Originally Posted by repechage

I think sniping is soon going to be mandatory to avoid being scammed. Right now it appears that items going over $100 or sometimes $200. convert to bidder by number, if you are lucky and make notes of who bid, prior to the conversion it gives you some information. What I have seen is as stated earlier, sellers who have "customers" who bid an item up, soon under the cloak of a number only. With this modification, soon planned to be used more extensively, sniping is the only tool to assist in being scammed.

With a proxy bid ebay style, your bid is auto ratcheded up to your max, as others bid against you. I see no advantage in placing a bid early, it actually seems to invite a bidding frenzy.

Some Nobel prize in the future will be awarded to the guy who writes the economic formula explaining it.