Understand this about me: I am a sore loser. It is a character trait I’m not proud of, but I’ve been that way for 48 years and I’m not about to change now.
You ruined my evening.
And the way you did this was outbidding me at the last minute for the Londo prop over on the B5 auction. I wrote the episode. I conceived the idea of both the souvenir shop and the Londo doll. I wrote all the dialogue from those scenes. I’ve wanted that prop for years. And you got it instead.
So now I’m going to go off and sulk for a while. In the meantime, I seriously suggest you never, ever come up to me at a convention with them and ask me to sign them. That would be a Very Bad Idea.
Yours in pissiness…
PAD
• 
We’re arguing over the finer points of sniping?
::shaking head::
I once got cheated out of Amazing Spider-Mans #121 and 122 but a crummy sniper. I put in a bid two days before the auction was over and some jerk outbid me 2 minutes before it was over. I got so mad that I went and bought them off of Milehighcomics.com, which luckily was having a sale at the same time. I spent more than I really wanted, and Chuck Rozanski benefitted from my rage.
Snipers are such a problem on Ebay anymore that I don’t even bid on items unless I do it through a “Buy me now” and it’s a price I’m willing to spend.
To the guy who keeps defending snipers, no it really isn’t wrong or illegal, but I think it’s bad form and lacks courtesy. Of course, this is America in 2005. Who cares about good form and courtesy anymore?
I’ve lost several eBay auctions to genuine sniping–as in, I had the high bid until (no exaggeration) two seconds before the end of the auction and someone jumped in with one second to go and got it. No kidding, I’ve actually sat there hitting Refresh as the final seconds counted down and lost the auction with one second to go.
Now, to put this in perspective, let’s compare it to a transaction in the brick-and-mortar world: You go to the comic store looking for, oh, let’s say, the Graphitti Designs Watchmen hardcover from 1988. Amazingly enough, you find one solitary copy of this seventeen-year-old limited-edition slipcased hardcover. It’s marked up a little from its original $50.00 price, but it’s the real deal. You pick it up, you’ve got it in your hands, you’re walking to the counter and suddenly someone appears from nowhere, grabs it out of your hands, slaps a credit card on the counter and says, “MINE! YOU LOSE, SUCKER!”
That, my friends, is what it feels like to lose an eBay auction to a last-second bidder.
The difference, of course, is that you have the option of confronting the ambulatory sphincter who snatches the book out of your hands in the store, but you have no recourse against the guy who outbids you on the ‘Bay with less time remaining than it takes for your screen to refresh.
And I know there’s absolutely nothing illegal about it, and eBay couldn’t care less how the auction ends as long as they collect their listing fees, but I still think it’s a šhìŧŧÿ way to do business.
Paul
The highest bid is the highest bid is the highest bid.
“I was sniped today on 2 wizard of oz mego figures for my site by mommyoftwins, so I feel your pain.”
——————–
“Yeah, well, on the other hand, she had to carry twins to term, so you can take comfort in that she felt a whole lot of pain you’ll never have to deal with…
PAD”
————————————-
Unless her handle is saying that she’s a mother who typically comes out ahead in life. You know, “Mommy oft wins.”
While I can’t really consider “sniping” bad as a general concept due to EBay allowing you to place a max bid on how high you’re willing to go and autobidding for you until that’s exceeded, there is a simple way to stop it.
An auction has a set end time. However, if there’s a bid in, say, the last five minutes before that end time, it turns into a dynamic duration; the auction ends when, say, 5 minutes has gone by without a bid. If there’s a new bid within 5 minutes after a bid, the clock resets so the auction ends 5 minutes later.
I advise you all to go seach for Weird Al’s “Ebay” song, or lyrics….and have a chuckle.
I don’t object to last minute bidding as such, since I’ve had the opportunity to make my maximum bid ahead of time. However, it does annoy me that people can bid silly amounts. E.g. if I’ve bid $100.00 for an item, and someone beats me by bidding $100.21. I’d like to see a system where the minimum incremental value is proportional to the current bidding price, e.g. once it gets above $1000 you have to go up in $50 increments. The point being that I might say “Fine, if I’m willing to pay 100 quid, I’ll be willing to throw in the extra 20p, but I don’t want to go up by another 10 quid”.
