Bidding on Ebay: Why do folks run up bids?!

[brucecz]

Bill, my ebay ID is B.F. Czajkowski which is of course my name.


Bruce

Originally Posted by brennumtimesharer

Bruce,

Since I don't know your id on ebay, I couldn't say for sure. This auction appears to be one you in which you would be interested.

I may be missing an ebay feature that hides certain bids that happened between this person's bids but aren't displayed. From the timing of the bids, it did appear to be either a sniping or proxy automatic bid. I think that all bids should show on an auction in ebay especially for proxy/sniping bids so a person can see why their bids were entered.

So Bruce, if that was you I hope you win it.

Bill

[caribbeansun]

There's no such feature - when you see the same person's name twice in a row (or more) one of two things has occurred - they've either bid twice in an attempt to get above another bidder's proxy (their proxy will only display once regardless of whether another person bids several times). The other time you will see someone's name twice in a row is when they have the high bid but come back again and decide to increase their proxy, in that case their name will show twice but with the same bid $ amount.

Snipe bids won't show when the proxy exceeds the snipe bid $ amount because the snipe won't be placed.

All bids that are actually entered will show on all auctions.

Originally Posted by brennumtimesharer

I may be missing an ebay feature that hides certain bids that happened between this person's bids but aren't displayed. From the timing of the bids, it did appear to be either a sniping or proxy automatic bid. I think that all bids should show on an auction in ebay especially for proxy/sniping bids so a person can see why their bids were entered.

[tjs1970]

this is starting to irk me as well..........people are bidding on this timeshare 3 to 4 days before the closing...........all driving up the price.........they are just shooting each other and themselves in the foot by doing this........i just dont get it........a timeshare that should be going for less than a grand is now at a high bid of 600 and there are almost three days left.......

[brucecz]

FYI the ebay auction that Bill and I talked about went for over $3,500 and IMHO the buyer got a pretty good deal and was definately not the one you are talking about.

I was only the 5th high bidder on this one snipe bidding over $3,100 and IMHO I think I know the market values of that ownership as we have bought 12 of them and sold 5 of them.

On this type of ownership last year I won a auction for this very same type of ownership for less money. One one later a Tugger who only had the 3rd high bidder who bid over $500 less than I emailed and beratedme saying I sould not bid seeing I had 5 or 6 of that ownership. I consider that to be sour grapes from a whinner who did not want to pay anywere it was worth.

He could not get it through brain that on ebay the market price is the winning price and the market price on ebay is not what the lowest bidder wants to pay unless they are the only bidder. Money talks.

Bruce

Originally Posted by tjs1970

this is starting to irk me as well..........people are bidding on this timeshare 3 to 4 days before the closing...........all driving up the price.........they are just shooting each other and themselves in the foot by doing this........i just dont get it........a timeshare that should be going for less than a grand is now at a high bid of 600 and there are almost three days left.......

[wbtimesharer]

Actually, I thinks Bruce's proxy bids went into play because of someone else's bidding.

After his early involvement, someone can in and did a single bid upping the price close to a grand. I definately smell a shill on that one. My max bid went in with 20 seconds left, but was already passed up. I had just picked one up off of redweek in the fall for roughly the same price and was looking more for a deal.

I do concur with Bruce's opinion of udi's. They are fun to have and if gotten at the right price, blow anything else out of the water for flexibility and quantity of stays.

Bill

[Andytime]

My wife and I bought our 1st ts in myrtle b sc about 12 years ago. Of course paid too much but have found timesharing pleasant. Wouldn't want to stay in a motel for vacation ever again. But now we are paying almost $1,200 annual maintenance fee. We intend to quitclaim deed it back to the management company - Equivest/Cendant I think.

We would like to purchase another on where the fees are reasonable. Looking at Sunterra Plantation or one of the Massanutten resorts. Is there anyone who can tell about these resorts: tradability, owners association, +'s & -'s about the resort from experience there?

Best/worst auctions to deal with?

[brucecz]

I already posted in this strings posting number 24 how and why I bid in the early portion of that auction.

Bruce

Originally Posted by brennumtimesharer

Actually, I thinks Bruce's proxy bids went into play because of someone else's bidding.

After his early involvement, someone can in and did a single bid upping the price close to a grand. I definately smell a shill on that one. My max bid went in with 20 seconds left, but was already passed up. I had just picked one up off of redweek in the fall for roughly the same price and was looking more for a deal.

I do concur with Bruce's opinion of udi's. They are fun to have and if gotten at the right price, blow anything else out of the water for flexibility and quantity of stays.

Bill

[brucecz]

In case they will not accept a quit claim deed. You could put it on bidshares without having to pay upfront fee and start the bidding at one dollar. If it sells only then do you pay the $50 auction fee.

