On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 18:36:38 GMT, Lloyd E. Sponenburgh wrote:

I don't understand any of this. Any auction, including EBay, allows the
seller to establish a minimum price below which he/she will not relinquish
the item. Even a "no minimum" auction establishes the minimum price by
inference. Anyone auctioning anything is automatically establishing that
they're willing to accept the highest bid - regardless of how low - so long
as it is greater than their minimum required. You CAN'T cheat the seller.
He's already stated that he's willing to accept YOUR "right price".

If you use sniping to keep the seller from what he'd get if everyone had
an equal chance to bid on the item, you're getting the item for less
than you would have paid otherwise. The seller, therefore, is getting
less than he would have otherwise.

People who are sniping are doing it so they can outbid the guy with the
top bid, at the last minute, so nobody else can do the same thing to
them that they're doing to others. Like I said before, obviously those
who use it are OK with that. I know it's going to happen, but I'm not
going to let a claim that it's not done for exactly that reason go
unchallenged.