To put this in a bit of perspective:
October of 2000 my wife was bidding on a Batman movie crew jacket for me as a Christmas present. Actively watching it, making sure her bid(s) was still good. (Of which I was totally oblivious to at the time.)
She then got a phone call.
That’s when we found out she had cancer.
By the time she composed herself and rechecked her bid (by that time the auction had been closed for over an hour), she found out she lost by $1. Someone came in the last 15 seconds and sniped.
So while she’s been cancer free for 4+ years now, she’s still pìššëd øff at losing that one auction.
PAD, you tried, you lost. At least you didn’t have that kind of distraction…..
PAD, don’t be um, unproud of being a sore loser. Think of it more that you believe in a just and ordered universe where those who are worthy receive that which is theirs.
Or, at least, use THAT as an excuse…
If you bid on something on E-bay with over 1 minute left your a fool. Sorry just the way it is. Like in Poker you never show your hand make one bid with 10 seconds left and not a round number 26cents above is good way. I am sniper and pround of it only way also Ilook for auctions ending in early morning or very late at night. You find great deals than. BUT never never bid early….
I go to e-bay infrequently and always select “ending soonest” as a search option to see if I’ll be just-missing something I want (usually comics). Even if the clock is down to 1 minute (or whatever) on something I desire I’m certainly gonna make a play for it. But I don’t stake-out a particular auction to make deliberate last-second bids.
Not everybody is so technically inclined or driven by avarice to find such software, and I tend to be a fan of a level playing field.
Oh @#$%’ing please.
Level playing field? Ebay isn’t a dámņ game.
Quit treating it like one and maybe you’ll realize that people are there to WIN auctions.
I’m bright enough to locate and utilize such a program, but I’d choose not to do so because I *do* consider it a chickens**t thing to do to someone
Then I call bûllšhìŧ and say you’re not bright enough after all.
What is chickenshit is complaining about what other people are doing, when you either need to decide what you think the item is worth, and make your bid, or snipe for yourself.
Pat, are you also exceedingly proud of being semiliterate, with absolutely no clue about the proper used of punctuation, spacing, or capitalization?
Seems like at least as great an accomplishment from where I sit…
That should, of course, say “…the proper use…”
You’ll have to forgive me – I was a tad annoyed.
I am sniper and pround of it
Nah, you’re just a friggin douchebag and admiting it.
Thanks for posting, anyway!
E-Bay could end sniping and make more money by simply extending an auction by 1 minute every time some one made a bid within the last minute. This would cut down on people bidding an extra $1.00 with 2 seconds to go in the auction.
Of course, if I really want something, I mean really, really want it, then I bid so high no one is going to come in and sniple me. And if by some chance they do, then their going to feel it in their wallet the next morning.
Craig J. Ries says,
“Oh @#$%’ing please.”
Etc., etc…
Well, you’re certainly welcome to your own opinion. 😉
Wildcat
In many cases, snipers, especially when it comes to collectibles, are no different than douchebag dealers who show up at stores when they first open or when they’re stocking, sweep up all the rares and collectibles, then resell them, jacking up the price. Sure, it’s legal, capitalism at work, but it’s still a prime example of shameless douchebaggery.
-Rex Hondo-
You go to the comic store looking for, oh, let’s say, the Graphitti Designs Watchmen hardcover from 1988. It’s marked up a little from its original $50.00 price, but it’s the real deal. You pick it up, you’ve got it in your hands, you’re walking to the counter and suddenly someone appears from nowhere, grabs it out of your hands, slaps a credit card on the counter and says, “MINE! YOU LOSE, SUCKER!”
That, my friends, is what it feels like to lose an eBay auction to a last-second bidder.
The difference, of course, is that you have the option of confronting the ambulatory sphincter who snatches the book out of your hands in the store, but you have no recourse against the guy who outbids you on the ‘Bay with less time remaining than it takes for your screen to refresh.
Cut a little out of your post for brevity’s sake.
Actually, your comparison is way off, whether you agree with sniping or not. While eBay has fixed price auctions, anything that can get sniped isn’t one of them. It’s an auction, generally defined as “the public sale of something to the highest bidder”.
