I hate it too, but unfortunately you have to start doing it yourself if you want to win.

The real beauty in sniping has been seen a few times, with two equally stupid people want the same thing just enough to put a thousand dollar snipe bid on something at the same time. I admit a sort of purely evil joy when I see a two hundred dollar item suddenly cost a grand. I love that kind of justice. I wish it happened more often. Then it would be banned.

Yeah, I've been caught by this sniping on ebay business a couple of times too. I hate it also.

In New Zealand the big online auction site is called Trade Me which pretty much does what ebay does and actually shut ebay out of the NZ market. All of their auctions auto extent meaning that if a bid is placed within the last minute of an auction then the auction will extend for 1 minute and so on.

I know that ebay think that this way bidders put their best price forward but I think the auto extend method returns better results for the seller on a more consistent basis and allows buyers the chance to stay in the game. For example, the Ludwig kit that I bought here and paid NZ$1245 for would have made a lot less under the ebay system as I was only prepared to pay NZ$700 and then got carried away in the bidding with one other bidder. I just had to beat him. I think it's fair to say that I would have kept bidding on the ebay items as well if I wasn't sniped with 1 second to go.

I also think the ebay system doesn't fit with the spirit of the auction process. With sniping, it works more like a closed tender than an auction. Imagine if you were at a public auction in a bidding war with another bidder and then some other guy jumped in with a bid and the auctioneer immediately dropped the hammer before you could respond? I'd say you'd have a few choice words for the auctioneer at very least. It's certainly not considered acceptable in the live auction world.

I hate bid sniping as well, but I'll certainly admit that I've done it as well.

I feel like I'm at an AA meeting or something. "Hello my name is Jeremy, it's been 2 weeks since I placed a bid during the last 15 seconds of an ebay auction."

I like Fayray's idea though. Ebay certainly has its share of practices that can be called dubious. I don't think it's from any maliciousness, but rather a flaw in the way the system is set up.

I like the idea of extending the auction an extra minute to allow people to assess their bids and choose to bid higher or lay out of the auction. It shouldn't be a race against the clock. There have been times when I was on a flight or a concert during the end of an auction, so to ensure that I'd win the auction I had to bid some ridiculous price for an item knowing full well that in the last 5 minutes the price of the item would jump at least 15-20%.

On the other hand, when I see something I want to bid on I always try to wait until the last hour or so because bidding days before the closing time simply inflates the cost of the item. This wasn't such a big deal 8-10 years ago when you could still find good deals on ebay. Now however, it's tough to find a good deal or steal on ebay.

I think the extra minute is a good solution. Perhaps more true, not only to the spirit of a true auction, but also to the true value of the item being sold. I think it would perhaps work out even better for the sellers than the buyers. If nothing else, a buyer should at least be able to select it as an option.

For example:

"Would you like to extend your listing beyond the current time as 'last-second' bids are placed?"

-or-

"End the auction at 5:45pm regardless of bidding activity"

I think the sellers would more often choose the first option, sniping would slow significantly, and a more realistic selling price would be the result.

The problem is, that means we'll pay more.

... which would increase the number of deadbeat bidders. Unfortunately, ebay is at the mercy of the public at large. The public has displayed itself to be an unscrupulous lot at times. The numbers are small at this stage, but if the cost of the items increased, it would naturally increase the number of deadbeats. This is in line with the deadbeat sellers lying about the item being damaged at the end of an auction with no reserve because the price was too low. There will always be those people. The numbers are greater than we think. Most everyone has run across them. Slim chance we ran across the SAME one, so that means these are mostly unique individuals. That's a lot of people. These numbers would grow along with the final bid prices. We all have our lines drawn at different places. It's fascinating to me how some are drawn in chalk and some are etched in steel. I believe that in order for this to work, ebay would have to get some teeth against deadbeats prior to enacting the change. Right now, it's a buyers market. If you don't want to pay, you don't. There's no repercussion to face. That's simply bad business.

So you get a bad mark, you can always lie to the next seller, "It was damaged, and they didn't tell me until the last few minutes because the price was too low for them..."

I know it will never change, but it doesn't mean I have to. It's the number one reason I buy so little on ebay. I have been sniped more times than I have actually won, by a factor of like 10. So, I don't shop there often. The little red snare and the chrome "MIJ Supra" tat I got over there are 2 instances in which I actually contacted the seller after close to verify I had actually won as I had bid on three cheap chrome snares that week, and had been sniped on all of them. Why did someone let me have that one?? It is by far the absolute best of all of them, and I am grateful for it.

The other one I am looking at right now is intriguing, but I dare not bid until the last second...Dare I participate in the very activity I despise???

I have to admit that I am guilty of both.. sniping and being sniped. Most of the time, and this is for my own protection to not get caught up in the whole "I gotta have it" syndrome, is to set an amount I am willing to pay for the object and stick to it. I keep telling myself that there WILL be another one just like it.... eventually.

While I have placed more last minute bids than I care to admit, it is to try and keep the price down. There seems to be a few sellers that no matter what there item is, it seems to sell for a ridiculously huge amount. As if someone were driving up the price. And of course, without checking IP's of the bidders and sellers, there is no way to prove any of it. It certainly seems coincidental that the same sellers get the higher prices tho..

I wouldn't be against an additional minute being tacked on every time someone bids in the last minute or 30 seconds.... It would certainly put those sniping programs out of business... :rolleyes:

This might also drive the price way up also, putting an item out of range for some with not-so-deep pockets. Like moi......

For myself, I have two times to bid.

1) Sometimes, I'll bid the starting bid amount to see if there is a reserve.

2) If I'm still interested at the end of the auction, I'll bid the max amount I'm willing to give for the item, [COLOR="Red"]no more[/COLOR], in the last few seconds. In most cases the auction has already gone beyond what I'm willing to give, so I have no final bid anyway. If this is sniping, then I'm guilty.

I think, as do others in this thread, that bidding throughout the auction just drives up the price.

Also, bidding just what I'm willing to pay in the last few seconds seems like fair play to me. It's when someone bids a huge amount to ensure winning the auction that it might be considered foul play to me. But then, how would you know... the winning bid would only be higher by the current bid increment! Unless, as mentioned before, more than one bidder bids huge amount at the end, then the sniping is revealed for sure.

Just my two cents......

My position is the a$$hole that has not been involved at all during the bidding, and then pops in in the very last few seconds and snipes it, not the HONORABLE bidders doing battle. If I am in heated bidding with 1, 2, 3, hell, I don't care how many, it's the one that is hiding out, and hits you blind side, because you already have a sense of the others' commitment level. Those are the "Snipers". They hide in the shadows and, as far as I am concerned are cowards. I don't care what they think of themselves, I call them, openly, cowards. It's my position, and I will always see it this way. It used to not be allowed on ebay. There was a check box when I joined that basically said you would not participate in this practice, that you would be an HONORABLE auction participant. I guess the powers that be decided it was not a worthy cause to have honor as a benchmark anymore.