I am looking for bid sniping software that runs under Linux or, if I have to, Windows and runs on my computer without support being necessary from an outside site.

Anyone know of any such software?

at least for eBay, you are not allowed to use such software! but I have no clue, either...

There is no prohibition against using sniping software! What would be the complaint? Its perfectly legal and is done all the time. Ebay does not con troll your methods. They may discourage it, I am sure it reduces the fee they make on the sellers side. So who are they for, the 50% of their customer base that buys or the 50% of their customer base that sells? They have to support BOTH if they want a business so they should be silent on the subject.

I snipe by hand most of the time, but would love to be able to do it unattended...without having to pay someone a fee for each bid.

I have a bid coming up this evening that I will be paying a fee to have sniped because I will be away from the computer when it comes up. That would be a good thing for EBay because otherwise they would get no bid at all from me.

Again, there is no law, ordinance, or rule against sniping. Its a common, if socially questionable, practice. Its just a way to keep from being bid up artificially, in an auction, by shills. The software just makes it a bit easier to protect yourself.

This is linuxquestions.org, not MakeMoneyFaster.Com
Would you aspire to be a lawyer perchance? No "Law, ordinance, or ..."

So you think it's OK, even if "socially questionable"?

You'll get no help from me then.

I DO NOT consider it socially questionable! But, some people do. I see no reason why waiting till the last second to bid is in any way wrong. When would you have me stop my bidding?

If you think its wrong, then at what time till the end of the auction does it become an offense to bid? 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 3 minutes, where is the line? Where ever you put it, then why not just end the auction early by 30 seconds or whatever you think is the offending time? Do you think a Live auctioneer would refuse a bid 2 seconds before he drops the hammer? Of course not.

Ebay tried refusing bids within 5 seconds of the end of an auction and abandoned the practice when they realized the ridiculousness of their position.

As a seller, I dont like sniping, but I dont think there is any thing wrong with it. As a buyer I like it because the shills cant bid me up.

We have an online auction site here that allows the seller to
have the auction auto-extend by two minutes if a bid is placed
within the last two minutes.

Now there's a sensible system ;}



Cheers,
Tink

Does Google not work today? It did earlier.

Brandon

I have always been intrigued with what I heard called a "Dutch Auction". As I understand it, the price starts high and drops until someone bids. Thus, the first bid is the final one.

Don't know how that would work on e-bay.....

If I am selling on e-bay, I don't care how the bidding is done--as long as I get a fair price-------If I am buying, I like sniping because I don't have to be constantly watching the auction.

YMMV

That's why I was sniping the auction last night. I had a bid of $10 on the item, the only bid, and I set up a snipe for $25 while I was gone. Turns out the snipe wasn't needed because I got it for my original bid. Got a nice wireless router for $10 plys shipping.

But if I had bid $25 at first some stupid so and so could have bid it up a couple of times then bailed out. So a snipe would have prevented the tire kickers from costing me money.

When I sell I just set the minimum bid at a level that I would be happy with so the snipers don't really bother me.