Ebay Snipers - How Common?

Yes and no. If it's a one-of-a-kind item without a "Buy It Now" on it, it is possible that the level of interest from others serves more as an instruction to you on what something like this is actually worth.

I have a friend who wants a Dodge Viper in the worst way. He bids on many of them that show up on ebay that are within 750 miles of his home. His proxy is always $30,000, but he has never been able to find one with a lower reserve than that. I keep telling him that he won't be buying any of the Vipers that interest him at that price, but he doesn't listen.

 

Is it possible that some of these sellers have other EBayer's(or user names) they know to purposely outbid on an item they're selling to drive the price up?

 

This is the most obvious way to scam the system.

 

Somehow, I think it's going on a lot. I've seen items I've bid on end sometimes at twice or more of their realistic selling price, or I'd see an item you can buy new in a store sell at much more than you can buy it normally. Scammers!

 

Yeah... The 'Buy Now' option is the buyer's friend.

I don't think you can place your absolute max bid early on in an auction because then all it would take to be pushed too far is someone who wants to outbid your high by a small amount. I can certainly see deciding on a max bid and then placing it at the last second in hopes you'll win at something less than your max.

Not sure how I feel about all of the last-second bidding through software or services though. If 'power buyers' are able to snatch up all of the rarest stuff this way, then eBay should change its software so that last minute automated bidding is the norm. That way at least the playing field is levelled back to who's willing to pay the most rather than who's willing to use outside software or a proxy to do their bidding.

 

He would have to make multiple bids to find your _high_ bid...then cancel his finyl bid?, leaving you still high bidder? or make one _real_ high bid then cancel it?
I never ever bid early on something that I really want. Most bidders are looking for a deal and bid too low, hoping to get a deal, even the snipers.
I always do my own snipe bidding, watching the last bid before placing one, then bid double or triple the last bid. Only in one auction ran into a bidder that bid like this but still won by $2. I bid $480 he bid $478. Item was still worth the bid.
Without eBay certain stuff would be impossible to find. I've looked for years to find certain items, I bid to win.

Alan

 

Hmm...strange experience. I'll bet what happened was with no reserve on such a desirable record, people were suspicious as to whether it was legit or not. Like the phony $20,000 turntable with a starting bid of $1,500 auctions I've seen recently.

Or, and I think this may have been every bit as likely, a swarm of snipers had gathered waiting to shoot in last second bids.

After being sniped a zillion times myself, I gave in. Every bid I place I place on snipe time. It's the only way. And I disagree over the ethical/fairness questions. It is part of the process--the auction is open for bids until the closing date and time. No one ever said you have to show interest in bidding if no one else does. I mean, why would you when the object is not only to buy a particular thing but to get it at a discounted price? A lot of what happens on eBay these days is really not auctioneering at all, but straight selling at set prices. If people didn't think they had a chance to save some money--via bidding and bidding strategy, then what would be the point?

I understand the problem with reserves--a lot of people won't place a bid because they think they won't have a chance anyway. But, unless you're desperate for cash, you've got to set a reserve on a rare, expensive record, or make that the minimum bid.

Dale

 

Hi Dale,

It turned out to be a good thing that I added a reserve. The reserve was met, but only by a last second sniper, and so it still sold for less than my purchase price (Reserve was set at $284, my purchase price was closer to $350 with shipping and insurance).

But the second highest bid was only $153... without the reserve, it would have sold to the highest bidder for about $155...

The second highest bid, on all of eBay, from all of the Rolling Stones fans the world over, was $153... for that record?

 

eBay can definitely be a strange place. Good thing you set that reserve. But back to eBay idiosyncrasies, it's weird, almost like a set of natural phenomena, like air currents or a flock of birds sudden take to flight when no danger is present. Why did your record go for the price it did? The Stones collectors all out to lunch? Who knows...I've seen super mundane, hardly rare at all records go for what I reckoned was many times their value, and there are stories here of people snagging some incredible bargains. It really seems to be a totally unpredictable 'right time, right place' type of thing...

Dale

 

Oh, I finally realized you were talking about sniping SERVICES. I'm not sure how I feel about them... I've never used one.

I do snipe myself MANUALLY, however. I usually bid about 20 seconds before the end of the auction. Sometimes, I find that my highest bid is lower than another person's, and I lose it anyway.

Hmm, I wonder if I've ever been sniped myself by a sniping service...

 

Yes, it happens all the time.

 

Just lost a Wings black triangle and a Toshiba Abbey Road to snipers in the last week, 4 seconds before close both times

 

Timing is everything, but a properly constructed auction page doesn't hurt.

There were two copies of a Manhattan Transfer Live MFSL LP listed almost concurrently. I was looking for a cheap one of these. One was complete with multiple pictures, and several lines of text explaining how the owner had bought it new, had taken excellent care of it; it was described as mint. The other had a single picture of the jacket and a single line of text noting that the LP was in "great" shape. This one was set to close about 20 hours earlier than the first one. Both asked for opening bids of $9.99. The first one had multiple bids on it as early as two days after it had been listed. Ultimately it closed with 8 bids from 5 bidders on it and a $50 selling price.

The other one? Since the price of the (presumbably) better copy was already at > $30 after two days, I figured it wouldn't go for the opening bid, so I set the auction sniper to bid $26.00 on it. I figured that one of the early bidders might wimp out on the expensive one and migrate over to this copy; if he did, I'd at least punish him by making him pay $17 more than opening bid if he set a proxy equal to his high bid on the other copy. When the auction closed, I won the LP for the opening bid of $9.99. When the album arrived, I was surprised to see an LP and Jacket the met the description of the other copy that got all the bids.

 

What if their maximum bid was $20 over the standing bid? If I understand your scenario correctly, then it would take only one $1 increment bid to outbid you in the last 2 seconds(still an impressive feat).

 

Auctions are like horse races, the front runners hardly ever win.

Bidding early only lets others know you're interested. Always bid in the last minute.

 

That is correct, Dan, in most cases, but the winning bid could be as little as 1¢ more than a previous bidder's proxy. This is rare and a fluke, but it's happened to me at least twice. Here's how:

One of those early bidders (that rarely wins) places his bid which is soon beaten by another early bidder. The first bidder then comes back, and places another bid. For sake of example, let's say that the first bidder opens by placing a bid $1.00 higher than the opening bid, but that the auction is in the range of 50¢ bids. Bidder # 2 comes along and places a bid that is 64¢ higher than the original bid; ebay tells him that he has been outbid by the previous bidder. If he wants to bid again, he will have to make a bid of at least 50¢ higher than #1's proxy bid (which is now the current bid). But notice that the high bid is only 36¢ higher than #2's original bid -- lower than the mandated 50¢ next bid. Extend this instance out to a series of bids and counter bids to the point that #2 finally passes the price he's willing to pay. If you check the bidding history at this point, and see that bidder #1 has TWO bids, one right after the other, then you know that he has set his final proxy.

Let's assume that bidder #1 can't stand odd looking numbers (you can determine this by researching his other auctions), so, when he's gotten to that point where he is raising his final proxy bid, he'll round it out to something nice and even — say $20.00, with a current high bid of 18.50. Assuming no further action on this auction, a bidder who uses a sniping program could win this auction with a snipe of $20.01. This is because the sniper's bid will raise the current bid to $19.00 with seconds to go which installs a new, higher proxy. The original bidder's proxy will then increase the current bid by $1.00, which is not high enough to overtake the then existing highest bid that's a mere penny higher.

The moral of this story is that if using a sniping program, be sure to go a few pennies beyond the price you're willing to pay. I usually tack 57¢ onto my sniping bid.