Bid bots on eBay ?

[Electro Detective]

Yeah, basically you can sat the max you would like to let it bid for you. That items has 7 days on it, most won't bother bidding until that last couple hours, then there is always the ones that get in last minute to take it. Once in a great while I get a deal on something. But most of the time, I am not the winner.

I'm very good at getting second place which is annoying because it means I got the value right but some nutter was happy to pay over the odds.

No shortage of nutters    on Ebay, bidding beyond reason  $$$ = 

sometimes an unscrupulous seller may use an alias account/s (cough...) or 'friends'  trying to get the end price pumped up (Bidders War) 

or boozed up p0rn surfers spotting a shiny tool bargain, fired up in casino mode, determined to 'win' this time around 


I put in my bid for what an item is worth to me, and check Ebay every few days for progress, and if a similar item is newly listed in case I lose or get outbid early by someone very keen   

Better things to do to get the blood flowing that sit around playing sniper games    

and last minute win  or  lose     time wasting 

[CNe7532294]

I'm pretty sure there are bots just not the one the original poster is describing. Its mainly advertising bots and data collection. We see this with our notification email. Ebay used to be great without this many years ago if you were a buyer. If you're a seller this is a godsend. For buyer side of things, I take the extra steps and just use a webpage screenshot extension/addon so I only view the listing once. This helps avoid the bots "detecting popularity" of the listing. I also do not save my searches and clear my browser of any cookies or whatever (tracking). I use google then use the "cache" option to view a listing again if I need to. I also clear the cookies and history for that as well. As for sniping I just do it myself. At the very last possible second (literally 1-2 seconds left). Just be sure to have a good internet connection if you don't use a sniping service.

[Muttley Snickers]

Something that I have only just encountered on Ebay are these deceitful and misleading daily deal listings, the items are displayed with a low starting price and appear to be available via the normal bidding and auction process but this is in fact not the case and further digging and a click on the "Show Details" icon reveals that the entire thing is just a fucking bullshit click bait listing where a "buy it now for this amount and bids will be removed" banner is displayed. This garbage is a complete waste of peoples time and needs to stop.

One of his many bullshit listings below and don't forget to check out his other bullshit listings, whilst about it do yourself a favour by saving this moronic seller for future avoidance.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LeCroy-LT374M-waverunner-500-MHz-Digital-Oscilloscope-3/183131194162?

[imidis]

Wow, that's nuts.

[Muttley Snickers]

Wow, that's nuts.

Yep, I noticed another one of his, her or its oscilloscope listings yesterday but it didn't seem quite right and then it showed up again this morning, most of these listings are stating free postage with the seller based in Sydney yet the feedback page indicates that this plonker is somewhere in the US.

[Brumby]

I saw it earlier today and when I went to check something again a few minutes later, it was gone.  It would have disappeared sometime in the last 2 hours.

[grumpydoc]

Sigh, 2nd placed bidder again 

[wraper]

I'm not seing that listing now. Was it reported and removed?

Probably, I reported it, likely among others.

[Harb]

Its all pretty easy really......if it sounds to good to be true it most likely is........
There are no free lunches, and with Ebay you will pay market price, and thats it unless you happen to get lucky and buy a non working item that actually works on arrival, but most of the time its the other way round......an item sold as working doesn't.....

[Galenbo]

Doesn't need to be a "bid bot"

Ebay's normal proxy bidding will do the same.

Ebay's "proxy bidding" system is an AI bot that receives your wallet size, and produces an outcome to produce maximum profit for the bot, while staying on the edge so 70% of the people still "believe" it is genuine.

[wraper]

Doesn't need to be a "bid bot"

Ebay's normal proxy bidding will do the same.

Ebay's "proxy bidding" system is an AI bot that receives your wallet size, and produces an outcome to produce maximum profit for the bot, while staying on the edge so 70% of the people still "believe" it is genuine.

[imidis]

Found another

https://www.ebay.ca/itm/LECROY-WaveRunner-204MXi-4-Channel-2-GHz-10-GSs-Oscilloscope-Calibrated/123026456062?hash=item1ca4f2bdfe:g:HLMAAOSww1harUmg

[wraper]

It actually not just crap practice. When you enter your details to send the "message" to buy, you are already doing this off ebay website.

[imidis]

Yeah, it's sketchy. I don't know how these people manage to stay on ebay with those practices.

[Muttley Snickers]

I suspect there is some funny business going on, that listing posted above by imidis was the original one that caught my attention but now from a different seller, also the same is that the seller has many thousands of other various items on offer, yesterday it was over 1100 bicycles all with different backgrounds in the pictures indicating that the images belonged to other perhaps genuine listings.

[Harb]

This is the exact same scam that was on Ebay last weekend......... A few of us reported it and it was taken down over the next few hours........they are even using the same items !! its a typical one where they are using an image as the link to a buy now deal,
If you have a look you will notice all the "Deals" are the same price, and you can only do business buy using the buy now in the description....its done by stealing someones ID, usually a big Ebay player to get "credentials".......the images are stolen from the net , Ebay itself or captured from YouTube video's

[Muttley Snickers]

Another listing below, it now appears that someone is possibly hacking other peoples accounts and keeping the Ebay enforcement staff busy for a change, they normally do very little from my experience. I might give Ebay a big bypass until all this bullshit stuff is properly sorted out, innocent sellers through no fault of their own could be permanently affected by these arseholes. 

Another bullshit listing, the seller could be genuine and legitimate for all we know.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/LECROY-WaveRunner-204MXi-4-Channel-2-GHz-10-GSs-Oscilloscope-Calibrated/282888582196?

[kaz911]

the scammers have found a good source of eBay username/passwords to "high" value accounts. I have reported two today - one was taken down right away - the other is still online.

Always same pictures - same text more or less. But now they are hiding the "image based" text you have to click to view.

[Refrigerator]

Wow, that's nuts.

Yep, I noticed another one of his, her or its oscilloscope listings yesterday but it didn't seem quite right and then it showed up again this morning, most of these listings are stating free postage with the seller based in Sydney yet the feedback page indicates that this plonker is somewhere in the US.

Those damn yankees, amirite?