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Old 04-21-2010, 09:30 AM
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jeyurkon jeyurkon is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Central Michigan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil Nelson View Post
The price of this TV doubled in the final 60 seconds. Automated last-second bidding is so common that it's pretty pointless to watch "old fashioned" bids (or make one) before the last few seconds. It's not like you're going to sneak past everyone and score a $5000 item for $50 when nobody is watching. On eBay, the world is watching and robo-bidders never sleep.

Phil
On occasion I've done well when an item was placed in the wrong category making it less visible to those who would normally bid on it. Then the world isn't watching. That's pretty rare though.

IMHO robo bidding only works because of human nature. If we were to bid only the maximum amount that we were willing to spend and not increase it when we saw we were about to lose, then robo bidding wouldn't change anything. Robo bidding works because we don't have self control.

John
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