How do they do it??

Just been bidding on a Systemdek IIX on ebay as a cheap TT to try out my phono project. My max bid was £70, I was winning right upto the last minute, and I mean the last minute with £51. I refreshed and auction ended came up with winning bid of £72! Now how the hell did someone time that, with one bid, that would just beat my maximum?? Something very fishy

 

Depends on what you mean by last minute? With manual sniping (as it is called) you can quite easily place a bid in the last couple of seconds. However computer aided sniping can time it down to, well, not a lot. The limiting/deciding factor being the connection speed (latency) for computer sniping (note i wouldnt recommend this unless you know what you are doing as it often involves giving your ebay id and pwd to a 3rd party - which is a bad idea) and to some degree for a manual snipe.
Also its not about just beating your maximum by a little - their maximum bid remember may well have been more than £72.

 

Look up Auction sniper on google !

 

It must have been down to seconds. The guy whose won has 2 feedbacks but both are no longer registered and was a personal auction, hmmmmmm me thinks this TT might come up again. I'll have a look for sniper on the 'net.

 

i got a v festival ticket on sunday. manually sniped with 5 secs to go. put in a reasonable max bid which would leave him no time to respond. got a 'bargain' and a weekend away