Originally Posted by
dannyg1
I've got a concern with auction sniping that might seem a little out there, but from my own experience, I'm thinking there might be something to it:
I've begun listing with the sniper service these days, only within an hour of the auction end. After having lost a series of auctions with my sniping service 'mistakenly' placing my snipe 30-55 seconds early. Seems that every time this happened it was on auctions that were significant bargains and I would lose by a hair each time. (The last straw was a red Torelli Cyclocross in full DA that sold for $325; which via the Ebay report would've been mine had the snipe gone through right).
How do you know the maximum bid that the winner placed? Although the item "sold" for $325, the winner may well have placed a proxy bid of $500 or more. I often "win" auctions well below my proxy bid, as I always place my proxy bid (through esnipe of course) at the maximum value the item has for me. Often I will win at 50% or less of my bid. Is there an ebay report that shows the maximum bid placed by the winner? I would like to see that report. The last item I won was a set of NOS shift levers.
My proxy bid was around $12, I won the item at 99 cents. I wouldn't doubt that someone looking at completed auctions would jump to the erroneous conclusion that they could have won those shifters for $1.04.