But you don't actually know that the sniper bid only $1 more than you.  If
$1 was the bid increment, the sniper could have bid any amount more than
that over your bid, whether it was $1 or $10,000, and eBay would just charge
the increment over whatever the second highest bid - in this case, yours -
was.

Peter

So what difference does it make how or when someone else outbid you?

Exactly right, they couldn't. So they weren't cheating, they were just
willing to spend more than you.

OK. Explain to me how you knew it was software, and not a manual bid. I
can reliably place bids with less than five seconds to go. There's no
way you can tell if my bid was manual or automated, unless I tell you.

You seem to know a little bit about how eBay works, but not enough to
realize you lost fair and square.

It sounds like you don't understand the auto bid system at eBay.

If somebody bids more than you, no matter how much, it'll only actually
bid enough to outbid you. Any other bid below the current winner's
maximum raises their bid to the value of the new bid.

If you really want to know how much somebody is willing to pay and/or
you really want the item regardless, then bid a stupid sum, like
$1,000,000. the problem is, if somebody else did the same thing at, say
$900,000, you'll get it for $900,000. A little risky.

The answer is to bid the absolute maximum you are prepared to pay, and
do it within the last few seconds. IF YOU'RE OUTBID THEN IT SOLD FOR
MORE THAN YOU WERE WILLING TO PAY. Live with it.

Bidding within the last few seconds just helps to ensure that the price
isn't bumped up early in the auction. It doesn't guarantee you'll win,
but there is a slightly less chance that somebody else doesn't outbid
you by, say $5, and you then spend $6 more than you wanted to to win. If
you lose it when you've bid your maximum at the last minute it avoids
being tramlined into bidding above your maximum because you were looking
forward to getting your new toy home.

The system is pretty fair, and sniper software doesn't really achieve
anything that you can't do sat in front of a PC. The most frustrating
thing is an auction that ends while you can't get to a PC.

Rich

That's pretty much an 'ebay sniping auction': the winner
[or sucker, depending] pays $1 over the second highest bid.

When the auction ends at a fixed time an open-bid auction makes
little to no sense to the buyer.

The seller wants an open bid auction with a feeding frenzy where at
least two of the bidders haven't had their Prozac dosages 'adjusted'
[and better, have also been drinking].  I think the original ebay
theory was that a fixed ending time would be more likely results in
last-minute loss of reason.

Ebay's customers are the sellers, not the buyers, so ebay wants a
frenzy.

With ebay taking a percentage of the selling price but not the
shipping I see a trend to selling items for 0.99 but with
$24.95 for shipping and handling: same as a starting price of $26
but with a lower cut for ebay.

OK. One last try: No one knows. The sniping software sends the limit
that it is told. If the last known bid is yours at $76.00, and the
sniper has told the software to bid $100.00 or $1,000.00, or anything
higher, the auction looks at the bid and says: "Is the sniper's bid at
least a dollar higher than the last known bid?" If it is, the auction
accepts a bid of $77.00, _regardless_ of what the sniper was willing
to pay. So if no other bids come in, the sniper wins the auction by a
dollar over your bid.

If you had determined $76.00 was the maximum you were willing to pay
(No cheating!), it made no difference _when_ the sniper's bid came in:
as soon as he said he'd pay more than you, you were out of it and lost
interest. If you complain that by sniping he didn't give you a chance
to bid an amount higher than $76.00, you didn't follow the Rule One
part A: Bid once, at the HIGHEST AMOUNT YOU ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR THE
ITEM; in other words YOU cheated.

Rule One part B: Bidding once, ten seconds before the end of the
auction is useful in that it doesn't give other interested parties a
clue as to what your upper limit really is, so if they don't want it
as bad as you do, their "snipe" bids will not be influenced by what
you would pay, but by their assessment of the value of the item. If
they (like you did in the auction you describe) bid early, and more
than you would pay, you'll see that and will be out of it and lose
interest.

As for the philosophical discussion about the way it is done on eBay
and the way it's done elsewhere, or the way it should be done: way off
the point. It was an eBay auction, that's the way eBay does it, take
your conjecture or theory or wittering to a group that specializes in
that kind of time-wasting. I recommend Rita the Berk's hangout:
alt.marketing.online.ebay

There are some really savvy and helpful folks there, among the others.

Very respectfully,