54 replies to this topic

[Mendon]

My son has been trying for a month or so to win a particular item on eBay. He lost the last couple auctions at the last minute to snipers after being the top bidder for 5 days each time. He was PO'd but realized that snipers are a way of life and since you can't do anything about it, you better get used to them if you're going to play the eBay game.

Anyhoot, he called me up a couple days ago and said another of the items he wanted was up for auction and he had put a bid of $100 on it. I kind of fell back as that was twice the $40-$50 that they normally go for and I told him so. He replied, "Yeah, I know. But I really, really want this and I'm tired of losing. Hopefully maybe I'll win this time but I sure hope the auction doesn't go anywhere near that high".

Needless to say, right on schedule, with 11sec's left in the auction a sniper comes in and wins with one bid, $101. Not even 3min went by and my son got an Email from the sniper saying "I didn't really want to bid that high. Do you want it for your bid of $100?" My son sent him an Email right back saying "Nope. Enjoy your winnings, Mr. Sniper". Either the sniper was horny as hell or mad because he sent another two word Email back wanting to have sex with my son.

Gives me a nice happy feeling knowing that snipers can feel as frustrated as I do at times...

Mendon

[Room 34]

Mendon said:

Either the sniper was horny as hell or mad because he sent another two word Email back wanting to have sex with my son.

Serves him right.

Unfortunately there's nothing ethically wrong with sniping (as long as you're not using sniping software to snipe for you when you're not there), but it is certainly tiresome. Looks like this guy learned a lesson.

So, was the sniper's intention to pay the seller the $101 and then turn around and sell it to your son for $100? I assume that's the case, because if the sniper did not complete the transaction and the seller gave your son a second-chance offer, it would be at whatever the next highest bidder's amount was, removing all of the sniper's bids from the equation.

[Mendon]

I can't be totally positive but from what my son told me on the phone, I got the feeling that if my son agreed to honor his bid, the sniper would contact the seller and drop out so that the seller and my son would now be communicating.

It may have been something else but this was the impression my son gave me of what would transpire.

And it won't help the sniper to try and sell it to bidder #3 as that bid was $38

Mendon

[video game addict]

Room 34 said:

 
 

Serves him right.

Unfortunately there's nothing ethically wrong with sniping (as long as you're not using sniping software to snipe for you when you're not there), but it is certainly tiresome.  Looks like this guy learned a lesson.

So, was the sniper's intention to pay the seller the $101 and then turn around and sell it to your son for $100?  I assume that's the case, because if the sniper did not complete the transaction and the seller gave your son a second-chance offer, it would be at whatever the next highest bidder's amount was, removing all of the sniper's bids from the equation.

What difference does it make if you're using software?

You get the same results regardless, whether it's Mendon's son who's been outbid, or the sniper winning the auction. This raises another question, How old is Mendon, to have a son on ebay? And I guess living on his own as well. I had no idea! Guess that really is a fitting signature.

Everyone who get's outbid over and over again, hates snipers, yet so many people do it, myself included. The simple fact is, I get things I want most of the time for less than what it would have cost to just enter a bidding war with other users early on. I NEVER put in astronomical bids to insure I will win, I only bid what I'm happily willing to pay. I don't always win either, but such is life. I just recently started using Esnipe, it works great, and will never stay up to 2AM again now that I have this setup. It makes life a little easier. Even if it means I'm a bad person for using it.

[Room 34]

Snipers are annoying, but if they're actually there manually placing the bid... at least they're actually there manually placing the bid! It requires them to commit their personal time to being online and submitting the bid themselves. Or, perhaps their timing is just right. I've "sniped" before, in a way, if I happened to be on eBay, searched for something I wanted, and found a copy of it that was closing in a couple minutes.

It's a lot different to have a program set up where you leisurely browse items that are closing in 5 days, pick the ones you want, and set up the software to place a bid for you with 11 seconds left on the auction, even if you will be out fishing at the time it closes! (I think so, anyway.)

[z28in82]

Mendon,
congrats on have a smart kid and I'm happy that he got lucky :wink:

Room 34,
I agree with you I think those who use snipping software are wrong, if it were a realk auction you would be able to have someone else place a real bid for you. So I feel the same rules should apply on epay

VGA,
using a program is wrong in my opinion but hey whatever works for ya man. As long as it isn't your program that snippes me with 11 seconds :wink:

[sku_u]

Mendon said:

I can't be totally positive but from what my son told me on the phone, I got the feeling that if my son agreed to honor his bid, the sniper would contact the seller and drop out so that the seller and my son would now be communicating.

