G'Day All Interesting topic on eBay. Regardless of what you say, it's not going to change and somebody mentioned u-bid, that's the worst. Believe me, I've been there. As soon as it comes to the final time for the bid to end, the next person who bids, rejacks up the time for it to go on another 10 minutes and I've seen this go on for 4 hours before the item is finally sold at twice the price you'd pay for it retail at any store. There's definitely some sort of addiction going on here, which I can't comment on, but it just seems that way.
As for snipers, I'm not really concerned. This new age of electronic bidding has alot to be desired. Being able to sit in a room next to a competitor and start bidding against each other till finally one concedes, is a lot of fun. But that's not to say that somebody in that room has a vendetta and will go all out, even to broke so you don't get the item. I for one, stand fast, kind of like Mike G. I have a limit and that's it, so I wait. Maybe I am a sniper, but I hate constant bids being placed by people that have never bought before driving the bids up. I've seen this happen time and time again and then I've seen the item relisted again because "Oh, the person didn't pay me" or "I didn't really understand what the item was" or "I made a mistake, cancel my bid" Now are they stand-ins? Hell yeah. There's only a certain point you can take stupid to. I've even got to the point of contacting the person offering the item with my email. When they get back to me, I offer them a price. If they accept it, suddenly the item's withdrawn, even though it had 10 bids on it. There's ways around ebay and then there's ways you can get caught out. To me it's a big game and not worth the money. That's not to say I've scored some great stuff, but that's only because the person involved really didn't know what they had, they just wanted to off load it. And then you have others and this is a disclaimer, I'm not attacking any individuals on this list, but suddenly the 0.99 offers are not panning out and then there's a rush to let everybody know; I've been caught in that one before. But that's not against the person offering it up, they're in it to make money, that's their income. I'm in it to get a bargain and sometimes it gets tough these days. But as I said in the beginning, it's not going to change. Either like it or lump it............ my 50 cents AUS Cheers John IMCA # 2125 -----Original Message----- From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of starsinthed...@aol.com Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:49 PM To: meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality Hi Richard and List, I agree with your solution but not your objection to sniping within the framework that is eBay. Ebay has set up a situation where it is the smart thing to do. As you suggest, if no item will officially end within even just one minute from the time the last bid was placed, this would end the advantage of sniping. I personally use a sniping service so when I see an item I want, I set up the snipe bid that will be executed a few seconds before auction end. This set up can be taken care of days before the auction ends. I have saved many hundreds of dollars, mostly on microscope equipment. It's not nice or fair but it is the way eBay is set up, so why not play to win. Tom In a message dated 3/17/2010 5:58:10 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time, damoc...@yahoo.com writes: This mentality, waiting until the last few seconds before bidding, is something I just don't get. Maybe someone can explain it to me. I bid for lots on ebay just like I do when I bid at a real auction. I set in my head what I believe the value of an item and what I have available in my budget to bid for that item. I then bid that much and no more. If I get the item, great. If not, someone wanted it more and we're willing to pay more for the item... While I will sometimes raise my ebay bid a little before the end of the auction, I really don't understand the idea of sitting there and in the last second or two, to try to jam in bids high enough to win the item. Do snipers really want the item or are they just trying to screw others out of the item? Are they just trying to get the item at a lower price, thinking that their competitors will just rebid again, upping the price? I see this on meteorite auctions every so often, but much more often on the Daguerreotypes I bid on. The reason I was reminded of it was a lot I just lost out on. There wasn't just one sniper, but two. The both bid at the exact same time, 2 seconds before the auction ended... As I said, it doesn't mater that I lost the lot. It went for more than I was willing to pay, so I wouldn't have rebid even if I could. Possibly someone can explain what is gained by bidding like this instead of just bidding what you think it's worth and letting it go for that... I'd really like to see ebay eliminate this foolery. It'd be pretty simple. Any bids that occur within one minute of the closing time of the auction automatically resets the end time by 10 minutes, or 30 minutes. The snipers games are eliminated and the dealers (and ebay) gets more profits because the auction remains open for the bidding to continue to higher levels. Just like in a real live auction. Thanks -- Richard Kowalski Full Moon Photography IMCA #1081 ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list ______________________________________________ Visit the Archives at http://www.meteoritecentral.com/mailing-list-archives.html Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
