IP Merkin says: "I'd rather see eBay run like real auctions, which keep going as long as the bidding continues."
Actually, in a real auction, if the bid is $1000 and you bid $2000, the new bid is $2000. With ebay, if you bid $2000 and the actual high bid is at $1000, your bid will only increase the minimum, say to $1050. To me, that is the beauty of Ebay. If you want something badly enough, put the higher bid in and see whether someone pushes over your limit. If they don't then great, you might get it at a much lower number. Regarding Ray Homiski's comments about trying to grab a rare item on the cheap, personally, if I see that the great Ray Homiski is bidding on something, that's enough for me to pull back to the sidelines. So, he may be better off, at least against this bidder, posting his bid early to scare me off. Seeing Tom Sanders bidding on something has the same effect. Lou Deeter, Orlando FL, aka IP Yellow
"You've never been lost until you've been lost at Mach 3." - Paul F. Crickmore (test pilot)
-----Original Message----- From: ipmerkin@aol.com To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Sent: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 12:49:24 -0400 Subject: [CR]Re: was: concerning that Rene Herse frame...; now: Sniping (IP Merkin)
Chuck Schmidt noted:
"From what I've heard over the years, bidding the item up instead of sniping at the end of the auction is a matter of honor amongst the Japanese; the honorable thing to do."
For what it's worth, I say good for them. While sniping is an effective practice, it's also downright sneaky, especially when done by somebody who comes in with his or her first and only bid in the last ten seconds of an auction. If I don't bid high enough and lose to a snipe, that's my problem. I'm more put off by the folks who come in with some crappy little bid that only serves to jack up my purchase price by five or ten bucks.
I'd rather see eBay run like real auctions, which keep going as long as the bidding continues. If you want to have scheduled end time, fine, but extend the auctions by another hour when a bid comes in during the last scheduled thirty minutes of the auction. The sellers would end up with more money, and all the prospective bidders would see who they're up against. If somebody wants to go mano a mano with me over something we both want, be my guest and let the better of us win. Don't hide behind a stopwatch.
To those of you who get some sort of rush (whether you admit it or not) by winning eBay auctions with snipes, I offer no apologies.
IP Merkin Providence (where it's back to being cold as a sniper's heart), RI