Posted By:
warshawlaw1. To avoid max bid phishing as discussed above. I had one particularly ugly incident before I started sniping where a person with whom I had a fight continually tracked my bids and purposely maxed me out.
2. To avoid having ebayers who know me use my name in a bidder search to locate the cards I am tracking.
I don't think sniping has any effect on prices. People program in the snipe sum they want to max bid and walk away, which is what they would do if they were simply max bidding on ebay. A hot item will draw massive fire. If anything, sniping keeps interest down in an auction from folks who maybe are not as adept at searching for stuff and who use your ebay name as a fishing mechanism if you bid.