• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

I've been sniped

Share this page

roofman

roofman

Jedi Knight
Offline
I am sick of getting sniped on ebay auctions. Who can recommend a good snipe service? It's time to pull the big guns out.
 
If you get outbid on an item then you should have bid more! Because you got outbid in the last few seconds of the auction doesn't change that. A sniping service won't change that either.

There's really no reason to bid on an item before the last few moments anyway. All it does it cause new ebayers to drive th price up. Just bid once with your maximum amount. If you get outbid, then it only means someone was willing to pay more for the item than you.
 
Steve, your absolutely correct, i always bid on items with what i believe should be a fair market value but when you find something that can be purchased locally for $200.00 and the price is driven up to $600.00 then we have a lot more idiots amongst us then we think or someone is manipulating the system, i go through this all the time when buying high end guitars $4000.00 and up, i know the dealers and the buyers and i know what they do.
 
A lot of the time it's new ebay users who get caught up in the bidding frenzy. It's like a gambling addiction. "Just one more bid" leads to buying things for far more than previously planned. This is yet another reason to bid once for your maximum amount, and walk away satisfied.

Remember, you don't "win" an auction item. You merely pay more than anyone else thinks it's worth.
 
In the last week I have been bidding on factory service manuals for my wifes Honda. Both times with 2-3 seconds a mystery bid from someone that has not bid previously came up for exactly $1 more.
The last one, I was winning at $28, 2 bids all week, and I had a maximum bid at $50. I'm watching at the end ,refreshing, down to 5 seconds, and refresh again at 3 seconds and bingo $51 and I lose.
It's easy to say should have bid $52, but I would get sniped to $53,etc. so it doesn't really matter.
I wonder what happens when 2 people snipe at the end?
 
That doesn't mean the high bidder only bid a dollar more than you. He/she could have bid $100 but it would only proxy bid him up by the next increment. If you feel you would have paid more, then you should have entered more! Your high bid may have been higher than the other guy and his snipe bid would not have "won" him the item.

If two people bid at the last second, whoever enters the highest amount still wins. Bids are never entered at identical points in time. They may be separated by milliseconds, but one is still before the other.

Some time ago I "won" an auction for a several hundred dollar item by a penny. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
 
Steve_S said:
...Some time ago I "won" an auction for a several hundred dollar item by a penny. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
Click to expand...

One of my first items was my First MG (after my HS MG) It was a 1972 Midget. I won the auction by $5 and 3 seconds on a dial up modem that locked up my machine and had to restart 3 times before I could log back in and find out that I'd won. It's a great story to tell over beers one day.
 
To back up what Steve is saying, I was bidding on something earlier this week. Three seconds before end, someone tried to snipe me. I had set my maximum bid higher though, so I won the auction. Sure it drove the price up, but I still got the item for less than my max. I think going to the extra hassle to do the snipe thing is a waste.
 
I've used AuctionSniper.com a few times without problems. You get e few free ones when you sign up then they start charging. Goggle Snipe and you will come up with a bunch of them. I've only used them when I wasn't going to be near my computer.

Marv J
 
Aside from paying for someone else to click a button for me, I also don't like the idea of giving out my eBay password.
 
My husband is the king of "sniping" if that's what you call it. We just see it as the way e-bay works. Check the part out on several auctions, shop for new...decide what you are going to pay (top dollar) and in the last few seconds..put that amount in...no bidding wars or paying an unreasonable amount for something. If I can get it new or refurbished locally...I will go that route unless it is significantly less on e-bay.
The biggest problem for us on e-bay is too many sellers who don't know the difference between a MGB and a midget. Too often they advertise parts as if they fit either..and that is seldom the case.
 
Exactly. eBay isn't a live auction so there is no reason to treat it as such by continuously bidding. You just end up paying more for your item.
 
There is a free site out there that I have been using for a while. I have never had any issue with it, and it has gotten me a few things that I figured would go much higher than I was willing to bid.

The site is https://www.gixen.com.
 
Steve_S said:
Exactly. eBay isn't a live auction so there is no reason to treat it as such by continuously bidding. You just end up paying more for your item.
Click to expand...

/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/iagree.gif

I used to use e-bay's proxy but found that placing a bid early left lots of time for other people to come in and "nibble"- put in several bids increasing by $5 or $10 until they gave up.

I'd still win, but that ended up costing me.

A snipe puts my bid in and avoids this nonsense. If I've judged the price well I win, if not I don't then get into a bidding war.
 
I've done my share of sniping on eBay after I lost a couple of auctions by folks who did. I've made bids in the last few seconds and ended up with having 2 other bidders trying to see who could bid fastest in the last 10 seconds. If I'm trying to win something, I watch until the very end and decide if it's worth bidding more or not.

I helped my wife (a newbie to eBay) bid on something, and was almost disappointed that there were no bids in the last hour or so other than hers. We kept watching, refreshing, and... No bids. She won. Almost made us wonder if there was something we should have known about, but as it was she got a steal on a relatively new clarinet that has nothing wrong.
 
Thanks for the responses!
 
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/savewave.gif

Nope Greg, It work ah treat if you know how to do ii.---Keoke-- /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif
 
No such thing as sniping. Just bid your max once and let eBay bid on your behalf.

The folks who watch/bid up at the last minute don't understand the concept of proxy bidding.
 
Back
Top