I am what you would call an auction sniper, and I’m not afraid it admit it. Though there are many that get mad when this happens, as far as I am concerned it is the only way to get what you want. You can take to heart the fact that this doesn’t always work, though it does work most of the time. I generally wonder why people bid on items when there are five or six days left to go in an auction. They are just running the price up on themselves as far as I am concerned.
An auction sniper is someone who waits until the last minute to place a bid on an item. I was doing this long before I knew there was a term for it. It just makes sense to me. I guess I can see where an auction sniper might be irritating, but you should almost expect to be outbid in the last moments of any type of auction. If I really want something, I want to get it at the best price. I simply watch that items to see where the price goes, and if I am still interested I will bid when the time is almost down to nothing.
If you hate an auction sniper, you should take comfort in the fact that it does not always work. There are a lot of factors in play. If you have a slow Internet connection you aren’t going to be a very good auction sniper anyway. You have to refresh repeatedly to make sure you don’t get outbid at the very last moment if you have entered yours too early. If you wait to long, you may not get your bid in before time runs out.
An auction sniper might also have problems if there is yet another sniper hanging out watching the same auction. This happens all the time. I once lost something just because I had under estimated what the last person had put in as a proxy bid. This is almost another type of auction sniper. If their proxy bid is high enough, it won’t matter what you put in, the program will outbid you up to their highest bid. I watched something go up for auction three times with no bidders. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted it. When I decided I did, I lost to someone who did this. It’s not a perfect thing, but I do think it is what a smart bidder does.
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