I'm considering trying this out, but I just wanted to get a little info first to see if sniping will actually help in a certain situation.

So, I was bidding on an item that claimed to have no reserve, the bid was at $300 with the next minimum being $305. I placed the $305 bid with 13 hours left on the auction, but set a max auto-bid of $351.01. I stayed on top with $305 and watched like a hawk as the clock dwindled down to zero, and it appeared that nobody out bid me. Then, on the email I received from eBay, it told me I lost the auction by to someone who not only outbid my $305, but my $351.01, and the final winning bid was $356.01. Now, I suspect that the winning bidder is actually the seller, because within as soon as I lost an identical item was posted with an aution end date exactly 3 day after I lost this one. Exactly as in within the minute, and maybe even the same second. Could this be acheived by the seller just placing a higher auto-bid than men, or would that have been a visible back-and-forth increasing $5 every time? I figured I would have seen being outbid if this was the case. Or is it that the seller had a snipe set-up that was just higher than my max bid?

In these situations, is it possible to win an auction if my max snipe is lower than someone else's eBay maximum bid, strictly based on timing it correctly, and the auto-bid not having time to outbid me?

And the same question for snipes. If there are multiple snipes set on the same product, do the fire ant slightly different times, where a lower one has a chance of winning because of timing, or does it just let the auction end and analyze who was highest, and they always win?

I mostly just want to know if a seller has a snipe set on a different account set up as an invisible reserve price, do I even have a chance if my snipe is below that hidden reserve amount?

Hopefully someone will be able to clarify this. I want to go after the reposted one, but I want to win it for what I want to pay for it, and not think that I have won, only to have both my bid and then my $50 higher max bid be out bid all within the same mere fractions of the last second.

1. I saw some sellers do it -- they place snipes on their own items. Fortunately, eBay is really good to spot them. I had a few of those using Myibidder as well, I blocked them because it was too obvious they snipe their own items.
Although, this is rare.
The easiest way to check is to see if it's repeating the same way, then check feedbacks of the winners. If feedback are the same, then you can report it to eBay for investigation so they can check it for sure.

2. You can not win an auction if your max snipe is lower than someone else's bid. Does not matter what timing you set, the highest bidder wins.

3. The same as #2.

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Last edited on Fri Mar 08, 2013 05:14 AM.

Thanks!

I'll still give this a shot, just in case it's not the seller sniping their own stuff. At least now I know how much of a fair shot I have.