I'd love everyone's thoughts. Here's what happened.

[JustinD]

Originally Posted by Dpeck100

Many people who own cards and consign them using sniping software to purchase cards. It is only natural for them to use sniping software to "re buy" them if they must.

Just imagine an auction with 60 seconds to go is at $57. Your snipe is all set to go off at $335. You really don't want to pay that much but will if you must. With 15 seconds to go the item bumps a little to $87. Bamm the final hammer is $318 and your the winner. You look at the bids and see that the under bidder looks fishy and then there is a gap from $151 to $315 and then your final bid. You just got shilled and not for a few bucks but for $167.

The first expensive card I purchased when I was back in the hobby this happened to me. Not because of shenanigans on the sellers part but a member on CU who wanted to stick it to me. They did and bragged about it on another message board and I got hip to how this happens. In fairness my bid wasn't a snipe but it didn't matter it was in there when his snipe triggered and he got me for $500. You live and you learn that all that matters is what you bid because if anyone else bids that high that is where the price is going.

I could see this possibility in a auction that a seller has an absolute bottom they are not willing to go to and are using a snipe or bid as hidden reserve. However, not all auctions end with a buyer using a nuclear snipe, likely not many.

A consigner using this would purchase many of his cards back or get numerous NPB's. I won't say this is incredibly uncommon because there are many cards that come back to eBay after what is likely a non payment. I don't think this is any regularity on sub 1000 dollar cards. It would have a huge failure rate.

Shilling is far more common in the weeks and days prior to the end as it is so easy to string bid to find a top for someone's bid and withdraw if you accidentally go over. A bid can not be withdrawn without seller permission less than 12 hours from the end per eBay rules.

As for the CU experience, that seems crappy but a rude one-off by a jerk. Was this a possible situation that you exposed you were going all in on card in a post before the end? He had to know you were throwing the kitchen sink at it or he would have just bought it from under you on accident.