bloody goofbid

[goonerboy]

on sunday there was a programme i needed on ebay. As it was ending in the evening and I knew I would be driving back from manchester I set up goofbid to snipe it in last few seconds. I set my max up near £70, considering it to be a £30-40 prog but just to make sure. Later after auction ended I checked on the item and saw final price was £18 so was pleased that i got it at decent price....except i hadn't. The goofbid snipe never happened and it didn't place the bid for me. I checked goofbid and all it said was "you lost item" with no explanation why.

I know the other guy may have put in a bid higher than my £70 so maybe I wouldn't have won it but it is so infuriating to lose the auction way below what I was willing to pay. Bloody sniper b*llox. All I can think is the bid went in a few seconds late rather than the stated time and thus was too late.

[Eddie Reeve]

Yeah, that's happened to me a few times as well. Don't know if Auctionsniper is still going but I always found them more reliable, but you do have to pay for that site

[pafcprogs]

happened to me on Auctionsniper as well....it's the risk of using proxy bidders I missed out ( probably) on the single sheet League Cup at stoke so someone got a bargain!
_________________
Currently disposing of my collection so please email any wants lists to [email protected].
Most Plymouth post 1959 but plenty of others including reserves, friendlies, Cup Finals Internationals and Club issues, handbooks and other sports.

[Dorking]

Always use Auctionsniper unless I am sure the item I want will attract no other bidders at all. Only let me down once, but I was livid as I had been waiting for the item to appear for about a year, and it sold for way less than my max snip bid amount.

Never did get an explanation. Took quite a while before I trusted it again.

[bisphamseasider]

Never really trusted these "sniper" sites as shown by some of the posts above.

I always do my own sniping, and if am not around when an item finishes, I make sure I have submitted a decent maximum bid.

[martino]

Excuse my ignorance of sniping but what is the difference between sniping and just putting the same figure on E Bay as a maximum?

Surely if you are going to bid up to a specific fixed amount it should not matter if you snipe or not.

[wandererpaul]

martino wrote:

Excuse my ignorance of sniping but what is the difference between sniping and just putting the same figure on E Bay as a maximum? Surely if you are going to bid up to a specific fixed amount it should not matter if you snipe or not.

Because you can get it cheaper instead of bidding up the price too early. I do it, and I've got items a lot cheaper than leaving a hefty bid and losing out or, it's happened to me before, being bid up to my top bid, and slightly more, only then to find the bid retracted and someone else underbidding just below my maximum, yes dodgy bidding, so I now bid last minute on all the times I wish to purchase. I set a figure and bid, if I lose out, I lose out. I'll wait for the next one to come along.

[slightfold]

I use Hammersnipe, have done for years, and found them to brilliant. You get 3 free snipes per week. This is usually enough for me, the 'week' starts early Sunday morning so if you have used up your week's quota and there's something on the Sunday you can still bid.
Agreed there would, on the surface appear to be no difference in setting your maximum bid on Ebay or sniping. By sniping within seconds before the auction ends other Ebay bidders would likely not have the time and chance to put in a higher bid, and you don't get into a bidding war. Of course if someone else has a higher snipe limit then you lose. This topic has been covered in depth on here before, you either like it or you don't!

[Wullie]

It happened to me once. And the daft thing was I was sitting watching the clock count down with a smug smile on my face. When no last second bid went in, I just starred at the screen for ages thinking what the bloody hell

[bisphamseasider]

Dorking wrote:

Always use Auctionsniper unless I am sure the item I want will attract no other bidders at all.

Well that's a new one on me.

To be sure that an item will attract no other bidders at all?

On some items you can perhaps presume that the likelihood of other bidders is virtually nil but how can you be sure?

[garyspain]

I use www.auctionstealer.com 3 free bids per wweek. I do buy the odd 1 month subscription.

It is not 100% reliable. None of them are or can be.

If I really really want something I try and be by my computer.

It is really frustrating when it lets you down but I suppose there are items I got because it let others down as well.

[bisphamseasider]

garyspain wrote:

If I really really want something I try and be by my computer.

I think that is generally the best policy if possible, but even then I was let down once on a very sought after item when my internet suddenly dropped out just as I was about to bid with a few seconds to go.

[garyspain]

bisphamseasider wrote:

garyspain wrote: If I really really want something I try and be by my computer. I think that is generally the best policy if possible, but even then I was let down once on a very sought after item when my internet suddenly dropped out just as I was about to bid with a few seconds to go.

Even still you should have a sniper as backup for that.

Maybe sometimes it is just not meant to be.

[Dorking]

bisphamseasider wrote:

Dorking wrote: Always use Auctionsniper unless I am sure the item I want will attract no other bidders at all. Well that's a new one on me. To be sure that an item will attract no other bidders at all? On some items you can perhaps presume that the likelihood of other bidders is virtually nil but how can you be sure?

When I'm buying dead common Topps football cards, eg Match Attax, where there are loads of others (identical) listed at the same time, and where even if I was outbid, I'd just move on to the next one and bid the starting price only.

[bisphamseasider]

Cheers for the explanation Dorking.

I hadn't really thought of that probably because the stuff I am after, virtually without fail, has someone else after it as well.

[dvsgooner]

I once put in a bid with about 10 seconds to go. Ebay then asked me to sign in again (I had never logged out, they just asked me to confirm my username/password). I didn't make it in time and someone else got the item on a cheap... I wasn't too happy about that to be honest - thankfully it was not an important item (though it was at the time).

[Sir Moses Hill]

The world around my club is too small for these sort of tactics to be acceptable - in my view, anyway. In the early days of eBay, and one of the first eBay auctions I participated in, I sniped a close friend to win a lovely item that I've never seen for sale since (Detroit Cougars press guide, 1967) and he tackled me on it at the game the following weekend. He was mostly just ribbing me and I'm sure has long since forgotten it, but the experience has somewhat tainted my enjoyment of owing the item on the half-feeling that I won it unfairly.

Greater anonymity may be afforded by collecting a larger club, but if I were to regularly win popular items by sniping I'd quickly gain a reputation.

Therefore, my eBay style is fairly consistent these days, particularly for items I know will attract other bidders and higher prices. Early in the auction I'll place one or two bids to announce my interest in the item. I'll then leave it untouched until, say, 15-30 minutes before the end of the auction when I'll return to bid up to my ceiling. For an attractive item, I consider this time period to give suitable opportunity for rival bidders to respond.

I realise this may sound naive and lacking in the killer instinct, but programme collecting is only small group within a wider community around the club I support, and I believe it important to treat people fairly and to be seen to act honourably. Otherwise, people will resent both me and my collection, and it will never get the recognition it deserves.

Further, the eBay app on my iPhone means I rarely have cause to miss those closing moments. eBay also sends me alerts through the app to let me know when auctions are closing and whether I've been outbid. So even if you want to snipe, you can do it yourself and don't need to be in front of your computer.

[goodison]

Yahoo had an auction site that was on the go around the same time as ebay started. If I remember correctly it was free to list on so there was a lot of items on there. One thing they had was if a bid was put near the end time of an auction then the end time got extended by 5 minutes to give others a chance to bid - this happened every time a bid was put in so it was impossible to bid in the last few seconds.