I was just about to bid on an item on ebay when they stopped me! 20 seconds to go, bid typed in, press the key and a voice and text message invites me to take place in an ebay survey as I've been 'selected'. Needless to say I couldn't place the bid in time.
Anyone else had this?
AWEM
Did you complain to ebay?
Well, at least it's a different nuisance.
Go to a website you've never seen before & within a second a survey box pops up - obscuring the web page - demanding to know how useful you have found their website.
Those are easy, you just use ad blockers and pop up blockers. I know some are annoying but really they should leve it till you have actually seen the thing, a lot slower for us blindies. I find life more bearable with ad blockers and pop up stoppers engaged. OK I'm not playing the game to keep the internet free, but its unusable otherwise.
With those surveys, you can minimize them you know. as for Ebay, I wonder if they have a bot on there watching who is watching which auctions and trying to discourage sniping?
Brian
I doubt it.
Ebay take their cut of the final price so, screwing up a late bid (or any bid) reduces their profits.
adblock plus and flashblock.
Or simply abandon the site altogether.
It may >just< be possible I'm maligning eBay - I found some adware lurking (stupidly didn't note the name) that I've deleted - it may have been that.
AWEM
I was wondering the same thing myself...
Maybe its some kind of warped sense of humour
Brian
That is why I always use auctionsniper.com. Although it costs a few pence per snipe I can set my bid up days before and don't have to be at the keyboard when the auction finishes. Set the bid lead time to eight seconds to allow for any delays. Faultless performance over many years. Just a very satisfied customer.
How is that any different from putting in a maximum bid at any time?
it removes the risk of a (gasp) bent seller shill bidding you up to your maximum bid that might (if sniped) not be necessary to go up to.
Jim K Jim K
They can still do that using a sniping prog.
It isn't. A lot of people don't seem to understand how proxy bidding works.
You were willing to pay the maximium bid. If you weren't, you shouldn't have placed it.
MBQ
The seller doesn't know what your maximum is so he can't bid you up to it.
He'll just keep increasing his own bid, raising your bid in the process maybe over hours or days, either until he gives up or becomes the maximum bidder himself.
The earlier you place your own bid the easier it is to attract rival bids from such people.
In many auctions when approaching the close many bidders pitch their maximums too close to the current showing highest bid, hoping to steal it, so they think. Its these bidders who lose out to sniped bids. You can see this, by the small increments bids increase by, in late bidding wars.
If everyone bidding on eBay knew what they were doing and adopted the optimum strategy then it wouldn't be worth the candle, half of the time.
michael adams
...
The most recent one was
Abandoning it might be against my best interests ATM.
You could try just snipe. The free version allows 5 snipes/wk for each ebay account registered with lead time of 8secs before sale end. It certainly seems to be quite secure. No sw to download, just log in, enter sale details and max. bid. I've used this for 7 years and never had any security problems or spam. Also had some fairly spectacular results.
No connection or affilation, just that I think it a good service.
Nick.
The thing that most annoys me about Ebay, and Amazon for that matter, is the constant e-mails after I have bought something.
"You recently purchased a phone cover for Blackberry Bold through Ebay. Please click the link to rate the seller and rate the product. etc etc."
Why do I have to rate out of 5 everyone I buy from and every product!!?? What is there to say about a plastic phone case for a few quid. I saw it was cheaper that the local shop, paid for it, it arrived, it fitted.
how?? they don't have the time to "feel" your max bid out?
Jim K
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.