GRRRR F'ING EBAY!!!

[tammybear]

Why is it everytime I try to bid on an item that only has about 5 minutes left to go, my internet decides to crash down or takes an exceptionally slow time to bring up the web page!!! Thats twice that has happened and I am not pleased!! lol not really that angry, its just typical!!

bid 10 minutes before the end next time tb

If you want to leave it until the last minute you can use an automatic service like Auctionstealer to place the bid for you, and that way it won't matter if your connection goes down. The bid will be placed in the last seconds too.

really tamum? where do you get that from?

Sorry- it's here !

Here is another one

/link{http://www.esnipe.com\ensipe}

ok, that didnt work

www.esnipe.com

But....once you've decided what your maximum bid is, you can bid that early on via ebay, but only have to pay that much if someone else gets close - don't you? Otherwise you just pay 50p over the next bid down. Or have I got that wrong?

tamum, I do wonder what auctionstealer or whatever would do if 2 people put in bids for the same second?

Yes, that's right Janh, but the price is much more likely to go high, and you are more likely to get outbid, if you put in your maximum bid early. You get people who nibble away, bidding against you, pushing the price higher and higher. Obviously that's a great thing for sellers, but as a bidder it makes no sense at all. I only rarely use automated bidding, only if it's something I really want, or the auction ends in the middle of the night, but I have long since learnt never to bid early. In the unlikely event that two people put in identical automatic bids then whichever one got there a fraction of a millisecond earlier would get it, I guess! It is a possibility worth bearing in mind, and making sure you don't put in an astronomical maximum just in case.

Incidentally, the 50p bit depends on the price, the increments are far more than that when the price is high.

Not that I ever use it of course.....

oo i never knew about that. My dp goes mad if i put early bids in, but he's good at getting them last minute, im rubbish and forget. That is a total pain when your pc crashes, tammybear, mine keeps saying my username or password is invlalid. Damn modern technology

lol tamum and harrassedmum

i tend to leave it to the last few minutes if possible as i am cheap and cant afford a lot lol Will have to have a look at that tamum and jenkel, thanks for the links

Opposite argument to tamum...
My watch list is very long so I usually put in early bids, but at the minimum, just so I can find what I'm bidding on/truly intersted in when I go back to MyEbay. Bidding early seems to 'flush out' your potential rivals, too. I try where possible to only go for auctions with no or few other bidders.

Did you know that sellers get a tally of how many people are 'watching' your auction? It's quite good, really!

You definitely do have to bid at the last possible moment to avoid paying too much. If you bid early on, it alerts other bidders that you're interested and they'll try to wait even later than you, to outbid you in the last nanosecond! It's happened to me a few times but now I've got wise to it and since we've had broadband it's got a bit easier. I agree it's very frustrating when your computer is too slow processing your bid right at the end and you run out of time.

Hmm, not sure that would always work that well zebra. Anyone (like me) who bids late would not be "flushed out" by someone bidding early, I would just bid more at the last moment. I think it may depend on what type of things you are going for- I am quite often after higher priced, hard to find items that may never come up again. I'm also clearly more selective with my watch list than you