John, That has been my experience too. I've seen people bid early, and then come back and keep bidding up and up (not the "bid early with your max" strategy). And a few of them will wait till the last few minutes and in a frenzy, bid past what is reasonable (either because they don't know what they're bidding on, or because of the issue you describe, or...?). And yes, sometimes after such an event, the seller contacts me and says they didn't pay...
I now use a program that only charges me about $0.25/win (nothing if I lose). Since using it, I've increased my wins and hardly ever pay my max, so it seems to me that there are folks out there who have some sort of bidding addiction or the like. If I lose, then I know for sure that someone wanted it more than I was willing to pay. Unlike before when I bid my max early, and I went back at the end and discovered that someone beat me by bidding against me multiple times in the last minutes at odd intervals (which indicates they weren't using a sniping program). And I've determined to bid only my max, because if I go beyond that, I assume that there are folks out there who use a snipe program and put in a crazy bids so they can't be beat (so if you get two of them, someone is going to get burned). ;-) Clear skies, Mark ----- Original Message ---- From: John Hendry <p...@pict.co.uk> To: Richard Kowalski <damoc...@yahoo.com> Cc: Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com Sent: Wed, March 17, 2010 7:08:23 PM Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality Richard, I always use sniping services for bidding and my reasoning flawed or otherwise is as follows. There exists a category of bidders that do not bid their maximum and leave it at that, but like to continuously monitor the auction for the duration and outbid others when they lose highest bid. This sometimes reaches a frenzy of bid and counterbid in the last 30 minutes, and this behaviour seems more related to beating the competition than an incremental strategy that will cease as soon as they reach the maximum they have in mind. Here is somebody admitting this... http://ask.metafilter.com/47433/Psychology-of-Auctions So I don't really want to add to the liquidity in any auction with bidders like this that start out looking for a bargain and end up in a competitive fiscal pissing match. If I have a bid in well before auction end at my limit I risk provoking bidders like this to bid beyond what they originally had in mind as eBay will continuously outbid them to my maximum. If I snipe an auction with my maximum in the last 6 seconds I can rest assured that I haven't provoked any people to bid beyond their maximum and perhaps beyond mine. Regards, John -----Original Message----- From: meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-boun...@meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Richard Kowalski Sent: March-17-10 4:58 PM To: meteorite list Subject: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality 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