E-Bay could end sniping and make more money by simply extending an auction by 1 minute every time some one made a bid within the last minute.
Why would they? Or rather, why should they?
Ebay has NEVER been a “going, going, gone” auction site, which is something that, as the above quote shows, people continue to fail to grasp, even after all these years.
Well, you’re certainly welcome to your own opinion. 😉
And, quite obviously, people you’re entitled to live in your little world of ignorance.
Just don’t be surprised when people kick you when you’re down – ie, after you’ve become a sore loser, insulting snipers who are following the rules like every other bidder who *gasp* places a bid between the time the auction begins and it ends.
John Kirk: “I’d like to see a system where the minimum incremental value is proportional to the current bidding price”
But that’s the way it works now…
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-increments.html
Personally, I buy a lot of stuff from Yahoo Japan auctions, and while the option to have a set ending time is available, most auctions there have an autoextend feature on the auction. If you bid in the last five minutes or so, the auction will automatically extend another few minutes. That way you can’t be sniped, the auction bids tend to be really high for popular items where people constantly try to outbid each other at the end, and the auction can go one for more than an hour past when it was supposed to end. I’ve participated in that type of last-minute bidding with the autoextend, and it’s a little annoying since you have to sit there and wonder if the other person is going to bid AGAIN in the the last minute, setting the clock back. And then you have to reevaluate your own bid AGAIN and decide if you want to go higher. One time a cel I was bidding on for a week at about $20 gradually climbed to over $300 in about an hour of extended auction bidding. And in the end I lost, but at least I made that other bidder pay dearly for it. 😉 Although it takes more time, I think I prefer that to snipers. The chance to reevaluate what you are willing to pay is worth it. I wish ebay did auctions that way.
I’ve actually never used eBay (gasp!), but I can sympathize — we just got into a minor bidding war on a house, so I certainly understand the “this is the limit we said we had, but is it really our limit or can we stretch it?” question. [We did stretch it, and we did get the house. Many sighs of relief.]
Condolences on not getting the Londo doll, though — that would’ve been awfully cool. (We’ve been showing B5 to friends, and if memory serves they were howling pretty hard at the whole “gift shop” idea.)
TWL
That stinks about the auction. And losing to a sniper or not, it’s still losing.
As to whether “sniping” is fair or not…Ebay isn’t an auction house. It provides a service. Ebay probably could arrange for something where an active auction could be extended, but I don’t know that this would make things “better.” If ebay still works the way it did way back when I first joined, the seller, not ebay, sets the end date of an auction (with an outside limit, I think). While sellers want to get the highest price available, they also want to sell the item. If the auction gets extended because of active bidding, it might never end. Or maybe the seller needs funds by a certain date. Extending the auction might actually hurt the seller in that case.
Now, if ebay included the option to allow active auctions to continue, that would avoid such problems.
I do remember when ebay started sending out e-mail reminders about items you’d bid on, or were even just watching, reminding you that they were about to end. And now you get warnings when you’ve been outbid. But there’s no real way to prevent someone from entering a bid at the last moment. Even in a real life auction house, someone that had previously not placed a bid could wait for the “going, going” and then raise their paddle to bid.
Sniping isn’t really bad or good, it’s just taking advantage of the rules. And for every bid won by a sniper, how many did that sniper lose because his last second bid wasn’t high enough? Or how often did the sniper overpay because his last second bid was too high? They aren’t cheaters or stealing anything.
And if ebay did add in automatic extensions, what is to stop bot programmers from creating a new bot to keep sniping up? Sure, they may be out more $$$, but you still lose.
-Joe (who rarely uses ebay, but is about 50/50 on winning auctions)
I learn more stuff here. It never even occurred to me that bidding at the last minute to win something is rude(of course, I’ve only tried eBay a couple times and lost every time).
My real reaction to this thread is you guys pay how much for DOLLS? (even with the sentimental attachment, I can’t begin to think about spending money like that…)
“Even in a real life auction house, someone that had previously not placed a bid could wait for the ‘going, going’ and then raise their paddle to bid.”
