Don't you just hate it when someone snipes you on eBay and you only have a few seconds to react.
I was really looking forward to buying these brand new Discovision copies of Dracula and Frankenstein, movies that I would have loved to have but didn't win. I thought I put down a sufficient bid of $21.50 on each but the Dracula disc went for almost twice that. I don't know if I'll ever find another copy of these movies brand new. They are hard to find in even used condition.
This person won all four brand new Discovision discs that the seller had listed. Not even Blaine from BlamLD could win one of the items.
Here were the auctions:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270852224100
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220892642329
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MCA-Discovision-Bride-Frankenstein-Sealed-Videodisc-Never-Played-/270852225247?pt=US_Laserdisc&hash=item3f100cf8df
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MCA-Discovision-Incredible-Shrinking-Man-Sealed-Videodisc-Never-Played-/220892649835?pt=US_Laserdisc&hash=item336e3a596b
Oh well, at least I'll have the money saved up next another one comes around.

Good day randomtvandmovie,

Sorry to read about you loosing to a ''Hammer sniper'' Not good

I have had a few of these over the years however, in most cases I won, due to myself having a higher threshold of reserved funds, but when watching the count down I almost broke into a sweet

On one occasion when bidding for INDEPENDANCE DAY DTS I watched the countdown and then the second I won I CRIED OUT YES! and smiled.

I genuinely hope another batch comes along for yourself.

Sincere Regards

Oh man I am sorry. I have had that happen to me so many times. I think I've got it then at the last couple seconds...gone. I was watching those too just to see what they went for. I was tempted to bid but with money being tight right now, I just couldn't justify buying something I already had just to have a sealed copy. I do have a couple sealed Discovision titles and would never open them.

You have apparently lost to a deep pocket bidder. When someone is willing to commit maximum resources to win ... there is nothing than can be done.

Most experienced eBay bidders submit their bids in the closing seconds of the auctions. These bidders were more than likely interested in the items from the very beginning of the auction ... they just submit their bids before the close. All the time before the auction close is totally meaningless ... serious bidders wont' show their cards till the end.

I've lost many auctions this way ... am I getting sniped Not really IMHO ... the other bidders were willing to pay more.

My experience is that if you are patient & persistent ... you can acquire the items you want. Just keep plugin away and never quit. The longer it takes to acquire an item ... the sweeter the taste of victory.

Hello condorsat,

I cannot beat what you wrote about being persistant with the chosen Items LD's that you are wanting in your collection.

Like you wrote the sweeter the taste of victory.

That's exactly how I felt when I won a bid.

Has anyone experienced bidding and automatically gotten it because no one else bid? I got a few LDs that way and buy it now is better but I hate the snipping like everyone else does. It makes it less fun and more frustrating to use ebay.

Not to be labelled the jerk here, but that's how I do about 90% of my purchases on Ebay. I'll bid within the last 10 seconds of a lot, to try to avoid getting outbid.

Yet, it doesn't always work because my max bid might not be more than the last bidder's bid, and I don't have enough time to enter a higher bid.

Even then when I do get the highest bid in the last 10 seconds, I can get sniped! It's all part of the game on Ebay.

I will sometimes just drop a bid on an item well outside of the ending time if it's something I'd like, but don't really care too much if I get outbid. But those are few and far between.

I've resorted to sniping as well, although I do it manually and not through some program.

I had it down to placing my bids with 5 seconds left and still getting sniped at the last second. Now I've really gotten good at timing it and can usually place a bid in the final second so that the sniping programs have no chance to outbid me. With this method you only get 1 shot, so I'll put in the most I'm comfortable paying and either I'll lose to a previous high bid or win with some amount less than what I bid. I realize it's not the most friendly method but I've lost auctions for rare items that I can't even imagine will come up for sale again. If you can't beat 'em.....

I just bid whatever I want to pay. If somebody is willing to pay more than I am, it doesn't matter if he places his bid in the last second or the first. Likewise if I'm willing to pay more than he is.

