Posted By:
Bob RousseauThe thing that got me to start using a sniping service was when a group of nearly simultaneous Ebay auctions was happening within a very short window of time- I think it was in fact the "Florida Find" of T206 cards a few years back- and the auctions were all spaced to end within probably 10 seconds of each other. In part because I was using a semi-old computer with (gasp!) dial up, and in part because I think so many people were bidding on those, I found Ebay kept freezing up on me. It was MADDENING! So- I decided I was going to let someone else's computer system do the last minute scramble for me. I was also tired of the 3 a.m. end times on some auctions.
I've used a sniping service for easily 200-300 auctions and it malfunctioned on me only a total of about two times. I can't remember the one I used first- but they got hacked into briefly, as I recall, and I switched over to stealthbid, who I've used ever since and again, they might have malfunctioned on all of one auction.
Since someone mentioned the bidding battle as being the 'fun' part- for me now, the fun is knowing my snipe bid is already in and then , in the final minute of an auction, watching the auction page and refreshing it every second waiting for my bid to show up without having to hurredly type in my password, etc. Probably the only ones to come after are using a different sniping service. And also, another fun part for me is having more dollars left over to spend on more items because of what I've saved using a sniping service.
If you're fixated on an item and don't want to use a sniping service, I guess it comes down to- Do you want the band aid ripped off at once or gradually? If it's worthwhile, you KNOW you're going to have competition- with people sniping and using sniping services, you get to find out all of a sudden in the last seconds if your Big Kahuna bid is good enough. When people don't snipe or use sniping services, they can just chip away at your bid for days. If you don't want the Bandaid ripped off at all, make one of what I call the "If You Bid Higher Than This, You're Absolutely Crazy" bid and hope for the best.