OT: Tool for sniping over at ebay

[shinigami]

Bull. Sniping is an accepted part of life on Ebay.

BidNoble - http://www.bidnobble.com/
esniper, console based - http://esniper.sourceforge.net/
frontend for above - http://www.es-f.com/

[Randallw]

I don't use Ebay myself, although I used to sell stuff on it at work. There's a mechanism that can ignore any bids in the last 5 minutes. Though having said that it would seem to me that just puts the end of the auction forward 5 minutes.

As much as I would dearly love to get some things, such as an original copy of Reich Star, I am sadly too paranoid to ever trust some stranger with money. I once had a PayPal account I used to buy a book from an author once, but after that I was warned not to trust it and never renewed.

"I am the type who is liable to snipe you
With two seconds left to go, whoa"

Ebay song

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I just never trust an Amazon or E-Bay seller with less than a 95% rating or too few sales.

95% is 1 in 20 - a perfectly reasonable mistake rate. In another five percent you reach 1 in 10, which is too high.

[Fyron]

shinigami said:
Bull. Sniping is an accepted part of life on Ebay.

Murder and thievery are "accepted parts of life" too. But just like Ebay, society has created methods for trying to deal with them in a preventative manner. If sniping auctions was a good thing, every auction site known to man wouldn't have invested time and money in developing anti-sniping features (extending auction time if a bid is placed within the last 5 minutes, the auto-bid feature on Ebay where it will place incrementally raising bids for you up to a set limit when you are out bid, etc.).

Can a moderator please delete the shady links that were posted? Its like posting links to sites detailing how to create trojans and spam bot networks... not a good thing for polite society.

[shinigami]

Murder and thievery are "accepted parts of life" too.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

But just like Ebay, society has created methods for trying to deal with them in a preventative manner.

Untrue. Ebay does not care if people snipe or not.

the auto-bid feature on Ebay where it will place incrementally raising bids for you up to a set limit when you are out bid

Ah yes, the proxy bidding system, aka, the original sniping tool for bidders. If people use it properly then all the supposedly evil sniping software in the world wouldn't make a difference. Remember, the highest bid wins not the last.

Can a moderator please delete the shady links that were posted? Its like posting links to sites detailing how to create trojans and spam bot networks... not a good thing for polite society.

That is just your opinion, sir, and 18,000+ posts doesn't necessarily make it more right than someone else's.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

In this case, I agree with Fyron, pretty much - Using electronic tools to bid takes all skill out of it. If I'm going to snipe, I'm going to do it myself.

[Atrocities]

I will ask the Forum Admin to make a call on locking this thread.

[Mindi]

I'm leaving this thread and any references up. Although I understand that there are lots of opinions on the subject, until ebay does something to shut down electronic sniping, it's going to be done and by not coming out against it they have made it acceptable. I've sniped on items (although I do it the old fashioned way and wait until the last few seconds to bid without the aid of electronic tools) and I have been sniped on.......heck I even had someone send me a rather hateful email because they were pissed I bid in the final 10 seconds of the auction (which I promptly ignored, he was a newbie so he would learn soon enough that this is common practice).

From one of the ebay help pages:

Last-minute bidding
Placing a high bid in the closing seconds of an auction-style listing is called “sniping” within the eBay Community. Sniping is part of the eBay experience, and all bids placed before a listing ends are valid - even if they're placed one second before the listing ends.

To help avoid disappointment, ensure that the maximum bid you enter on the item page is the highest price that you're willing to pay. The eBay bidding system automatically increases your bid up to the maximum price you specify, so entering a higher maximum may help prevent you from being outbid in the closing seconds of a listing.

Tip: Did you know that during the last 15 minutes of a listing a “Refresh” link will appear on the item page? When seconds count, using this link will make it much faster for you to see the most important information at the top of the page: current bid price, bid history, time left, and high bidder. Reference

Ergo, they practically encourage the practice of sniping. On another page (Reference near the bottom of the page) of their help section it specifically says they do not investigate bid sniping, so again, it seems they don't care. They want you to use the proxy bidding system instead to make you put in the top price you are willing to pay. If someone bids you out in the last few seconds by putting in .01 over what you wanted to pay, then that's considered your tough luck, you should have put in a higher bid. Remember, ebay takes a piece of the final value, they want the price to be driven up. They really could care less how that happens. As they put in the ebay glossary for sniping sniping, "Any bid, placed before the listing ends, is allowed on eBay."

[Ragnarok-X]

Wow. I think some ppl in here have a wrong impression about moral and good/bad. Under no circumstances would i ever think that sniping is illegal or bad. Its just the way it works. If you want to save money, you use it. You can always snipe the hard way (entering the bid manually) but when you arent around, a tool like that is good.

I absolutly dont get what is wrong about it.