It may have been something else but this was the impression my son gave me of what would transpire.

And it won't help the sniper to try and sell it to bidder #3 as that bid was $38    

Mendon

In your son's case, the sniper may very well have been either the seller or a friend of the seller. There's no other incentive for a sniper to try and do that.

[NE146]

Yeah, sniping is pretty much the best chance you have of winning anything desirable on Ebay. It's just the proven way to go. I won a set of 5 Joystik magazines the other week and wanted it so bad.. I sat there and waited until it was literally 8 seconds left and bid $150! ($30 per magazine). Yeah I wanted them that bad and they sometimes go for more than that when sold individually.. so I figured what the heck.

Well wouldn't you know it someone else tried to snipe as well. But he only bid $56.57 so I ended up winning at $57.57! A bargain compared to how much I bid.

[jetset]

Hey, was this the one that just went on Goodwill's auction site? I was watchin' that one. Someone put in a huge bid the first day, and a sniper got it at the last second! Maybe coincidence but I'll bet $$ that was the one?
Either way it was too much for me from the git-go. Unless I find one at a garage sale or thrift, I won't pay that amount for a single cart. Can't afford it!!!!!!!

You should tell the guy you'll buy it for $75 and let him squirm.

[jetset]

Hey, was this the one that just went on Goodwill's auction site? I was watchin' that one. Someone put in a huge bid the first day, and a sniper got it at the last second! Maybe coincidence but I'll bet $$ that was the one?
Either way it was too much for me from the git-go. Unless I find one at a garage sale or thrift, I won't pay that amount for a single cart. Can't afford it!!!!!!!

You should tell the guy you'll buy it for $75 and let him squirm.

[Mendon]

sku_u said:

In your son's case, the sniper may very well have been either the seller or a friend of the seller. There's no other incentive for a sniper to try and do that.

You could be right, Sku; I hadn't considered the fact that maybe it was sort of a scam or fishy auction.

But it seems logical to me that if it was a scam auction that they wouldn't make an astronomical sniper bid on an auction to drive a price up; they would make a few safe bid increments during the auction to slowly drive the price up. After all, they have no idea what the top bid is and making an astronomical last second bid isn't going to start a bidding war but could very well ruin any possible sale they have by going over the top bid.

As for the incentive of the sniper, I just think they didn't plan on anyone bidding as high as my son did and when they threw out their normal, very high "guarantee's me of winning" amount, they got caught having to pay much more than they expected. Rather than having to deal with paying for the item and then selling it at a loss, they tried to get out of the deal entirely by offering it to the 2nd high bidder and letting that bidder deal with the seller. Saves a lot of hassle for the sniper.

Who knows... I like to think that a sniper got his due

Mendon

[sku_u]

Mendon said:

As for the incentive of the sniper, I just think they didn't plan on anyone bidding as high as my son did and when they threw out their normal, very high "guarantee's me of winning" amount, they got caught having to pay much more than they expected. Rather than having to deal with paying for the item and then selling it at a loss, they tried to get out of the deal entirely by offering it to the 2nd high bidder and letting that bidder deal with the seller. Saves a lot of hassle for the sniper.

Who knows... I like to think that a sniper got his due    

Mendon

If the sniper was doing the astronomical last minute guarantee I win bid, and it was higher than he was prepared to buy the game for, then he absolutely got what's coming to him.

[wrldstrman]

So if someone is using the snipe program it automaticaly bids 50 cents or a dollar higher than top bid. so if someone is using this program and I bid 500 dollars for an et game the snipe program will bid 501 for the snipe bidder.

[sku_u]

wrldstrman said:

So if someone is using the snipe program it automaticaly bids 50 cents or a dollar higher than top bid.  so if someone is using this program and I bid 500 dollars for an et game the snipe program will bid 501 for the snipe bidder.

Only if the sniper entered in a max bid of over $500. The snipebots will only bid up to the max amount you enter. They will not keep going.

[xulchris]

wrldstrman said:

So if someone is using the snipe program it automaticaly bids 50 cents or a dollar higher than top bid.  so if someone is using this program and I bid 500 dollars for an et game the snipe program will bid 501 for the snipe bidder.

I don't know of any snipe program that works like that.

[NE146]

wrldstrman said:

So if someone is using the snipe program it automaticaly bids 50 cents or a dollar higher than top bid.  so if someone is using this program and I bid 500 dollars for an et game the snipe program will bid 501 for the snipe bidder.

Snipebots only bid once. And they bid the amount you enter.