Yes, but when that happens, the auctioneer doesn’t yell, “SOLD!” and end the auction, he says, “I have fifty-five (or whatever), do I have sixty-five? Seventy-five?” So the guy who bid fifty has the option of raising his bid in an effort to win the item, and bidding continues until there are no more bids. Watch the Barrett-Jackson Auto Auction sometime and you’ll see auctions where the auctioneer will get to “Two hundred, going once! Two hundred, going twice!” and suddenly someone will come in with two-twenty-five, and it might end up going for three hundred.
If I’ve bid a hundred dollars, let’s say, for a piece of trim for my vintage car, I might be willing to go $125 if I had to at the end. If it comes down to the last second and it goes for $105 because that’s the next bid increment, I’d like the opportunity to decide if I want to go $110 or $125 after all…just like I would in an actual auction. If Mr. Last-second wants to go $150 or $175, God bless. All that needs to happen is for me to hit my absolute limit and get an instant outbid notice. It’s happened before and I’ve dropped out.
Anyway. This debate can go on forever.
Paul
Absolutely, Paul. ebay is isn’t an auction house. But from what I can figure, the opposition to sniping on ebay is that the sniper doesn’t participate in the auction until the very end. And that those that do participate before the last 2 minutes have some proprietary right of last bid, or denial of bid. At an auction house, that’s more or less true, but ebay is not and never has claimed to be an auction house.
It’s just the rules of the game. I mean, when playing Monopoly, you don’t pass up the chance to buy Boardwalk just because your opponent has been saying all game how much he wants to buy Boardwalk. If you land there before him, you buy it.
It never even occurred to me that bidding at the last minute to win something is rude(of course, I’ve only tried eBay a couple times and lost every time).
It’s only rude to some.
I’ve heard some great stories over the years about snipers receiving some pretty nasty hate mail from other bidders at times.
For the rest of us, we realize that “them’s the rules” and learned to play by them to our advantage (or, as Bobb have mentioned, potential disadvantage). 🙂
Bobb, I think you just succinctly summarized the whole argument. Well said.
I’ll just point out that people who want to fight fire with fire for free can use web services that will snipe eBay auctions for them, such as auctionstealer.com. You tell it what auction to bid on, what your amount is, and it will submit your bid 5-10 seconds before the deadline. You can also pay to have it snipe closer to the deadline, but you don’t have to.
I’ll leave the debate over the ethical aspects of sniping to the philosophers. I mostly use eBay to find low-cost “Buy it now” items these days.
–R.J.
One other thing to consider: It’s entirely possible that the person who is being considered a “snioper” just happened to come across that auction at the last second.
Possible. Not probable.
It’s funny; earlier today I was just thinking about ebay. I’ve recently been using it to plug some gaps in my comic collection because it’s often possible to find things I want cheaper than from a dealer. The problem is that adding transatlantic shipping can cut into that margin considerably.
I happened to notice that one good local online dealer was giving me prices that were around the same as I was seeing in several ebay auctions if I included the shipping costs, so I said to myself why not just buy from the dealer instead of staying up half the night to chase the auction?
Somehow that took all the fun out of it.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sniping. You simply input the maximum your willing to pay early on and wait to the end to see if you’re the person who wanted it the most.
Finding out you were outbid early on, or at the last minute, it makes no difference. If you change your mind about how much you wanted to pay at the very last minute, then thats your fault. It couldn’t be any easier to plan ahead.
-Jools
Pope Papaya
(it’s better when you say it out loud)
Me: “I’d like to see a system where the minimum incremental value is proportional to the current bidding price”
Ralf Haring: But that’s the way it works now…
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/bid-increments.html
Hmm, good point, I hadn’t realised that it went up like that. But rephrasing my original point slightly, I guess I’d like every bid price to be an exact multiple of the current increment. E.g. you could bid $100 or $102.50, but not $100.21.
Each time when I heard about the prices people are willing to pay for memorabilia I really wonder why film studios or whoever else makes and stores what is needed for movies and TV episodes don`t offer items on eBay or auction them otherwise. I think it is a shame that so much is destroyed, especially when I think about it how much could have been raised for charity.
I am sorry that you lost, PAD, but this is what eBay is about. Most of the time, we just leave a bid with a maximum amount and if we win it, it is fine, if not, it is ok as well. But if we really, really want something, sniping is what eBay is about, meaning the flutter and excitement. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn`t. It is the nature of the thing.
