Auction Sniping Services

[Ayiu]

Originally Posted by Redmagster

Have you actually tried it?!?

I saw an auction once that said 'no sniping' interesting I thought... And they're going to police it how??

Never tried it but just because I didn't get that tool to work After that I read in their policy that it is prohibited anyway and that you will risk a lifetime ban.

[Redmagster]

Originally Posted by Ayiu

Never tried it but just because I didn't get that tool to work After that I read in their policy that it is prohibited anyway and that you will risk a lifetime ban.

Wow that's rough!! Especially as overseas bidders can use it...

[SwiftDeath]

Originally Posted by Ayiu

Never tried it but just because I didn't get that tool to work After that I read in their policy that it is prohibited anyway and that you will risk a lifetime ban.

The only way ebay could enforce that would be logging IP addresses and generating a list of potential sniping addresses

Didn't the Berlin court declare ebays ban illegal?

http://m.heise.de/newsticker/meldung...from-classic=1

Also eBay US allows it

I've used gixen quite a bit on ebay Germany without any issues

Super helpful for time management in those cases

[Redmagster]

Swifty is spot on about one of the benefits of sniping is that it cuts out shill bidding but in that way it can also keep prices down which eBay hates...

Add to that that you don't get the 'I've been outbid so I MUST win' which over inflates prices (how many times have you see an auction end higher than those bidding could get that item on another listing for a buy it now?!?!)

AND that new ebayers must get demoralised when they get outbid at the last second (as I was so many time until I googled to find out why....) and you can see why eBay would not support the practice...

[Redmagster]

Originally Posted by SwiftDeath

The only way ebay could enforce that would be logging IP addresses and generating a list of potential sniping addresses

Didn't the Berlin court declare ebayers ban illegal?

http://m.heise.de/newsticker/meldung...from-classic=1

Also eBay US allows it

I've used gixen quite a bit on ebay Germany without any issues

Super helpful for time management in those cases

Since these snipers bid from your account there is no way (without extreme effort) it can be proved that you didn't just place a vey late bid...

[SwiftDeath]

Originally Posted by Redmagster

Since these snipers bid from your account there is no way (without extreme effort) it can be proved that you didn't just place a vey late bid...

While I agree you couldn't prove it 100% you could see where the bid data came from so for instance if ebay collected data on our bid behavior which I'm sure they do they could see where on the Internet out bids are coming from and the sniping behavior

When you aggregate the data across individuals, if quite a few snipers all use the same IP address (or range) to bid you could red flag that as a sniping service and block it

That being said I doubt ebay Germany does that as they like money

So their policy is certainly in place to discourage the practice rather than actually stop it

[Redmagster]

Originally Posted by SwiftDeath

While I agree you couldn't prove it 100% you could see where the bid data came from so for instance if ebay collected data on our bid behavior which I'm sure they do they could see where on the Internet out bids are coming from and the sniping behavior

When you aggregate the data across individuals, if quite a few snipers all use the same IP address (or range) to bid you could red flag that as a sniping service and block it

That being said I doubt ebay Germany does that as they like money

So their policy is certainly in place to discourage the practice rather than actually stop it

That's true enough and eBay does employ some pretty powerful algorithms to monitor for repeated strange behaviours such as repeated cancellations, ended items, 'I haven't received my item yet' reports. I'm quite interested sometimes what they do pick up when you consider the daily activity on any single site...

[Ayiu]

yea, ebay Germany banned automated sniping services completely but it was declared as illegal so they had to revoke it. That's why they made it part of their policy and threat people with bans. Don't know how it works maybe they ban your home address, too?

[Lemur]

I bid $10,000 for items I really want so I win them for sure. No need for sniping

[HIPPEEDUDE]

Originally Posted by Lemur

I bid $10,000 for items I really want so I win them for sure. No need for sniping

Wow,thats so logically ingenious,i dont think anyone thought of that one before One small problem,you enter $10,000 on something you really want but some other bidder who really wants it as well enters a bid of $9,000,so you end up paying $9,001 for something worth possibly a few hundred dollars