So if you enter in $500. The sniping program will bid $500 at the appointed sniping time. It doesn't matter what price the item is at. So if the item is $700, you're sniping bid will simply not win. But if the price is $250, then the program will still bid $500 at the appointed time. But of course you'd win the auction at around $251. Easy.

[wrldstrman]

guess its a good way to win auctions.but it also seems that once people figure out who is using the snipe program they could really use it to their advantage to get max prices for their auctions. I once accidently put a max bid at 2.500.00 dollars really only wanting to bid 25.00 got lucky and only ended up paying 32.00 dollars for winning bid. E bay has got so big that its hard just to get someone to answer you back let alone Ebay being able to catch all the people who have other members bid on their stuff to run up the bids.

[video game addict]

wrldstrman said:

guess its a good way to win auctions.but it also seems that once people figure out who is using the snipe program they could really use it to their advantage to get max prices for their auctions.

That's actually one of the advantages of using a snipe program. Nobody knows you're interested in said auction until it is all over. If you don't snipe, but bid by proxy, then the seller could easily up your bid, by either shilling or getting a friend to place a bid on the item.

You're much more likely to get screwed when you put a bid up two days into the auction, and then let it sit there all week. The seller may not see any interest in his auction, an attempt to shill. But most bidding takes place in the closing minutes anyway, so at that point, unless the seller just wants to hold on to what he's selling, he's less likely to bid on his own item at this point. Especially if he has multiple auctions ending in a short period of time.

Room 34 said:

Snipers are annoying, but if they're actually there manually placing the bid... at least they're actually there manually placing the bid! It requires them to commit their personal time to being online and submitting the bid themselves.

So basically Scott, you're saying that a sniper should have to work hard to place his bid?

I don't see any difference between someone like MMF who might kill a BIN two hours into an auction, with a proxy bid of around 75% of the BIN, and then stays on top all the way to the end, watching the price go up and up, and finally winning it with a couple dollars to spare...

And someone like myself, who browses ebay everyday, and occasionally bids on items, alot of times I've already had some sort of contact with the seller before hand, email about specifics, condition, shipping, etc. I express interest and say I most likely will be bidding. Then add their auction to my snip list, with the amount I'm willing to pay.

There's really no difference between my bid and MMF's except my bid doesn't show up until the very last second. Make one bid and bid what you're willing to pay, and there really is NO reason to get upset over being outbid by someone else in the end. Whether you bid two hours into the auction, or in the closing seconds, the result is the same.


Alot of times, bidders don't really know what they want on ebay. They're just bidding for the heck of it. They have no idea, what they are willing to pay or what an item is worth, and they just know to win, they must be the highest bidder. So you come along and outbid someone, then they get an email, so they login and bid again. The price goes up. This process repeats itself ALOT for the slower members of ebay. That's why you see Atari packages with 12 common games selling for $300+ By sniping, you don't have to deal with these types of people. By the time they've found out they're outbid, the auction is already over.

z28in82 said:

if it were a realk auction you would be able to have someone else place a real bid for you. So I feel the same rules should apply on epay

Ebay is NOT a real live auction. It's a time based auction, of sorts, and the bidder willing to pay the highest, does NOT always win. It all comes down to timing. That's why you have people coming in here every other day, complaining that they lost said auction for $1. Were they willing to bid again and raise the price by $5? ...by $10? We'll never know, because the auction has ended. But since this is an ebay auction, and not a real auction, we all play by ebay rules.

[z28in82]

video game addict said:

z28in82 said:

if it were a realk auction you would be able to have someone else place a real bid for you. So I feel the same rules should apply on epay

Ebay is NOT a real live auction. It's a time based auction, of sorts, and the bidder willing to pay the highest, does NOT always win. It all comes down to timing. That's why you have people coming in here every other day, complaining that they lost said auction for $1. Were they willing to bid again and raise the price by $5? ...by $10? We'll never know, because the auction has ended. But since this is an ebay auction, and not a real auction, we all play by ebay rules.

I understand what you are saying and agree with the well I only lost by one dollar argument but I just think running a program to bid for you is just kinda "low". No reason in particular but it just rubs me the wrong way.

Ebay has become very impersonal and using programs to bid for you just furthers the problem IMHO. It just bothers me that with certain deals you feel like you're dealing with their response programs: paypal, anadale, etc. than you actually spend talking with them. I can't even count the number of questions to sellers that go unanswered anymore. I find it to be rare when I actually get a response.


But hey to each his/her own :wink:

[NE146]

And remember again.. the sniper DIDN'T just bid a dollar more. He probably bid a lot/little more than that. But Ebay bidding system makes the final amount only one step above the previous highest bid. i.e. in your case.. that $1 more.

