OT: Ebay Shill Bidding

But there's never a last chance to beat disclosed maximum bid. All you know is that the currently disclosed price exceeds the maximum bids of all but one bidder. That bidder's actual maximum may be a lot higher, and sniping a dollar above the current price in the last few seconds will result in your losing the auction.

So you snipe your maximum bid. You then either win the auction at a price which is at most the bid increment above the highest bid of anyone else, or you lose the auction and the winner pays more[*] than your maximum bid, which is a price you weren't prepared to pay anyway.

[*] Or pays the same as your maximum bid because their equal maximum bid was placed before yours.

Sniping really just takes advantage of the fact that some people aren't rational, and won't bid their maximum bid, because they want to see what others bid first, or perhaps because they don't understand the process.

Sylvia.

Sorry, but that did not used to be true. In the past it was possible to bid about five to seven times in the last 15 seconds. If one waited until ten or five, it was still easy to get two or three in. All with high likelihood of being the last bid.

Now they toggle in the computer bids quicker than the manual entries and they curtail setting up the bid windows.

NOW, it sucks, whatever it is, and I don't give a shit about winning an auction there because I do not go there for auctions.

So I don't care if a manual bid take twenty seconds each. Sucking is still sucking.

What remains true is that you are clueless as to the process.

It is called a cascade, and amounts to user toggled auto-bidding, coupled with real time screen updates of the highest bid.

Doesn't work anymore, not that you could grasp the practice even if it were still working..

Grow the f*ck up.

Your IQ has been down for along time.

A clueless ditz like you cannot think. Use some common sense, twit.

For a single auction, I'm pretty sure that no purpose is served by making more than one bid.

Sylvia.

Why on Earth would you want to bid multiple times in the space of 15 seconds? What benefit is there in being the last to bid?

Sylvia.

I get by. In the mean time, you haven't answered the question, which seemed quite a reasonable one. How do you know that the same item is being listed?

Sylvia.

The problem with such a response is it makes it rather seem as if you are not able to explain the reason you thought making multiple bids was useful. Throwing in expresssions like "user toggled auto-bidding" and "real time screen updates of the highest bid" do nothing to advance understanding.

You should be able to explain what it is you used to be able to do, and why it was useful when you were able to do it.

It seems entirely possible that you weren't achieving what you thought you were achieving.

Sylvia.

Are you sure about that? AFAIK the highest price depends on the actual maximum bid. Even in your scenario I'm very sure the one bidding $247.50 is going to be the highest bidder.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
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Well, you cna suggest this to eBay! I doubt they will be very interested, and as a seller and buyer it holds no interest to me either.

Idiot! The first bid generates an update window that shows the bidder that his bid was just overbid by another bidder. The second bid entry trumps that bid... The higher bids by any others shows up immediately after you enter yours... The LAST bid wins! Doesn't have to be the highest, just the last.

Are you even getting anywhere close to having a clue as to how ANY auction works.... yet!? Not to mention a timed auction. I have serious doubts that you ever will.

You seem entirely uneducable.

My point exactly. The way Ebay works it is best to bid your maximum price a few seconds before the auction. Ebay's autobidder takes care of the rest. Having multiple windows open to make a bid is nonsense. Better make up your mind first about the maximum price.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

The reason ebay uses auto-bidding is because the computer CAN manage a whole bunch of auto-bids that originate within ebay at the last second.

It CANNOT handle the last seconds influx of NETWORKED hooks that used to occur when a browsing manual bidder tries to get his bid in at the last second. That is why they killed manual bidding, and that is why an auto-bid is always the winner in their current "auction" operating procedure.

It's been a while since I was on but, IIRC, for a bid to be accepted it must be at least the minimum increment above the current high bid. Else, they'd probably be swamped by end-of-bid rushes that are 0.01 (or 0.03 or whatever) over the previously accepted high bid.

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Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

The auction used to end with the LAST bid. Now, they always end with an auto-bid.

Any of you dopes that have never experienced last minute bidding will never be able to grasp what its purpose was. Probably because of that bent auto-bid mentality you likely have.

You are an idiot as well.

You do not even know what the word bid means with a lame remark like that.

The whole idea of bidding is to be able to get what it is you want as cheaply as you can.

Timed auctions used to facilitate that. It is no longer possible.

You are even more clueless than the ditz is if you cannot grasp that simple mechanism.

Dumbass. One bids the minimum bid PLUS $0.01 added to that to throw off the other bidders' increments.

I like Sigourney's line the best... "Did IQs suddenly drop while I was away...?" --Ripley, Aliens