Help! Illegal Sniper Bidding Program?

[toonybabe]

I have just sold my two Unico cels on Ebay, the auctions ended today. Both sold at prices higher than I anticipated. The same Ebay member won both cels, and he has all positive feedback.

But when I was checking my email today, I got a message from another Ebay buyer telling me that she had actually bid much higher on one of the Unico cels than what it closed for. She thinks that they buyer who won my auctions was using an illegal sniper bidding program that knocks off other buyers high bids so that the auction can be won at a lower price. She told me to look at his past auctions to see if he's won multiple auctions at the exact same time.

When I checked, I found that there is no way you can view the actual times the bids were placed on past auctions. BUT the buyer that won my auctions put in his winning bid 5 seconds before my auctions closed. I have bid at the last minute before, but I don't think I could ever put in a bid that close to the end of the auction. Maybe I am a little naive about sniper bidding, but 5 seconds before the close of the auction seems a little fishy.

Could anyone give me some advice/info on these illegal sniper bidding programs? I know that there are just sniper bidding programs that will bid for you in the last second and I think those are legal, but if there are programs someone can use to bump off another bidder's high bid, then that really makes me angry. Are there programs like this? What is legal vs. illegal when it comes to sniper bidding? And how would I be able to prove he was using one of these programs? Am I going to have to contact Ebay about it?

The Ebay member who send me the message didn't seem pushy, they said that they just wanted to "let me know" that someone could be cheating me out of money. I don't know if they are legitimately suspicous or if they are just trying to get me to offer them the cel. It sounds like I could sell my cel for a much higher price, but if the cel was won fairly, then I have no right to offer it to someone else at the last minute.

If anyone could give me some advice as to how to handle the situation, I would really really appreciate it. I want to investigate it to see if there is anything to this person's claim, to be fair to them, and to find out if I really was cheated out of my money. I need to figure out what do to fast because my auctions ended this morning and either way I need to start communicating with the winning bidder. Both of these people have 100% positive feedback. But I definitely want to be fair to both parties and get the right and true winning price for my cel.

Any suggestions?

And also, this is why I am starting to HATE Ebay!!

[Shampoo]

From my experiences on ebay
you *can* put in a winning bid the last 5 secs

I've done so many times, sometimes even 2 secs.
As far as snip software, I used one way wayyy back when
some programs were freeware that did put in
all my bids only 5-10 secs from end time -- but never did it
bump off previous bidders.

Never heard of that before...
*shrugs*

But its been yrs since I've used one so who knows!
Id be curious to know any info otyhers can share.

Good luck sorting this out

IMO- Im weary of comments made after an auction has ended
from the losing bidder. Especially if validating the comment seems difficult
and improbable.

[buma]

I know there are auction sniping programs that bids up to 3 seconds prior to the close of the bid (give or take a second or two, I'm guessing) so if the bid comes in at 5 seconds before the close, I don't see this as being unreasonable. I don't know of any programs that could knock out another person's already-existing bid in the Ebay system (and if there is such a thing, then that, I'd think would be highly against Ebay's policy).

It sounds like to me, the person who got sniped was watching the auction as it ended, and would have sniped 'manually' if they got outbid in the last minute or so. The gripe I can see there is, they didn't get the item as they didn't get a chance to counter-snipe the automated bid as there isn't just enough time to do so manually. All I can say is 'tough beans' there...

If the complaining bidder really wanted the auction item, they should have placed their max bid at whatever their 'breaking point' price would be, or use an automated sniping program with their max bid price as the winning bidder had done. That way, if they loose even then, the bid went above the price they could afford and you have an excuse (but loosing a bid by $0.50 is always difficult, I know...).

Now, if there was an 'actual' sniping program that knocked off the high bidder's max bid price prior to placing another person's bid, now that would be highly unethical and should be beat down right-away. However, unless there's some sort of crack in Ebay's bidding system (which I'd think more of us would know about by now), I don't think that this is the case. There would be so many complaints by now and the word would spread so quickly, I'd think the uproar would be very audible even to the non-ebayer.

that's my $0.02 - hope that helps?

