which ebay sniper

[Centurion07]

Mr Gear said:

Greg_D said:

ok, so for clarity, who would win in the following

item is at £10, the person in the lead who bid 'the old fashioned way' has set a max @ £20
i snipe with a max @ £15

Who wins, and at how much?

I would win, and I'd pay just over £15.

Which is why bid sniping is the height of stupidity.

If it sold for £21 I wouldn't care, because it was more than i was prepared to bid anyway.

[SpeckledJim]

Mr Gear said:

Greg_D said:

ok, so for clarity, who would win in the following

item is at £10, the person in the lead who bid 'the old fashioned way' has set a max @ £20
i snipe with a max @ £15

Who wins, and at how much?

I would win, and I'd pay just over £15.

Which is why bid sniping is the height of stupidity.

If it sold for £21 I wouldn't care, because it was more than i was prepared to bid anyway.

Simple Q:

Would you rather win the auction for 90% of your top bid, or 50% of your top bid?

And do you agree that bidding late influences that?

[Mr Gear]

SpeckledJim said:

Simple Q:

Would you rather win the auction for 90% of your top bid, or 50% of your top bid?

And do you agree that bidding late influences that?

Bidding late only influences that if no-one else is bidding! In which case, bidding late achieves nothing.

Bid early, bid your max, and then forget about it. You come out with the result you want either way.

[feef]

Mr Gear said:

Bidding late only influences that if no-one else is bidding! In which case, bidding late achieves nothing.

Bid early, bid your max, and then forget about it. You come out with the result you want either way.

If others are bidding, and you snipe, you could win the item for your maximum bid of £X.00. If you don't snipe, someone could win it for £X.01 because you've 'shown your hand' early so to speak.

It's equally effective whether others are bidding or not.

[Mr Gear]

feef said:

If others are bidding, and you snipe, you could win the item for your maximum bid of £X.00. If you don't snipe, someone could win it for £X.01 because you've 'shown your hand' early so to speak.

It's equally effective whether others are bidding or not.

If it goes for more than I am prepared to pay, why would i care when they bid?

[tvrolet]

I always put a bid in 'manually' in the last few seconds. As an occasional seller I really hate this practice/sniping tools as I'm always sure if the auction had continued some of the earlier bidders would have raised their bid. So it's a good way for buyers to get the best price but it doesn't get the sellers the best price, and this neither eBay. I'm surprised they don't offer a sales model where the auction extends after the last bid - like an actual auction where the auctioneer will wait for any more bids. As a seller I'd like the option have having the auction extend by say a further 30 seconds after a bid is received. It would cut out sniping and folks really would then start putting in their 'real' highest bids.

[blueg33]

Mr Gear said:

feef said:

If others are bidding, and you snipe, you could win the item for your maximum bid of £X.00. If you don't snipe, someone could win it for £X.01 because you've 'shown your hand' early so to speak.

It's equally effective whether others are bidding or not.

If it goes for more than I am prepared to pay, why would i care when they bid?

Your logic is that you will always pay your max, but you are missing out on the opportunity to pay less.

With sniping, you will NEVER pay more than your max bid, but you INCREASE your chances of PAYING LESS

its really not a hard concept

[SpeckledJim]

Mr Gear said:

SpeckledJim said:

Simple Q:

Would you rather win the auction for 90% of your top bid, or 50% of your top bid?

And do you agree that bidding late influences that?

Bidding late only influences that if no-one else is bidding! In which case, bidding late achieves nothing.

Bid early, bid your max, and then forget about it. You come out with the result you want either way.

Surely a wind-up.

[Fastra]

blueg33 said:

Fastra said:

I don't use a sniper and haven't for done for the 12 years I've used ebay.

I always have a price I want to pay and bid within the last few seconds.
Bidding earlier just gives people a chance to come back and increase the price.
This method has meant I've won plenty of auctions at what I thought were very decent prices.
Sure every now and again I'll get beat by someone but that's because, funnily enough,they've bid more than I wanted to!

You have used a sniper - bidding yourself in the last few seconds is just manual sniping

A sniper just makes that last second bid for you so that you can be in bed, at work, driving etc instead of sitting infront pf the computer trigger finger ready. It also takes out the risk that you may lose your wifi connection at a critical moment

yes, technically I have but you know what I meant.
And wifi going down, really... , hard wired ethernet and never failed in my second of need in 12 years....
... but I know what you mean.

SpeckledJim said:

Honestly, you haven't understood it.

Bid your maximum, but bid it at the last second. So neither your competitors nor the seller gets the chance to arrange a higher bid.

