[meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality

From: John.L.Cabassi <John_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:28:31 -0700
Message-ID: <000101cac63a$522c05a0$a166fea9_at_anitak9bz49jy2>

Wow, I suppose the internet is slowing up... Old age. I don't know why,
but sometimes I can post and it comes up immediately. Sometimes I post
and it comes back to me, but it doesn't go to the list. And other times,
it just doesn't show up. Damn, I must be a bad boy. ;) Oh well,
whatever.

Cheers
John

-----Original Message-----
From: John.L.Cabassi [mailto:John at Cabassi.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 6:15 PM
To: 'Starsinthedirt at aol.com'; 'meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com'
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] The Sniper Mentality


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 If they accept it, suddenly the item's withdrawn,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-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of
Starsinthedirt at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:49 PM
To: meteorite-list at 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,
damoclid at 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
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Received on Wed 17 Mar 2010 09:28:31 PM PDT