just another auction (verkman)

[steve B]

Originally Posted by peterb69

I'm sorry, but could somebody explain snipe bidding & shill bidding to me?

Thanks

Snipe bidding is typical on ebay where there's a set ending time. Bid as close to the end as possible to prevent someone else from bidding against your bid.
It sometimes works to keep the price paid minimal, and more often just helps win. The drawback of course is that if you really want an item and your bid isn't big enough you have no time to bid higher.(Unless like I've done you place one reasonable bid at say 7 seconds and another less sane bid at 2 seconds. I've done that manually, but only a couple times)
The rules allow this, and it's legal.

Shill bidding is where a bidder, either from the auction house or sometimes a friend of a seller or the seller themselves using a different ID bid on an item with no intent to win but merely to drive the price up. It's not legal in most places. if an auctioneer knows someone is doing it, they should bar the person from that auction at the least. It's easily confused with proxy bidding up to the level of a hidden reserve.
Good auctions will usually expose the reserve after the auction if it's not met. I've seen a live auction expose the reserve and reopen the bidding if the reserve was very close to the high bid.
(Car bid to 7250, reserve announced as 7500- bidding reopened when a bidder yelled "yes 7500" - sold for 8250 or something like that)

Steve B