OT: Ebay pooched my Auctions!

I certainly hope so... snipers & campers suck. If ebay's puttin' a little smack on 'em, I heartily applaud.

On the other hand, I've made snipers pay 15% over retail a couple of times, so they do provide some entertainment.

Sounds like ebay didn't screw up your bid, you did, by bidding too late. Would you like a little cheese with your whine?

And if your life is over because you lost an ebay auction, then you didn't have one in the first place. I'm too tired to make the obligatory "move out of daddy's basement" remark.

-gc

Hehehe. I detect a bit of "seller's remorse". (Speaking of cheese with the whine..)

"...made snipers pay 15% over retail..." What'd you do? Shill bid?

Sniping is part of the game. Makes it entertaining. Makes for *more* sales. Its only clueless newbie increment bidders who lose out.

I wonder why eBay is so phenomenally successful, considering it allows (nay - *encourages*) sniping.

I guess you could have bid more initially.

Wes S

Actually not really. For instance I just paid $22.50 for a pair of factory-stock 1st-generation SV-650 mirrors which go for $50 EACH. I put them on my DL-650 V-Strom.

I've never sold anything over ebay. Too lazy. I just toss it.

Nope, I made my max bid over retail since buying it retail was rather a bother, and I figured a little "convenience fee"

I was just a little shocked to see someone outbid that. I figure, hell, if the guy wants it THAT bad...

Eh, there are assholes everywhere and ebay is no different. And people should actually realize they need to bid what they're honestly willing to pay and what it's worth to them, not what they want the item for.

-gc

I just made a test throwaway bid, bid went normally, wasn't in the last few minutes. An anti-sniping move from Ebay would surely change things. People don't realize that buyers and sellers adapt to the ebay framework. For example, when ebay set up their feedback policy, they didn't make it mandatory for sellers to leave feedback first. Hardly anyone leaves feedback anymore - broken system. If they put in anti-snipe stuff like this you'll just have to snipe at 30 seconds instead of 10 seconds.

There's always another train leaving, JR. I appreciate your pain, but it's a nice fall Sunday morning, have some pancakes and eggs and coffee and just let 'er go ..

Grant

Whoever got in ahead of you also had to deal with the same delays. A marksman has to allow for the wind--you need to allow for the delays.

I believe sniping is absolutely pointless. Put in your maximum bid early, and let the e-bay computer do your sniping for you.

There are common situations where it isn't pointless at all. There are bidders who bid just above the current bid and keep bidding as the current bid goes up. You avoid being outbid by these guys bu sniping.

If everybody just bid the most that they were willing to pay then sniping would be useless. But not everybody does. I suspect these "chasers" don't understand eBay's proxy model and think that they will have to pay their max. They are probably thinking in terms of real-time auctions.

And then there are the bidders who consider it a competition and "winning" is important. Sniping cuts them off.

Bob

The really effective way to anti-snipe would be to define the end of the auction as coming some time delay after the last bid, say 2 minutes. Like a real-time auction - it just keeps going until nobody wants to bid higher.

Bob

First, quit whining. It makes you look like a fag.

Figure out the maximum you will pay. Put in a proxy bid two minutes before the auction ends. Set back and watch.

I don't know how the new rules affect sniper services, but if you buy enough on ebay, getting a year's worth of sniper service is worth it. I use Bidnapper, and am quite pleased with it. But then, sniping services are only unfair if the other guy wins, right?

Everyone has the ability to set a high proxy or snipe figure. Then the highest wins.

You're an adult. Cope.

Steve

YET, HE HAD JUST PREVIOUSLY WRITTEN:

I agree. You didn't bid too late. What a nitwit that other guy was for suggesting it.

What you did was that you waited too long to bid.

HTH

Steve

Actually you don't know what the winner's max bid was (the amount only went high enough to outbid #2's max) so you don't know that you would have won.

The real problem at eBay, Microsoft and all the other software companies is that they have large staffs of computer programmers who would all be out of work unless they can justify another "feature" that needs to be added.

Steve.

"JR North" wrote: (clip) my bids were diverted, not processed normally. (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ You mean that e-bay has a special way of handling your bids--the other people's bids go through "normally?"

What is the matter here? Don't you guys like JR? He explained exactly what happened and it would make me mad, too. Obviously, he didn't know about this delay or extra screen until he bid on something he wanted and then and only then, saw what eBay was doing.

His remark that his life was over was also very obvious. It was a joke.

I don't abide bullies who, for no reason think it cute to try to out-do each other at someone's expense.

BTW, if you don't like JR, why not just shut up?

Grow up.

Lotta flames on this one for a relatively straighforward issue.

I think the point is, JR, if you'd bid a bit earlier you would have had time to deal with the newly inserted screen before the auction ended.

I'ts pretty clear that you're highly chapped. I would be too, probably.

Grant

I've had that happen to me before. Usually when I was trying to steal something I wanted only bad enough to steal it. If I had really wanted it, I'd have bid what it was worth to me.

Wes S

I'f found ebay is so slow that I have to make my last bid at least 5 min before closing to have any hope it will go through. On my slow dial-up country line it takes 2-5 min just to paint an ebay screen, any and every screen. Other web sites are much faster, I don't know why ebay is so slow.