with me and the others try to get it before time runs out. so you are setting there watching it and have no idea i am watching it to. and at the last 40 sec i place a bid by the time my bid goes in you dont have time to come back and place a higer one. so if my bid is higer than your last bid i have won and you never know i was there. I call it smart. Sorry if it makes you mad but thay is the way to play the Train-bay game.
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I use a sniper program and it does the same thing that trainnut65 does, but I don't have to actually "be" there
N Gauger said:
The "real Cheat" happens because the humans that set up the Snipe programs could be anywhere - even asleep somewhere... and the "Real" Humans (like me & trainnut65) must physically be at the computer hitting our "enter" key trying to win something and Still get outbid by the snipe programs.....
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like Mikey does.
I don't consider it cheating though. I consider it a way to get an item at the best price. I do my research on an item, shopping the internet (since I don't have a LHS) and find the best price on that or a similar item and bid my snipe accordingly. The difference of doing it that way instead of placing the bid directly on eBay is that, as many of you have said, I don;t get into an automated bidding war. As an example, I had placed a snipe for an item and received a response that I hadn't won because the maximum bid had exceeded my snipe. I went to the listing and checked the bidding history. The item sold for $61. 2 or 3 minutes before the auction closed the max bid was $35, but another bidder came in and placed bids of $40, $45, $50, $55 & $60. If the winning bidder had placed his bid with a snipe the second bidder's price of $36 would have been the high until the last second when the snipe would have come in at $37 and won. Not sniping cost the winner $24. The only winner in that auction was the seller. If there is any cheating done, it is to the sellers by not getting the highest price for their items.
 
I gotta ask, is it the thrill of getting a bargin that drives people to bid out of control on eBay, or is it really the need for the item?

I've never bought nor sold anything on eBay, and only go there if someone sends a link and says, "go look" at something. I guess I'm just so skeptical and keep reading horror stories that I'm just as content to go to a brick and mortar store or order by phone for what I need. Or maybe it that I'm afraid that once I go there for real, that I might become hooked.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I think I'll go see a shrink and sort this out...hmm, anyone know a good shrink in the Phoenix area that's listed on eBay???? sign1 sign1
 
ezdays said:
I gotta ask, is it the thrill of getting a bargin that drives people to bid out of control on eBay, or is it really the need for the item?

I've never bought nor sold anything on eBay, and only go there if someone sends a link and says, "go look" at something. I guess I'm just so skeptical and keep reading horror stories that I'm just as content to go to a brick and mortar store or order by phone for what I need. Or maybe it that I'm afraid that once I go there for real, that I might become hooked.:rolleyes::rolleyes:

I think I'll go see a shrink and sort this out...hmm, anyone know a good shrink in the Phoenix area that's listed on eBay???? sign1 sign1
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I have to warn you Don, eBay is addictive. Seems like every time I go there I find something that I may not need, but it would bee kind of nice to have, so what the heck, I'll just put in a LITTLE bid, and then there's this OTHER thing and....:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: And some people do get caught up in the bidding.
But if you do your homework (I've seen things sell at higher than retail prices) you can get some good deals. :thumb: :thumb:
In all of the time that I have been dealing on eBay I've only got burned twice. Once buying and once selling.
 
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