Sniping occurs when a bid is about to end. Some



yahoo rushes in and bids a little higher than the

highest bid as the clock runs out of time ? winning

the bid. Sniping is against the rules at eBay, but it

doesn't slow the snipers down! In most cases, even

if you report it, the sniper will get away with it, and

you will have lost the item that you wanted to win

so badly. Unfortunately, in order to avoid losing the

items you want to snipers at eBay, you have to

take on the sniper mentality. You also need to

snipe in a way that will not violate eBay's rules.

Snipping can be done in one of two ways. The first

way is the safest, but not necessarily the easiest.

Simply keep up with the item you are bidding on.

Make a note of the date and time that the auction

will end, and make sure that you are in front of your

computer and logged into the auction well before that

specific time. The objective is to either bid higher than

the highest bid during the last few seconds ? which is

what snipers do - or to simply make sure that you are

not outbid by a sniper.

Remember that sniping is against the rules, so you

should log in about thirty or forty five minutes before

the bidding ends, and get your bid up until it is the

highest bid. At that point, all you need to do is to

keep an eye out to make sure that nobody else

raises the bid. If you've been logged in for a while,

this cannot be considered sniping.

Using this method, you must be aware of automatic

bidders. It is very hard to bid against people who use

bidding software. That software has been designed for

the purpose of snipping, and your chances of

outbidding the software manually are very slim ?

which leads us to the second method of snipping

? Snipping services.

Snipping services are very easy to find online, and

they are relatively inexpensive. You can also

purchase your own snipping software. If you want to

become a sniper, purchasing your own software is

usually the best way to go if you bid on a lot of items.

You just set up the software, tell it which auction to

watch and what the highest price you are willing to

bid is, and let it do the work - just remember that it

is against the rules, and while eBay seldom enforces

this rule, you will be running the risk of getting

banned from eBay.

Sniping is bad if someone does it to you, but if you

use it yourself to win bids, it can be a wonderful thing.

On the other hand, it may not be very ethical.

Outbidding someone is one thing, sniping is

something altogether different!