revil

I know what you mean. I bought a whole bunch of nostalgic computer equipment that way. I was like, "cool! I got an IRIS" "cool! I got an old HP-UX!" "cool! I got a etc.!" and then I got them and was like, "well sh*t... what am i going to do with these?"

I think the most simular rush i get from ebay would be when i go to the casino.

look_ma

This is what I do not understand, on NR auctions why people bid befire the last 60 secs of the auction. This just simply blow my mind, why bid a day(s) before the auction ends, you know yuo will be outbid. these are probably the same people that call deals in to see if they are legit.

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Jeffbx

I hear ya... there's always some idiot driving the price up. Or even worse, 2 or 3 idiots having a bidding war.

Of course, when I'm selling something I keep my fingers crossed that the idiots will camp out at my auction!

whitak24

on one hand, it sucks bigtime if there's an auction for something that is relatively unique (not just a random network card or something) but you can't be around at the time when the auction ends, you know if you bid you're probably going to get sniped.

i mean, at some point, it sucks to try to schedule your life around ebay auctions.

DaFunkyUnit

do you guys do the "Price is Right" strategy where you bid X amount of dollars and 2 cents just so you can barely keep the winning bid? I'll admit, I do that, and it tends to keep the last-2-second-bidders at bay. (and it also drives up the bid price, for those bastids that stole my bid. HA! take that!)

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johnnymk

I have bid on items days before to see what the last bidder bid. Even though the bid may be listed as $10, he may have actually bid $20. So if I put in $21, I am now the high bidder. EBay will let me know in the next day or so that I was outbid. Then I wait until the last 5 minutes, if I am still interested, and do what chosenfool did.

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Jeffbx

Yeah, I always try to bid with about 30 seconds or so left. I've actually been outbid before AFTER that, but it's pretty rare.

I've seen services out there that will do this for you - tell them your absolute highest bid, and they place it for you at the last second. I've never tried it, but I imagine it would be useful for those auctions that end in the middle of the night.

whitak24

on of my friends who is a coder wrote a script that auto-bids for him. basically, he uses it to snap up computer components, etc that you can search for using model numbers. so he inputs the model number or search term and the max price he wants to pay. it goes out, finds an auction for that product and bids the max price at the last second. if it loses that auction, it goes to the next auction for the item, etc, until it wins.

Grimm

One little bug and he is out a lot of money...

djradam

yeah, i started about 30 seconds before the auction ended ... and i didn't get it, cause i had to enter password twice, and it took forever to load the pages on T1, i was pissed off

ramazank2

I always have 2 windows opened. One that I am constantly refreshing and another waiting to send the bid off.

speedracer120

Sounds like I'm reading about the day in a life of an eBay sniper.

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Jeffbx

That's the way to do it. With a couple of minutes left, get your ID & password all set up so all you have to do is click one button to fire off your bid. Then just keep refreshing the 2nd window to keep an eye on the time & see what the bids are doing.

TofuNinja

it always blows my mind when I see stuff that I am looking at 6 days before the end and people are having a friggin' bid war. I hate bid wars. I have learned to love the art of sniping. That and pushing people's max price to their max price

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Markel

Nothing like the adrenalin rush of the last second snipe, followed by the endorphin satisfaction of a winning bid.

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Jeffbx

...and sometimes in my case, followed by the realization that hey, I really don't need this crap!

Paymaster

As a buyer, yeah, I snipe. (Though I certainly don't schedulue my life around auctions. Proxy bidding *is* very convienient.)

As a seller, I would love to see a feature whereby bids in the last 5 minutes or so extend the auction by another 5 minutes. I've seen bidding wars end simply because time ran out, and it would rock if the auction would allow it to play out to the full extent...

Since I sell more than I buy, I would definitely be in favor of the auto-extend...

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