Ebay sniper service question
 

I put in a bid on something on ebay. It ends on Wednesday night. I bid $70 which was the starting bid. Last night someone bid and then 45 minutes later retracted the bid. Somehow I can see that they bid $120 when I look at the bid history. Shouldn't it have only told me they bid $71?

I was thinking of using a sniper service and increasing my bid. But will I end up bidding against myself (I'm back to being the high bidder at $70).

Is this guy's bid an cancel strategy some sort of way of testing my limit that I don't know about?

What's a good sniper service?

I use Esnipe. One of the benefits is that you can retract your bid up to 20 min before end of auction. This way you can bid on the same item from multiple sellers and go back and delete bids once you have won an auction.

auctionsniper.com

I think they fixed the glitch where you bid against yourself...

if more than 24 left to end of bid you can retract your bid...

No need, eBay will increase your bid automatically. Just put in the most you want or willing to pay.

People who give this answer either really don't understand the dynamics of eBay or are are willfully promoting an ignorant strategy.

I got outbid and found a local item so NBD. But heres the weird thing. Last night I got an email saying don't let it get away... it was up to $124 or $134. Today I get the notice it sold. Price? $102. So how is this legit? I couldn't cancel my $70 bid when I was the high bid. How are people working the system like this?

Hmm, maybe or maybe not.

If he is saying put in your maximum bid, but do it in the last 5 seconds or so of the auction, then he's right.

But if he's saying to just go ahead and put in your max bid days before the auction and let eBay automatically raise it . . . then yeah, that makes no sense. But it's what eBay is built around! A lot of people think that way, which is why you see huge bidding up days and days before the end of the auction, which is good for the seller but makes no sense from a buyer's perspective.

no, No, NO!!!! If you d that you will get screwed. The guy that bid $120 and then retracted the bid was either the seller trying to bump the sale amount up or another bidder that wanted to see if they could coax a max bid. I got screwed by someone doing that once. Sniping is the only way to go on eBay.

Even a blind squirrel can find his nuts once in awhile. Either that or you're winning by bidding on stuff literally no one else wants.

After spending the last 30 days upgrading my tools, I'm 100% convinced that Ebay rigs things through the search engines.

I needed a BMW balljoint tool, and the ONLY one I found after conducting numerous searches shows up at $195. No big deal.

Then, I was surfing a forum with an Ebay link for a balljoint tool, exactly what I need for 1/2 Price. Of course, I just BOUGHT the expensive one. I tried to surf for it and search, couldn't find it unless I went through that link. It still won't show up.

I bought MINT snap on socket set in METRIC 3/8 and I was the only bidder, while others fought over a similar set for $100, I got away with $56 shipped.

Sold a Snap-On TQ wrench, someone bought it for $129, and I found a "BUY IT NOW" with an identical unit, WITH storage case for $79. Same with the Matco TQ wrench I sold - could've bought it for $89, I got $93.

The only explanation I can see, is EBAY is hiding some sales from your search...

rjp

Why was I able to see the $120...even after the fact. I should have only ever seen that he bid $71. My max bid was the starting bid

I understand your method. :)

How do you retract a bid?

I have had the exact same experience! I just wrote it off to not being proficient at searching.

I had to drop $200 for a ONE USE tool- you bet your ass I searched using all kinds of terms, over and over. I still got screwed- and I consider myself the search King.

it would be good for their bottom line to conceal the low starts, and put items with bids on top of searches... I was consistently amazed at some of the stuff I found with no bids or low BUY IT NOW- while identical items had high dollar bids.

there's a hidden page on Ebay-

google it. It's painless. You can retract if there is more than 24HRS remaining IIRC.

This why I hate Ebay. Hidden bid, automatic bids, sniping services, why can't they just let you bid on the damn items? I just placed a bid on a part, instantly told that I've been outbid by an automatic bid. Bid it up one more time, another message that I've been outbid by an automatic bid. Eff this.

It just means someone wants it more than you. No different than if you were at a real auction and bidding against someone else in the crowd.

Yes, but that automatic bid stuff sucks. I should bid then they should bid, it sucks to bid and have it not even count.

so the current bid is $50, you think item is worth $200, but you are only willing to pay $150. Someone else thought, "I'll pay $120 for this thing," so they put $120 in as their max bid. If you were willing to pay up to $150, you could have put that in as your max bid and you in the hypothetical case above, would have had the winning bid. If the tables were turned and you were willing to pay $120 while the other guy was willing to pay 150, then you'd have put a bid in and known right away that someone else was willing to pay more. One bid, one time. The problem is that if you put your max bid in early, the seller may put a huge bid in and retract it just to get you up to your max bid. The secret is to figure out your max bid and snipe with that. Easy peasy