eBay Bid Sniper Software

[Teaboy1]

Hearty feed-up of being mugged in last 4 seconds with auto generated bids. Apart from uber hi bids, anyway of combating these auto last-minute.com bidding actions?? Or a case of cant beat 'em ... joint 'em ??

 

[455driver]

Even if you join em if your highest bid isnt high enough you wont win anyway.

I tend to watch items to the end and manually bid in the last 10 seconds, I dont get caught up in the frenzy but just bid whatI am prepared to pay (taking into account the postage costs.

I once saw a standard set of Vauxhall 7 spoke allow wheels go for over £2,000 because 2 people who obviously wanted them both put stupid bids in a snipe program just to make sure and then one of them got stitched up!

 

[richw]

I once saw a standard set of Vauxhall 7 spoke allow wheels go for over £2,000 because 2 people who obviously wanted them both put stupid bids in a snipe program just to make sure and then one of them got stitched up!

I think I have a set of them in the garage, if they are going for that kind of money I might pop them on the 'Bay

 

[CallySleeper]

I use such websites: partly to avoid last minute wars, also in case something goes wrong with my internet or I'm not able to be online at the end of the auction.

It also means I can be strict with how much I'm spending on the item and not easily change it/overspend. Not long ago I was interested in a rail-related item which was being sold repeatedly above what I was willing to pay. Instead of having to pay more I simply found another seller offering the same item at a lower price.

In your case, I would suggest using such websites (I use esnype.com) as they do have advantages, but like me try to budget and not overspend. If possible, see if your item is being sold elsewhere for a lower price than what you're willing to pay. (It may be of course that you have to pay more than what you'd like to get what you want!)

 

[starrymarkb]

I'm not sure how much truth is in this anecdote

Back when you could see the usernames of the person bidding, someone would consistently snipe another users bids (exactly why they were ebay stalking I do not know) - so the losing bidder put their next maximum bid in at £2million for a small trinket (having agreed with the seller before hand to pay the maximum non snipe price if things went wrong) - the sniper sniped and won the item for £2,000,001

I see a lot of holes in the story personally.

 

[richw]

I'm not sure how much truth is in this anecdote

Back when you could see the usernames of the person bidding, someone would consistently snipe another users bids (exactly why they were ebay stalking I do not know) - so the losing bidder put their next maximum bid in at £2million for a small trinket (having agreed with the seller before hand to pay the maximum non snipe price if things went wrong) - the sniper sniped and won the item for £2,000,001

I see a lot of holes in the story personally.

The next bid after 2million would have been a larger step than £1. I was bidding an item at £100, and the next minimum step was £5.

 

[Teaboy1]

I dont 'want' anything that badly !!!
Its just annoying that if I lose a bid in the dying seconds, I cant get a counter-bid in quick enough. I know not to go silly and now you dont see who else is bidding after ebay closed that loop-hole. Years ago I would receive un-solicited messages offering to sell similar items I had just lost or second offers but now all finished.
Fact is that sniper software takes the sport out it where before it was mano-a-mano !!

 

[455driver]

I cant get a counter-bid in quick enough!

Why not just put your highest bid in at the beginning?

 

[Flamingo]

This is the reason I stopped using eBay, except for small "buy it now" items. I got fed up with being pipped at the last second, or shill bidding.

 

[CallySleeper]

I cant get a counter-bid in quick enough!

Why not just put your highest bid in at the beginning?

Greater chance of being outbid/paying more than you might have done otherwise?

 

[richw]

I know of people who would get their mates and spouses to outbid someone if they weren't getting the price they wanted. One person I knew of got his mate to bid for an item as with an hour left it was on 99p. The bidder who was winning at 99p eventually paid £45 for the item simply down to the spoof bidding.

 

[beeza1]

I know of people who would get their mates and spouses to outbid someone if they weren't getting the price they wanted. One person I knew of got his mate to bid for an item as with an hour left it was on 99p. The bidder who was winning at 99p eventually paid £45 for the item simply down to the spoof bidding.

Someone at work got his mate to bid an item "up", guess what, the "mate" ended up as highest bidder, then had to pay for it, as per ebay rules.

 

[richw]

Someone at work got his mate to bid an item "up", guess what, the "mate" ended up as highest bidder, then had to pay for it, as per ebay rules.

just "pay" by cash, ebay wont check you did, just best hope the final fee isn't too high.

 

[C2L]

Got to say gixen has to be one of the best and its a free service. If you need a backup service as well just in case of a server error they offer an upgrade for $6 a year. I bid on around 30 items per week and it has yet to fail me.

I found leaving a high bid in early was left me open to shill bidding. I even caught one user cancelling his bid due to " an incorrect bid amount" then placing a bid in 5p below my maximum. Not sure if the rules have changed but after that decided not to show my hand until the last few seconds. At the end of the day my max bid is the same if I bid seconds or days before

I used to use baygenie as a desktop alternative but got fed up leaving the computer on.

Hope the helps

 

[Puffing Devil]

Greater chance of being outbid/paying more than you might have done otherwise?

Still don't see this. If I'm prepared to pay £10 and no more for an item, that's what I put in as my max bid.