Seeing that you are a Tug member you are entitled to one free classified ad if you have not uded it as of yet.

Bruce

Originally Posted by Andytime

My wife and I bought our 1st ts in myrtle b sc about 12 years ago. Of course paid too much but have found timesharing pleasant. Wouldn't want to stay in a motel for vacation ever again. But now we are paying almost $1,200 annual maintenance fee. We intend to quitclaim deed it back to the management company - Equivest/Cendant I think.

We would like to purchase another on where the fees are reasonable. Looking at Sunterra Plantation or one of the Massanutten resorts. Is there anyone who can tell about these resorts: tradability, owners association, +'s & -'s about the resort from experience there?

Best/worst auctions to deal with?

[Egret1986]

There's a Marriott Ford's Colony auction listed on eBay for about 2 hours and it went from $199 to $2025. Now that they know the reserve, maybe they will slow down. Maybe not.

[ripleysmom]

If unable to snipe myself I use www.auctionsnipe.com

The first 3 snipes (I think) are free. After that they don't really charge that much.

[funtime]

If an auction has a reserve and a BIN (Buy it now) price the BIN vanishes when the reserve is hit. So, you see a BIN for 3200 and assume you might be able to get the timeshare for 2600 which you roughly calculate is the reserve, you might run it up to the reserve and then stop. That eliminates the BIN opportunity and eliminates someone else being able to impulsively but it up from under you before auction end. Of course, there is no guarantee that the auction will then end under the 3200 and I have had auctions end higher than the BIN which had vanished by auction end. Funtime

[ondeadlin]

If it's a no reserve auction, I don't touch it until the final minute.

If there's a "buy it now," and I have serious interest, I have tried to bid to remove the reserve, and thus remove the buy it now option for others.

If there's a really low reserve starting price, I might toss a bid just to see if I can feel out the reserve. Recently there's been a fixed Grand Timber Lodge week popping up by the same seller on eBay. Each time, I entered a bid of $10,000 to see if -- upon relisting -- he'd lowered his reserve to that price. In each case, that hasn't met the reserve.

It might even look like I was schilling for the seller, but if I could get the unit for $10,000, I'd be happy to pay it.

[geekette]

Auctions are for bidding.

[Buffalo66]

Answer to original question: Because most people do not behave rationally.

[Leturno]

Originally Posted by geekette

Auctions are for bidding.

Funny, I thought auctions were for selling and buying stuff :-)

Scott
Being a brat! :-)

[madherb]

What happens when everybody uses a sniper? I assume the auction will just sit until the last few seconds and then the winning bidder will be determined by chance based on what just happened to process last when ebay shut the auction down. Regardless of how many bidders might have been trying to offer more. Bad for sellers because they don't get as good a price and bad for buyers because they can't fairly bid for an item they want.

[shellbelle]

If I use a sniper, does it automatically bid whatever $ amount I put in? Or does it bit UP TO that amount? Like if, with 8 seconds to go, the high bid is $1000 and I've put in with a sniper that I'd pay up to $2000, does the sniping service bid $1010 for me or the whole $2000? If it bids $1010 and some other ebayer has put in a proxy bid for $1500, then does the sniping service take me up to $1510?

Thanks for your patience. Y'all are amazing & I'm learning tons.

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Originally Posted by shellbelle

If I use a sniper, does it automatically bid whatever $ amount I put in? Or does it bit UP TO that amount? Like if, with 8 seconds to go, the high bid is $1000 and I've put in with a sniper that I'd pay up to $2000, does the sniping service bid $1010 for me or the whole $2000? If it bids $1010 and some other ebayer has put in a proxy bid for $1500, then does the sniping service take me up to $1510?

Thanks for your patience. Y'all are amazing & I'm learning tons.

The sniper puts in your bid at $2000 and lets the eBay proxy system takes over from there.

All the sniper does is enter your bid for you. It is exactly the same as if you were sitting at your computer, and you entered a $2000 bid at that same moment as you had instructed the sniper to make the bid.

In the case you cited, you would win the auction at $1510. But it wouldn't be the sniper taking you to $1510, it would be eBays proxy bidding system. The same as if you had entered a $2000 bid on your own.

The advantage of the sniper system is that you don't have to sit at your computer till the last minute, waiting to enter your bid. Also, if you only want one item and there are ten or fifteen auctions of that same item, you can enter snipes on each of them, and the sniping service will stop sniping on them as soon as you win one. Again, that saves you the trouble of monitoring auctions, then entering bids one by one as each one closes until you finally win.

[shellbelle]

Thanks, Steve. I can see the obvious advantages of using a sniper system. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't end up bidding $1000 for something I could have had for $510.