Buy It Now prices are generally quite a bit higher than open auctions. So I prefer open auctions ... even though they are less common. There are currently over 44,000 LD(s) that are listed on eBay ... only 6486 are open auctions ... roughly 14%

Snipping is just part of the "pay to play" price you pay for open auctions IMHO.

Thanks guys for the support. I would have waited until the end but I had to do other things. I'm a busy person. Next time I see a sealed Discovision laserdisc of that rarity, at least I'll know the price bracket.

You could try using a bidding service ... the one I use charges 25 cents (USD) per winning bid. I've used a service for many years and am well pleased with the results ... you also get the added advantage of taking the emotion out of the auction and not getting caught up in a bidding war ... paying more than you want.

You never know the same item may sell for considerably less in next auction ... that's happened to me many times. One rare LD I bought sold for 10 times less ... when it listed again a year after I bought mine.

Just keep wotchind. You'll eventually find one again at a price you can afford. Avoid the " I gotta have it" syndrome that causes you to bid a ridiculous price.

The BIN stuff can sometimes give you a good deal, but it requires regular watching. I got LDs for $5 that way that at auction would have been $20.

Even bidding manually at the last second, is no guarantee to bump out a sniping program or another last second bidder.

I remember selling something on e-bay a few years ago. There were a few bidders and 2 bidders both had bids come in at the last second. On the bidding page both their bids were clocked in at the exact same time (they both showed 1 second to the ending time) yet one bidder was showed as first and the other one second. When I asked e-bay about that one (as I was quite curious too) one bidder would have been still ahead of the other, and it counts fractions of the very last second.

So if 2 bids come in at the very last second, fractions of the very last second are timed and do count.

eBay could be an even more unfair mess.

I used to bid from eBay Japan (now dead) and France on US auctions on eBay.com a few years ago. At that time loading the eBay.com page took too long, using the local eBay proxies were faster.

However, I realized that eBay France and eBay US system clocks were off by as much as 10 seconds.

I would win a US auction from eBay France (even getting to the "You've won!" page with the "This item has ended"), waiting for the confirmation Email that would never come. And reloading the page would show that someone else put a bid several seconds after the official end time of the auction.

I complained several times to eBay, they would never admit their servers were out of sync.

Julien

I have been sniped many, MANY times. It is as annoying as hell, but it is also sadly a fact of life.

@ ucfmatt...what you are doing, to me, does not really count as 'sniping' in the accepted meaning of the term. All you're doing is just waiting until the last minute to get your bid in, and in doing it manually you are no different from any other honest eBay user.

It's the people with deliberately designed sniper programs running that annoy me. These are the "spoilt brat, must have it NOW!!!" types that can seriously suck all the fun out of collecting anything. These are the types that don't care that they are spoiling the idea of a fair auction, just because they want what they want an no one else will get it...even if it means resorting to an illegal sniper program, an item that is surely beyond the (agreed to) terms and conditions of a site like eBay. I wonder if they are even aware that they are little more than selfish children?

Can you tell that I've lost a few...and I am not a happy bunny about it?

i must admit you can count me into the sniper family to

i have always wondered, why don't they extend the time of the auction when there is a bid in the last seconds ?
lets say someone snipes in the last seconds, wouldn't it be great if others then got another minute to respond... the auction will go on and on, right until the moment nobody wants to go higher. This is a much more fair way of bidding, and items would sell for the correct prices then, no more chance to get outbid. Because right now you can be outbid, and even don't have the change to put a higher bid.

This is how Yahoo! Auctions used to work and how Yahoo! Auctions Japan currently works.

TLK

Yahoo Auctions was not a successful enterprise.

I think I used Yahoo Auctions USA about twice.

It was worthwhile though. Got a Kenwood RF Demodulator from a seller on there for a mere $30. New in box, no less!!!

I ended up selling the same unit on Ebay a few years later once I upgraded my receiver to a Pioneer Elite VSX-27TX. Sold on the Bay of E for $190!

Now, Yahoo Japan Auctions, is a different story. Got quite a few Laserdiscs off of there and a CLD-R7G for great prices.