If someone wins it for £10.05, that's still 5p more than I wanted to pay, but less than their max.

Still don't see the point of sniping.

 

[Class172]

I always tend to bid last minute, unless I won't be able to make that bid then I'll place one earlier. This technique works most of the time, and often, even if I lose, then I get satisfaction from the watch the winning bidder has just ended up having to pay more than they were planning to.

Also the process of placing the bid is a skill in its own right, ie what value do you put?

 

[CallySleeper]

Still don't see this. If I'm prepared to pay £10 and no more for an item, that's what I put in as my max bid.

If someone wins it for £10.05, that's still 5p more than I wanted to pay, but less than their max.

Still don't see the point of sniping.

Okay so, I want an item which has a seven day auction. The starting price is 1p, and I'm only willing to pay £10 for it.

If I put in my maximum bid of £10.01 in the first day or two, that leaves five or six days for other people to bid, potentially reach my max bid, and then bid above the amount.

If I leave my max. bid until the last 24 hours of the auction, I may be outbid but I haven't left much time for other people to outbid me. (Hopefully also the current bid is nowhere near my max, partly because the bidding didn't start days before). I don't want to give others chance of outbidding me.

The point of sniping is to give people no chance to out bid me, unless they have already set a higher max bid (they're willing to pay more). For the item I referred to in my previous post, I checked an hour or so before the auction end and the current bid was already above my max, and I wasn't willing to pay through the roof for the item. Some people though may decide to raise their max bid in order to compete.

The point is I'd much rather give someone one or two seconds to out-bid me than one or two minutes, hours or days. If I outbid them, they've got plenty more time to put in a higher bid. The reason I would always set a maximum bid of xx.01 or .05p is that if someone else has set a maximum bid of a nice round number (e.g. £10), then at the end of the auction my marginally higher bid should still win.

Hope that makes sense!!!

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The next bid after 2million would have been a larger step than £1. I was bidding an item at £100, and the next minimum step was £5.

The bid step is a red herring.

If I see an item I want and it currently has a bid of 99p, then ebay requires I bid a minimum of £1.04. If I bid £45 and the previous highest bid is £25, then I might have a highest bid at £26, or something like that. However, if the winning bid came in at £45.01, then the winner would only pay £45.01, despite my bid of £45.

 

[chris89]

Depends on the item your are bidding for. I don't use the sniping programes and have lost many bids in the last seconds.

For Model stuff etc, i always have a deadline limit and don't go within the price of one new. As no point at all, like i've seen 56xx models go far above retail price and before then i would stop £10 to £20 under the retail price.

Chris

 

[richw]

The bid step is a red herring.

If I see an item I want and it currently has a bid of 99p, then ebay requires I bid a minimum of £1.04. If I bid £45 and the previous highest bid is £25, then I might have a highest bid at £26, or something like that. However, if the winning bid came in at £45.01, then the winner would only pay £45.01, despite my bid of £45.

Only if they put a maximum bid of £45.01, if their maximum bid is higher it will go in a larger step. If your max bid is £45 and theirs is £50 it will probably bid them at £46 or £47 from experience.
I normally bid with a few minutes to go and will put unusual maximum bid amounts, for example £10.01 as will outbid the person who has put £10.00, without going much over, although as many people do this technique I now go for 8p over my maximum price. If two people put a max bid of £10, the person who put that £10 maximum bid first will win.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

....The point is I'd much rather give someone one or two seconds to out-bid me than one or two minutes, hours or days. If I outbid them, they've got plenty more time to put in a higher bid. The reason I would always set a maximum bid of xx.01 or .05p is that if someone else has set a maximum bid of a nice round number (e.g. £10), then at the end of the auction my marginally higher bid should still win.

Hope that makes sense!!!

Personally, I think low prices encourage sniping, you are more likely to bid on something you perceive as being 'a better deal'. So the best way to discourage other bidders is bidding early. If your maximum bid really is your maximum bid, there really is no point in putting it off, you will either win, or you won't. There are times I will bid on something purely because the item is 99p (having checked the value of postage first obviously).
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Only if they put a maximum bid of £45.01, if their maximum bid is higher it will go in a larger step. If your max bid is £45 and theirs is £50 it will probably bid them at £46 or £47 from experience.
I normally bid with a few minutes to go and will put unusual maximum bid amounts, for example £10.01 as will outbid the person who has put £10.00, without going much over, although as many people do this technique I now go for 8p over my maximum price. If two people put a max bid of £10, the person who put that £10 maximum bid first will win.

Which illustrates my point nicely, if starrymark's story is true, the bid could have been £2,000,001 and the auction won by only a pound.

 

[Clip]

I dont like sniping tools and have lost many a record through others using it - they cant all be getting in at the last 10 seconds!!

Mind you as others have said, theres only a limit I will go to and a lot of the time they are getting close or even more than the average on Discogs so Ill just get it from there instead - if its for sale on there.

 

[cjp]

Personally, I think low prices encourage sniping, you are more likely to bid on something you perceive as being 'a better deal'. So the best way to discourage other bidders is bidding early. If your maximum bid really is your maximum bid, there really is no point in putting it off, you will either win, or you won't.

I agree

but it is vexing to loose by just a small amount