I find it completely unfair. It almost allows for an Auction listing to become a Buy It Now listing or Best Offer listing. It also seems very sneaky, to allow someone, anyone, to be able to put a top bid and have the system simply increase the bid for them without any effort on their part. It completely obliterates the whole bidding process. The idea of an actual AUCTION taking place is moot. It doesn't even seem like anyone has an equal chance anymore.What happened to mano-a-mano bidding, with people sweating away at the computer, checking the listing every few minutes to ensure their bid? I find sniping completely fair because at least that bidder is putting in an extra effort. But with proxy bidding, there is no freaking effort and the bidder still gets away with stuff when I don't even get a chance to know the real bid.

This is why I'd rather buy stuff off Amazon. At least I get a straight answer instead of all this shady business.

I'm really smfh at all this, eBay. And you guys call yourself an auction site. What a laugh.

Unfortunately it's a common practice on all auction sites. No way to beat the compter bidding against a person. It also extends the bid closing time in most cases.

 

What's needed is an absolute auction site that bans the use of Bid Butler and the like.

the proxy bidding is fine, but the sniper bidding is unfair all the way, for ebay to even allow a program like that to exist and counter it is very upsetting. all i am saying is if you can't bring a sniper bidder (having a computer bid for you in a real life auction). how is it fair to have one on ebay? for people who really spends all week eyeing an item to win and for a computer to automatically bid at the last min to win the item is WASTING ALL MY TIME. if someone makes an online auction which prevents cheats like that occurring im joining right away!

Seriously?

 

I don't get what all the hype is about. 10 years ago, when I was first starting on ebay, I found myself sweating over the computer for the last 2 minutes trying to pay $5.00 for something I would gladly pay $50.00 for. I would swear at the computer because 3 people outbid me with 5 seconds left and one got the item for $16.00. Back then, it even showed their ebay ID and you could figure out who you were bidding against and whether they were "bottom feeders" like me or maybe someone even less sophisticated than me. I began to analyze why I "lost".

 

Then, when I realized how the proxy bidding worked, I would place a bid of $50.00 on that item when I saw it. Over the course of the next few days, I would watch the price rise, to maybe $25.00, with me as the high bidder. In the last minute or few seconds, I would watch bids come in, bumping me to $40.00 or more or maybe even outbidding me. One day I watched someone buy an item for $50.01 when I had a $50.00 bid in on it and they weren't even one increment above me, but the previous high bid was $41.00. DAMN.

 

Soon, I learned that I was never going to be as fast as some other people, especially with dial-up (those were the days!). I now figure what an item is worth to me,and most of all, what not "winning" it will cost me emotionally. I add all that up to come up with my bid. So if it is $50.00, I make it $50.07, and if there is an emotional factor, I might make it $53.08 or $62.77, so if I don't get it, I can say that I really didn't want to pay more than $50.00 for it and just forget it. If you REALLY want it, and someone outbids you at $65.00 and you are mad............ then you are being too cheap. If you want to use a sniping program, there are reasonably reliable free ones or very reliable ones that DON'T charge you if you don't buy or a quarter to a maximum of 1% if you do buy .............and remember, just because someone gets it for $65.00, doesn't mean that they weren't willing to pay $500.00 for it

 

Let me close by saying that I think very little of ebay. The management has, in my opinion, taken a great experience and destroyed much of what made it great. My purchases are down 90% from my peak years of 1995 and 1996. I believe that sellers have been hurt the most, here, save for the mass marketeers who now seem to dominate the listings.

 

Let's get one thing straight here: when bidding on ebay, you do not "win" or "lose", you buy or don't buy. They want you to think this is fun, but for sellers and many buyers, this is business.  

 

One thing I will say is that ebay applies the same bidding rules to everybody. You have every opportunity to buy what you see if you are willing to be the highest bidder. It is your decision what you are willing to pay and if you offer less than that and don't get something, you may be the only one to blame.

this has got to be the weirdest topic i've seen. saying its unfair that someone willing to pay more for an item than you will win the auction.