[LunaArt]

I have never heard of any program that can knock out anybody else's bids. Frankly, I think it would be impossible to create such a program because it would involve somehow hacking into another person's account or messing with eBay's code, etc. Believe me, if eBay ever got a whiff that such a program ever existed they would hunt it down until they found it because they would be losing out on final value fees as well.

Sniper bidding is 100% legal on eBay. Apparently, it was illegal way back when eBay first started but they changed their policy several years ago. I think the person that contacted you about the sniping was just a little upset about not winning your auctions. My guess is that the person means that they would have bid much higher if they would had the time to put in another bid, but since the sniper bid with only 5 seconds left they had no chance. I personally have manually put in a bid with less than 5 seconds left, so I do know it is not that hard to do. And, of course, there are programs that many eBay bidders use that will automatically do it for you.

I think the fair thing to do is to sell to the bidder that won your auctions as you normally would. If you are still uneasy about an illegal sniper program possibly existing, I would ask your question out on the eBay community selling forums. There are lots of helpful eBay sellers out there with the latest information that I'm sure can help you out. Here's a link to the forum list:
http://pages.ebay.com/community/boards/index.html

Hope that helps a little!!

[beatrush]

I do believe its a case of sour grapes on the part of the losing bidder.

There are sniper programs out there, but as stated, they do not have the ability to block another's bid. Doing that would involve hacking ebay's serverside code itself so unless there is a super god hacker who just happened to be into unico cels, I highly doubt the person's high bid was blocked.

Most likely, they bid one second after the auction was over (I have done this before and ebay said BID was not accepted).

[duotrouble]

From my experiences on ebay
you *can* put in a winning bid the last 5 secs

I've done so many times, sometimes even 2 secs.

Me too! I've won a few in the last couple of seconds. You just need a good internet connection.

Best of luck!

[graymouser]

I have never heard of a program that eliminated other bids.

In the sniping world, five seconds is a long time and its more likely the bidder messed up on their counter-snipe bid. Back when I bid a lot on ebay, I would get very upset at the snipers and the programs they used. My problem with sniping was more philosophical than financial. Sniping ran/runs against my sense of fair play. I got VERY fast at counter-bidding. BTW, I never counter-bid on an auction that I was not already winning before the snipe attempt (ie I only counter-sniped, never sniped)

I often started with a reasonably high (but not my max) bid early in the auction. I did not use my max bid, since there were ways to find out what it was. I would then be the winning bidder until the last few seconds. Since I knew the snipe was coming, I was well prepared to counter-bid with my real max. I have manually counter-sniped in under 5 seconds a few times. My personal best was against a snipper who struck at the 3 seconds mark. I never got a chance to try against anything closer.

I suspect that this person was trying a last second snipe and screwed up. (such as not properly matching the time on their computer to ebay time. slow reactions or delayed transmission time) Maybe someone could make a program that would block any bids made after theirs for a limited time (say 5 seconds) but I don't think that's likely.

[toonybabe]

Thank you so much everyone for your imput and advice. After thinking about it and messaging back and forth with this person, I pretty much agree with everyone. I wasn't sure because I had never heard of illegal snipe bidding that knocks out anothers bid, but it makes sense that if it was real, Ebay would know about it by now.

I think this bidder just didn't get their counter bid in time and thought that it was the winning bidder that knocked their bid out. Or maybe its their way of offering me a higher price for my cels after they lost the auction - there's no way I can know for sure.

The winning bidder has already sent me a payment and since they won the auction fair and square, they will be the one to get the cels.

And everyone here is telling me that they can snipe bid in 5 seconds or less! I need to start working out my fingers, get a faster internet connection or maybe even sign up with an automatic snipe bidding program myself. I don't want to loose out the next time I bid on something!

Thanks again everyone for the great advice!

[EternityOfPain]

Yea the topics been pretty much covered but there are sniper bidding software where you can bid at the same time on multiple items and they are perfectly legal. My guess is similar to yours and others that she was simply to slow. Man < Machine.

[Belldandy16]

wow ive never heard of that before.
id definately contact ebay about it.

i hope all works out for you!

[lcatino]

Yikes! I can't imaging there being software that can block a person's bid, and ebay probably would be aware of it.

I think you're doing the right thing by selling the cels to the winner. It's possible the other bidder just didn't get their bid through in time. That's happened to me a million times before.