How have encountered the following situation? You like an item currently auctioned on ebay. The price was perfect and the seller has a 100 percent feedback score. You place your bid and wait patiently for the auction to end when suddenly with less than 1 minute left, someone place a slighter higher bid than you and won the auction. How frustrating!



What is ebay bid sniping?

If you are like me, after a few such incidents, you started to wonder if it is just bad luck or something else sinister.

Well, I thought you should know there is something going on ebay known as bid sniping. Bid sniping is when someone uses automated software or services to watch auctions and bid a slighter higher price at the very last moment before an auction ends.

Bid Sniping is actually against ebay rules but in my opinion it doesn't slow the bid snipers down. Ebay doesn't strictly enforce this rule or that it is difficult to enforce bid sniping. Be aware though you can get banned from ebay if they caught you.

So how do we beat ebay bid snipers?

There are two ways, both controversial. You may not agree with it but that's ok. You are entitled to your own opinions.

Bid Snipping Services

I have only used this only a couple of times. You can find many websites offering bid snipping services. They are usually inexpensive and is worth it if you don't have the time to sit in front of the computer watching the auction end. Now here's the twist.

Don't use your regular ebay account. Open another ebay account. This way, even if you get caught, ebay will only ban your new account. However, do note I have heard from people on some forums that ebay will ban all accounts under you. I am not sure if this is true since so far it has not happen to me

Contact the Seller

The second way to beat ebay bid snipers is to contact the seller directly and arrange to do the transaction outside of ebay.

Ebay does not encourage it and before you attempt to do this, you should consider a couple of points. Firstly, I only do this with sellers with good feedback (99 percent and higher) and have more than 500 feedback. Secondly, use good old common sense, don't use this method for expensive items. For me, it's too risky. I only use this method for item less than $100.

Remember the above two methods have worked for me but maybe it will not work for you or you do not agree with it. I leave it up to you to decide but I sure beat those pesky ebay bid snipers.