24 Apr
2003
24 Apr
'03
8:40 a.m.
On Thu, 2003-04-24 at 11:58, James Rice wrote:
I can't always be around at the end so I use
esnipe. It costs a penny
per dollar of the final price on a winning bid, but if I want something
bad enough, it's worth it. I was told by a friend that was cheating.
Why? Because I pay a server to snipe for me? If I get snipe, I don't
really care, I must have not wanted it as bad as they did.
I have mixed feelings about sniping. I've lost a number of bids to
"snipers". The thing that bugs me about it is that for items I care
about, I don't have an opportunity to respond to the snipe. Most of the
bids I've lost due to sniping have been where I was the original bidder
and there were no other bidders until the snipe. I think this is unfair
to not only me, but the seller as well. For example I may have put in a
max bid on something for $30. An esnipe comes in for $31. Upon seeing
that I may have re-assed my bid and bid it to $50. But because esnipes
happen in the last few seconds, I can't respond and the seller
potentially looses additional funds for the item. But in the end, if I
wanted really badly, I would have bid more. So it's a tough call.
I'm also really getting tired of everyone bad
mouthing ebay. I work
50-60 hours a week, every week. I don't have time to hunt through junk
shops and salvage yards for bargains. I can use my time to make more
money and do my collecting on ebay. And let UPS deliver to my office.
I paid $342 for a Daystar Millennium last night because I want one to
finish out my Daystar clone collection. Is it worth $342.00? I don't
know but, I really don't care if it is or not, because I wanted it.
When I sell something, I usually use ebay. I've offered things in
private sales to people on mailing lists and get tired of getting
low-balled on offers. On ebay, it's a worldwide market and there is
always someone who wants almost everything. If I have to have a certain
price for something, I set a reserve. Free enterprise will set the
proper price for any item.
I don't have a problem with e-bay. Sometimes people get into a feeding
frenzy over an item which drives the price on an item way up. I look
for items on e-bay that I either think I will get a bit of a discount on
rather than finding it at a dealer or it's just not available
elsewhere. There are also sellers who think their items are worth more
than they really are, but as you said free enterprise will determine the
proper price.
--
TTFN - Guy