This x100000000!

Many, many times I've seen auctions where BIDDER1 put their max bid in early, then seen BIDDER2 put 15 bids in trying to outbid BIDDER1.
Had the BIDDER1 one not bid then BIDDER2 would have only put 1 bid in, then with seconds to go BIDDER1 could have bid and won the auction at a fraction of his maximum cause BIDDER2 wouldn't have had time to chip away at him.

It really does make simple sense.

SpeckledJim said:

Surely a wind-up.

[r11co]

blueg33 said:

A sniper just makes that last second bid for you so that you can be in bed, at work, driving etc instead of sitting in front of the computer trigger finger ready. It also takes out the risk that you may lose your wifi connection at a critical moment

Christ on a bike! Myself and eltax have made the point that using automated sniping services means handing the keys of your ebay (and in a lot of cases PayPal) accounts over to 3rd parties unknown.

Has that actually registered with the morons still advocating their use, or do they believe that they are immune to fraud because it hasn't happened to them yet?

[Fastra]

r11co said:

Christ on a bike! Myself and eltax have made the point that using automated sniping services means handing the keys of your ebay (and in a lot of cases PayPal) accounts over to 3rd parties unknown.

Has that actually registered with the morons still advocating their use, or do they believe that they are immune to fraud because it hasn't happened to them yet?

I must admit that this very point persuaded me not to pursue their use when I last looked at them years ago.

But are there any proven instances of this being correct though?

[feef]

r11co said:

Christ on a bike! Myself and eltax have made the point that using automated sniping services means handing the keys of your ebay (and in a lot of cases PayPal) accounts over to 3rd parties unknown.

Has that actually registered with the morons still advocating their use, or do they believe that they are immune to fraud because it hasn't happened to them yet?

I doubt any established sniping provider would risk losing their entire business for the sake of buying a few things on eBay.

Aside from that, I'm not aware of any instance of a sniping provider ever having done this.

[r11co]

feef said:

I doubt any established sniping provider would risk losing their entire business for the sake of buying a few things on eBay.

Aside from that, I'm not aware of any instance of a sniping provider ever having done this.

Like loads of other frauds, the source of the information used is hardly going to go public about it, are they? Plus sniper providers are just another target for hackers, and what happens to the data when the sniper provider decides to shut shop as many have?

At the end of the day it comes down to whether or not you trust a faceless website with your ebay details. The system relies on you wilfully compromising the security of your account and that in itself could be grounds for a refusal of recompense if you are a victim of fraudulent use of the account further down the line regardless of the source.

Edited by r11co on Saturday 4th October 08:43

[feef]

And do what with the info?

Bid on an item? They can't pay for it. Oh noes, I'm getting bad feedback on ebay!

[blueg33]

r11co said:

Christ on a bike! Myself and eltax have made the point that using automated sniping services means handing the keys of your ebay (and in a lot of cases PayPal) accounts over to 3rd parties unknown.

Has that actually registered with the morons still advocating their use, or do they believe that they are immune to fraud because it hasn't happened to them yet?

Christ on a bike. Its no differnt from putting your details into any website.

But what's the worst that can happen? They bid in your name. Whoopee do. No paypal details are provided, no cc details are provided.

TBH I have seen more cc fraud using my card in person in London hotels than on the internet.

[budfox]

A great read, made all the more amusing by the complete misunderstandings of a chosen few.
As others have made quite clear, it all comes down to this:

Place your maximum bid as late as you possibly can.

It's that simple.

[surveyor]

budfox said:

A great read, made all the more amusing by the complete misunderstandings of a chosen few.
As others have made quite clear, it all comes down to this:

Place your maximum bid as late as you possibly can.

It's that simple.

And round we go again... - All sniping does is offer the above service to make it more convenient.

[maturin23]

Some people just refuse to understand the most simple of concepts.
I'm happy with that - you can't predate without prey :-D

I've used a sniper a few times over the years.
I set it up with a new password and just change the password back once to auction is run.

Keeps the window of opportunity small.

[r11co]

feef said:

And do what with the info?

Use it to create scam auctions in your name.

[feef]

r11co said:

feef said:

And do what with the info?

Use it to create scam auctions in your name.

Which I'd get emailed about.
If they tried to change my email address, I'd get emailed about it (yes, to the 'old' address too)
If they changed the password, I'd get emailed about it.

There's really not much they can do that I wouldn't get notified of or be able to spot within minutes of something odd going on.

IMHO, the risk is there, granted, but the risk is so small it's not one I worry about.