 

Here's a solution to your problem, put in your max bid, if it goes over the top of you then you know they're willing to pay more than you. its as simple as that.

 

I do agree the bid sniping programs are unfair though, as you may have been waiting to see how the bidding goes before putting in your max bid, then at the last second an item with zero competition just jumps like crazy and you lose the item without the chance to put your max bid in.

I don’t agree with most comments on here, proxy bidding just makes sense and is fair in general but I do take exception to one of Ebay’s implimentations of it.  Sniping is smart, it limits bidding wars based on emotion.  If you aren’t sniping you are paying more than you need to in the long run, its bad for seller, good for winning bidder.  What I don’t think is fair about Ebay’s proxy methodology is best explained by an example:  I bid $6000 for an item that is at say $4500 before it closes, after my bid someone bids $5000 as the next highest bidder, say they snipe it though even if they don’t it will be the same result, I will win the item for $5100 due to ebay’s incremental minimums.  If I had bid $5000.01 I would have still won and saved $100.  In my opinion ebay should make it so if you already have a bid in and someone adds a bid less than you max bid the proxy should only bid it up by an additional cent or dollar, a full increment is not fair and I am sure ebay is doing this because many people don’t notice and it increases their profit.

To all those whining about losing an auction by a few cents think about this. You bid exactly what you felt the item was worth and lost. If you felt it was worth more you should have bid more and maybe you would have won. I always use the ebay bid feature and put in MY maximum bid. If someone else bids a bit more and win I assume we both come out ahead. They paid what they felt was fair and won and I lost because I wasn't willing to pay any more. It really is quite simple and whining about it doesn't change a thing. Of course if this whole process bothers you there are other alternatives to buying what you want.

Automatic bidding through eBay is fine and I think it is perfectly fair.  What is unfair is using external snipping programs.  Those of you who don't understand what we are griping about have probably not run into a user who uses them all the time.  It's an outside program that places the bid at the last possible second in an auction.  This is not the same as placing a max bid through eBay.  When that is done and you make a bid, it automatically raises the bid and you can see that.  What a snipping program does is let you think you are winning it, but places a bid at the last second to win it for the least amount it can over your bid.  eBay and sellers are losing money this way.

 

I know some of you say, well enter your max bid and if it sells for more than that, that's fine.  However, we are all trying to win things at a fair price.  Sometimes, you may be willing to go another dollar or two on an item, but a snipping program cuts you off by waiting until literally the last second to place the bid and you have no time to react with a counter bid.

 

If eBay wants to allow this, they should place a time extension on bids like telephone auctions do.  An item could remain for sale up to 1 min, 2 min, or whatever time they want to specify, with no additional bids placed.  If a bid is placed in that time limit, it extends again.  This could cause an auction to extend by hours, but if people are bidding live and raising the price, the seller, eBay and the buyer would all be happy.

I have noticed recently they also erased my bidding format and asked me to bid again. This is illegal. watch out the bids before you proceed to the next one. I am working on making a case . This is very unfair and the employer and employees are getting rich .Because they made e bay to their advantage, Time to give it back. So cheating. I can't trust ebay and i am trying slowly to account .I believe they can steal my info and do something bad to their advantage.

For the most of ya ...You sound like whiners.

(Discontented sorts)

sounds like you have not gone up against a bidder that uses a system that is independent of Ebay's system,just imagine that you placed a bid like I did for an item that I had been looking for 18 long years and then you get outbid in the last second,then you check the sellers other sold items and they have also gone to the same person and they do this EVERY TIME,I had actual contact with the buyer and they were very snotty & rude and told me that I have to move on to another site because when these items come up I will be outbid each and every time,pretty nice person wern't they?

The reason it's unfair is that instead of sitting down and putting in the work for the item, you just put the highest price you're willing to pay and ebay does the rest. Instead of rewarding people who are willing to sit down and put in effort, it rewards people who are willing to throw money at it but not watch the item they want.