[Mendon]

Thanks to everyone for your posts & responses to this topic. Enjoyed the discussion.

One thing that bothers me, though, is that there are several references to shill bidding and such. Does everything think that this happens that often or that frequently on eBay?

I used to think that my only problem on eBay was getting the item I sold and having the item packaged properly. But after reading this thread perhaps I should be concerned with shill auctions.

Just curious as to whether you believe that it is a common problem or not.

Thanks!

Mendon

[sku_u]

Mendon said:

I used to think that my only problem on eBay was getting the item I sold and having the item packaged properly. But after reading this thread perhaps I should be concerned with shill auctions.

It's not a common practice, but it does happen. I had it happen to me once. I kept wondering why someone with extensive feedback kept bidding on an item that I was high bidder on in low increments. When I requested the information of both the shill bidder and seller, I found out that the names were different, but the addresses were the same. I immediately contacted Ebay and the item was pulled and the seller suspended. That was the only time I ever personally caught someone shill bidding out of the 1000+ auctions I've probably bid on over the past few years.

Low feedback bidders intentionally bidding an excessively high amount with no intention of paying is a much more common problem on Ebay.

[Room 34]

I really like to believe that shilling is rare on eBay. I also like to believe that when it happens, it is found out, reported to eBay, and the person responsible gets kicked off.

Of course, I'm sure it does happen, I'm sure it usually goes unnoticed, I'm sure that a lot of the time if it is found out and reported to eBay, they don't do anything about it, and even if they do kick the person off, they could always just come back as a new user.

But now I'm just getting bitter and cynical.

I am not aware of any occasions when I have been involved in an auction where shilling has taken place. I have to admit there have been a couple of times on my own auctions where I've been tempted... such as just recently, when my lot of 4000 baseball cards ended up closing for $50.99. (That bid was placed by a sniper, incidentally.) The first bidder seemed like a flake, so I ended up cancelling his bid (you can read about that in another thread), then someone else came in and placed a bid, which sat as the only bid until the last minute.

Anyway, as I said, I was tempted to do a little shilling of my own, but I would never do it because I'd lose all self-respect. This happens to be one of the rare cases, though, where I'm actually glad that, so far, I have not heard from the winning bidder, so he may be flaking out on me. I'd be happy to just let this auction die and re-post it with a higher opening bid or maybe even a reserve. (To me, reserves are kind of stupid, though... just a way to entice people into an auction with a $1 opening bid even though they'd have to bid $500 to actually GET the item.)

OK... I'm rambling.

[Mendon]

I understand what you are saying, Room34.

For me, depending on the item and its value, I'll use a Reserve Price just to protect myself. If I know something usually goes for $75, lets say, I'll start the bidding at $20 with a reserve of $70 so that I won't lose my butt selling an item, much like what happened to you and your baseball cards. The higher starting price (rather than the .99 starting price of many auctions) I feel perhaps weeds out some of the possible deadbeats.

I've noticed that sometimes an item will go for very low prices compared to what they normally go for. There could be many reasons why (maybe having a lot to do with the sellers feedback or the lack of a good description or picture) but maybe the auction just wasn't seen or eBay was offline near the end of the auction or something and you don't get the price you want.

Only once did I run an auction where the item I was offering sold for much, much lower than it should have and I swore never to let it happen again. I doubt if anyone would like to have their Quadrun cart sell for $50 when they know its worth much more.

But I understand your position and thoughts on the matter.

Mendon

[Room 34]

A couple of things I have learned, although I haven't always been able to put them (the second one, anyway) into practice:

1. Effective, searchable words in your title are crucial.

2. The ending price depends a lot on the time and day when the auction ends.

The first is obvious. I don't know how many people browse the categories on eBay, but for me it's search all the way. If you don't have the words people are likely to search on in your title, your auction WON'T be seen. I really can't comprehend the people who waste space in their title with "LOOK!!!!!" or "MUST SEE!!!!!!!!" or "~+~+~+~+ WOW!!!! +~+~+~+~" or even worse, deliberate misspellings like "LQQK" or "L@@K" or using numbers in place of letters. L337 5P3@K doesn't fly in auction titles, people!!!!

The second is the more painful lesson. If your auction closes at 3 PM on a Sunday, lots of luck! Unfortunately, the times when I am actually free to work on posting auctions do not sync up well with the best times for auctions to end. I see that eBay now lets you set an arbitrary start date and time for auctions, but that costs extra, and when you're selling a lot of 2600 cartridges that optimistically will sell for $5, you can't really justify wasting $3 on listing "enhancements".