Henceforth, I shall use a sniping service

[Failure]

I freely admit to using auctionsniper.com on eBay.  It works really well and keeps prices down for me.

There is no love between bidders on eBay ;-)

[Failure]

@adolescent

Sort of.  The problem is very few people bid in your "correct" fashion.  A lot of people bid the minimum bid only.

An example.  Several(!) years ago I bought a VR headset off eBay; I bid "correctly" because I didn't know any better.  About 15 minutes before auction close, some guy starts bidding.  I refresh and the bid keeps going up and up and up -- same guy.  If he had just "won" his bid and stopped, and I came in during the last 5 seconds and outbid him, I would have gotten a price a good $60 less than I wound up with.

I snipe using my maximum value that I am willing to pay.  You would have to be an idiot to not realize that placing a bid with 5 seconds left, it's going to be your *only* bid.  If everyone snipes there is still only one winner.  The auction still works no matter when you bid.

[Failure]

@adolescent

I do not know why I am making an effort to defend sniping...frankly, the more people that bid incorrectly the better for me :-D

Very true, sniping doesn't always result in a cheaper price if you are dealing with a bidder who has bid what they really truly want to pay for an item.  But like TjLaZer said, bidders seem to get this "I've gotta win!" attitude when they are outbid.  Suddenly the item is worth more to them, and the price goes up.  Sniping gets around that, too.

So yes it doesn't work all the time, but on balance I would say it is mostly beneficial for me personally :-)