Who sniped me??

[Crabmaster2000]

When I was bidding on Little Samson recently I know some jackass was going to snipe me at the last second. I really wanted the game so I made sure my max bid was pretty high. Sure enough I paid $40 more in the last 5 seconds than I would have otherwise. Damn Snipers!!!

What you paid was the fair value for that cart at that particular time. Whether someone put that bid at the last minute or at the beginning of the auction is irrelevant.

A sniper is trying to catch someone who does not put in a max bid for an auction which is surprisingly common.

Im aware of that. I just wanted to complain. I put a max bid in that almost assured me the game. Im just glad someone didnt start a bidding war with me because they could have driven the price up even further.

[noiseredux]

Yeah, I know WHY I didn't win. And I wasn't willing to pay more than I offered up. Which was not much. I was really just bitching because for 4 days I thought I was winning for a very small price.

Mainly I wanted to see if it was a fellow Racketeer who beat me.

[Niode]

So you put a bid in for lower than the perceived value of the thing? What did you expect? That's how auctions work. You either get the punters who want the item and are willing to pay whatever, or on the other side of the coin, you find somebody who puts a low ball bid on, and nobody else bids, you snipe and find out they bid way too low and you get the item. That's how ebay works. Instead of bitching about how you didn't get the item for a really low price, you just chalk it up and say, "oh well, it's not worth that much to me" Then try and find another auction to low ball. You just keep going until you get the item you want for the price you want to pay.

[Crabmaster2000]

So you put a bid in for lower than the perceived value of the thing? What did you expect? That's how auctions work. You either get the punters who want the item and are willing to pay whatever, or on the other side of the coin, you find somebody who puts a low ball bid on, and nobody else bids, you snipe and find out they bid way too low and you get the item. That's how ebay works. Instead of bitching about how you didn't get the item for a really low price, you just chalk it up and say, "oh well, it's not worth that much to me" Then try and find another auction to low ball. You just keep going until you get the item you want for the price you want to pay.

He pretty much already responded to that statement directly above you?

[noiseredux]

So you put a bid in for lower than the perceived value of the thing? What did you expect? That's how auctions work. You either get the punters who want the item and are willing to pay whatever, or on the other side of the coin, you find somebody who puts a low ball bid on, and nobody else bids, you snipe and find out they bid way too low and you get the item. That's how ebay works. Instead of bitching about how you didn't get the item for a really low price, you just chalk it up and say, "oh well, it's not worth that much to me" Then try and find another auction to low ball. You just keep going until you get the item you want for the price you want to pay.

He pretty much already responded to that statement directly above you?

...

[gtmtnbiker]

I was really just bitching because for 4 days I thought I was winning for a very small price.

Well you really can't go by that. Most auctions don't have significant action until the final 24 hours and sometimes only in the last hour...especially for video game stuff. That's been my experience as a bidder/seller on Ebay.

[bacteria]

If you want a good price, you leave it to the last seconds, if you can. If you bid in advance, you can be pretty guaranteed someone else will pitch in a price higher.

[Luke]

Out of all the sellers on ebay, what percentage do you think have separate accounts to bid on their own items to try to get buyers to raise their bids?

I'm positive this has happened to me a few times. A bid war will go on, it gets out of hand, I bow out, and right after the auction ends, I see the same item, from the same seller in a new auction.

[noiseredux]

I assume most sellers do this. Or at least have friends bid. Which is lousy.

I usually only go for Buy Nows that I think are fair. I generally don't bother to bid.

[V3rtigo]

ebay looks into sellers bidding on their own stuff. thats also why you can check who's bidding on what, and how often.