Each time when I heard about the prices people are willing to pay for memorabilia I really wonder why film studios or whoever else makes and stores what is needed for movies and TV episodes don`t offer items on eBay or auction them otherwise. I think it is a shame that so much is destroyed, especially when I think about it how much could have been raised for charity.
Of course, more and more do just that. I recall seeing eBay charity auctions of several seasons of Survivor props and Sex and the City props and costumes, for example, and I’m sure there are other examples, both from eBay and from other auction sites.
I’ve been sniped and I’ve also won things. I’ve also been hopelessly outbid by folks with much deeper pockets than mine on this latest series of JMS auctions. After getting sniped once or twice, I now bid with the most I’m willing to pay for an item, and if someone else wants it worse than me, they can have it. I also try not to get too attached to anything I’m bidding on, either.
My problem with ebay is that, in my experience as a seller, anyway, some of these snipers then turn around and get buyer’s remorse and then not pay for their auction. The last time this happened to me, I waited the polite 72 hours for them to blow me off, and the next higher bidder had already found and bought the thing from someone else.
One thing to think about, Peter… this auction has gotten new readers to your blog (like me).
Peter: Not to create controversy (ha!), but it amazes me that JMS didn’t have the sechel to pick up the phone and offer you the item(s) prior to putting them up. I mean, you do know each other, and you are friends, right? Jeez.
I always thought that if a new bidder comes in the autcion should automatically extend by a few hours or up to a day, to let the real auction atmosphere of “Going once, going twice…” commence.
This has nothing to do with this discussion, but i found something that kind of sums up my opinion of comics buying lately; Go to this link: http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/dorktower/
and check out the Friday, April 22nd ‘issue’; you might get a laugh ^_^
Boy, you’re not kidding when you say you’re a sore loser. I would normally sympathize with your plight of losing out on something you really wanted, but threatening someone to not come near you with it just because you lost out on a piece of memorabilia lost all sympathy for you from me. I’d hate to see you after a failed bowling tournament. Yikes! Chill out dude!
“I would normally sympathize with your plight of losing out on something you really wanted, but threatening someone to not come near you with it just because you lost out on a piece of memorabilia
lost all sympathy from me to you.”
Well, that would be troubling to me had I actually been looking for your sympathy, or anyone’s. Since I wasn’t, then I’m much less bothered.
PAD
If I was outbid by someone named Pookie, I’d be pìššëd too.
Well, that would be troubling to me had I actually been looking for your sympathy, or anyone’s. Since I wasn’t, then I’m much less bothered.
PAD
I guess I didn’t state my case very well. My point wasn’t that you were looking for sympathy but that maybe when you’re pìššëd about something you should hold back on making public threats towards people which seem even by your own admission petty. I apologize for suggesting that you should treat someone you’ve never met like anything other than dirt. My mistake.
I bet Pookie1001 has been getting some heavy eBay-mail traffic lately.
“My point wasn’t that you were looking for sympathy but that maybe when you’re pìššëd about something you should hold back on making public threats towards people which seem even by your own admission petty.”
Whereas I think that, what with it being my blog and all, I should say what I want when I want, and let the chips fall where they may.
And I’d appreciate if you stopped using the word “threat,” which is about as aggressively perjorative as you can make, not to mention unfair. A threat is, “Come near me and I’ll punch your lights out.” All I said was that asking me to sign them would be a Very Bad Idea.
PAD
Whereas I think that, what with it being my blog and all, I should say what I want when I want, and let the chips fall where they may.
It is certainly your perogative to post whatever you want of course. Since you allow people to post here I assumed that you realized you could potentially hear opposing views or even criticism.
Even though you admitted you don’t handle these situations well, I was a little unsure if you realized just how you would be perceived. Now I’m sure you don’t care in any way shape or form how you are perceived. Probably for the best. That way you don’t have to grow up.
And I’d appreciate if you stopped using the word “threat,” which is about as aggressively perjorative as you can make, not to mention unfair. A threat is, “Come near me and I’ll punch your lights out.” All I said was that asking me to sign them would be a Very Bad Idea.”
I apologize for using a term that you felt was perjorative, but in my defense:
From Dictionary.com
“threat