I've only ever bought one item on ebay--a car. This thread perfectly sums up the how I went about doing it, (i.e. decide ahead how much I was willing to pay, don't bid until the last few seconds, etc.) but I didn't realize I didn't need to be glued to my computer for the last 2 minutes of an auction--that there were services that would do that for me.

Thanks so much; this will almost certainly save me headache in the future!

Michelle

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Originally Posted by shellbelle

Thanks, Steve. I can see the obvious advantages of using a sniper system. I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't end up bidding $1000 for something I could have had for $510.

I've only ever bought one item on ebay--a car. This thread perfectly sums up the how I went about doing it, (i.e. decide ahead how much I was willing to pay, don't bid until the last few seconds, etc.) but I didn't realize I didn't need to be glued to my computer for the last 2 minutes of an auction--that there were services that would do that for me.

Thanks so much; this will almost certainly save me headache in the future!

Michelle

To me the benefits aren't just saving myself from sitting at the computer as the auction ends. When I'm at the computer, even as I'm waiting until near the end of the auction, I can still feel the emotion tugging me to increase my bid to be sure I get the item. With the sniping service, I'm insulated from that.

The other big benefit, which I alluded to above, is to group auctions and snipe each of them as they expire. Then you can set it up so that as soon as you win one item (or a specific number of items if you want mulitiple items), the automatic sniping stops.

That works will with some commodity type items, such as calculators or CDs.

[geekette]

Originally Posted by Leturno

Funny, I thought auctions were for selling and buying stuff :-)

Scott
Being a brat! :-)

Yes, but it's not like a retail system where there's a set price. Auctions have always involved bidding, with the highest bid being able to purchase the item.

Long ago, before the internet, people could accidentally bid by scratching their nose or making some other movement. Auctions were in some cases actually social events or fundraisers for their towns.

Sure, there is stuff to be sold, but it is a process.

[DavidnRobin]

For me - and my recent Ebay purchase of a WSJ TS - I decided on the maximum I would pay for the WSJ TS based on research and available funds, and entered that value and let eBay automatically bid up to that maximum. Lo and behold it hit that price as soon as the auction ended - if I lost it - oh well... no big loss. if I backed out - no big deal since I don't use eBay that often (3x in 4 years) and don't care about getting a bad review

[Egret1986]

I was bidding on a gift certificate with a $100 value. Instead of using my sniping service I decided to bid at the last minute. The auction was at 85.00, going up in $1.00 increments. Excitedly, instead of typing in 86.00, I typed in 8600. I freaked out for about a minute until I went into the auction to see the winning amount, which was $86.00 (naturally I won the auction). I have seen auctions for gift certificates go for the value of the cerificate and over. I was sure glad I wasn't bidding against some other person who incorrectly submitted some crazy bid like I did. I felt very lucky that everything turned out okay. For a few seconds there I forgot the bids only go up in increments over the previous bid and just knew I had won an auction for $8,600. I was going to have to beg the seller not to hurt me when I had to back out.

[DavidnRobin]

Re: sniping and eBay auctions
I had tried reading about sniping before my eBay bid for WSJ. Also some of the sniping websites also - and while I get part of the advantage (not having to be at the computer at the end of the auction, or making a bid on many similar items) - I do not get the rest. (plus I am a little dense...)

In my own case, about 2 minutes prior to the end of the auction - I had put a few bids in - only to be outbit immediately (around $16K). At this point - I put in a Max bid (18602) - in looking at the final bids - it looks as if 2 others were also bidding - one person made a big jump a few seconds before the end of the auction, but it was $102 below my Max bid.

If someone associated with the seller were trying to bid up the price (by putting in test bids) they would have had to do it in the last 30 seconds until they hit my Max bid - and that would have nullified my bid. I don't see where 'sniping' would have helped either me or another buyer, but maybe I am missing something.

How would someone associated with the seller use sniping to run up the price to my max bid? How would have sniping helped me, or another credible bidder?

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Originally Posted by blujahz

How would someone associated with the seller use sniping to run up the price to my max bid? How would have sniping helped me, or another credible bidder?

It's not likely that the seller would snipe on their own auction. Sellers shill to show bidding activity on their item and to drive up the price.

The advantage of sniping has to do with the psychology of the auction. There are bidders who won't bid on an iten until there is bidding action on the item. That is particularly the case for items that are not common commodities or where the seller doesn't have a large feeback rating. For those people, they feel more confident bidding on the item when others are bidding; if other people aren't bidding those people seem to feel there must be something wrong with the item. By entering an early bid, you draw more people into the auction. More people in the auction means the item gets bid up higher. When you enter an early bid, you might bring into the auction the person who is ready to outbid you.

In addition, when there is active bidding on an item, people will rethink their bids and increase their bids. And they are more likely to do so as bidding activity increases on an item. By entering your bid early you stimulate interest in the auction, which is to your detriment as a bidder (but to the advantage of the seller).