BidBud.com- The Anti-Sniper, friend or foe?

The Anti-Sniper, friend or foe?
By Tyler Jones

While most eBayers tend to support sniping, or at least tolerate it, there is a small vocal group opposed to it, for a variety of reasons that I find unsupportable. For the most part, these grievances are confined to the chat boards. Recently, however, a seller who shall remain nameless has begun to put anti-sniping material on the TOS part of his web auctions. Basically, he states that he will refuse to honor any "obvious" sniper bid. This particular seller has a very high feedback rating, so I can assume that he is an honorable person, although shortshighted. While talking about this on the chat boards, though, I have learned that this attitude and policy could have some dangerous repercussions, especially for eBay's bottom line.

I'll illustrate this with some examples. As you read these, you may be reminded of algebra class with word problems. This time around, though, it's more fun :-). In these examples, the seller who has the TOS against sniping is referred to as "Anti-Sniper.

Point	Discussion
Do you have your sniper decoder ring?	Despite the fact that most experienced eBayers can recognize a sniper when they see one, the truth is that it's very hard to precisely define exactly what a sniper is. The general definition of a sniper is a bidder who times his bid in such a way that he takes the lead and does not leave anybody else enough time to respond. But how much time is "enough"? Is it 10 seconds? 1 minute? 10 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours? 1 day? It could even be based on the previous bidder. "Once a person has been the lead bidder for more than 2 straight days, any bid greater than his is a sniper". This could be somebody's definition of a snipe, although it's not mine. For example, suppose you're one of these anti-snipers, and I bid $50.00 on one of your items with 9 minutes left. You define sniping as the last 10 minutes and refuse my bid. I, however, define sniping as the last 30 seconds and claim that I'm not a sniper. I complain to eBay. What do they do? Assuming that the TOS is valid, they would probably side with the anti-sniper and let his definition stand. However, it's my opinion that should several people start doing this, they would each have a very subjective opinion on what sniping is that could change from day to day and item to item.
de facto sniping	Suppose that you have a hard and fast definition of sniping that says "A snipe is ANY bid that comes in at the last minute. If you broadcast this (and you may wish to keep it a secret, but assume you make it public), I'll just bid at 1 minute, 1 second, and any bid that comes after mine is, by your own rules, a snipe that you must ignore. Therefore, I have won the auction for all intents and purposes, and have only to wait for the formal eBay clock to wind down. In effect, I have sniped this auction in fact although not in name. While you put on a brave and noble front, keeping those mean rotten snipers away, you have in effect accomplished nothing. You have simply gone from a 10 day auction to an auction that lasts 9 days, 23 hours and 59 minutes, and sniping is alive and well.
Honor thy bids and bidders	This is a two-in-one example, because the two relate, and it poses perhaps the most important question of all. The Anti-Sniper places an item for auction with an opening bid of $10.00. You see this an decide that you really want it, so you bid $50.00 as a margin of safety. You are the curernt leader at $10.00. Later, on I come along, as a mean evil sniper, and I really want it to. In order to make absolutely sure that I get it, I bid $100.00 with 4 seconds remaining. I take over the lead at $51.00. Anti-Sniper determines my bid to be a sniper bid and dishonors it. What happens next? Certainly, he considers you to be the winner, but does he charge you $10.00 or $50.00? If he charges you $10.00, then he's being an honorable seller, sticking to his principles. However, he's not very smart, because he could be potentially losing out on hundreds of dollars of revenue. If he chooses the second route, though, he is engaging in a practice informally called Surrogate Shill Bidding. I believe this term was coined by eBay User Assenav. To the best of my knowledge, this practice is not formally recognized by eBay, but it is almost as damaging as the real thing. He is using people's hatred of snipers against them, and profiting on it. As you will see from another example below, he is also cheating eBay. In this case, he could claim that the auction did not complete as normal (with the high bidder winning), and thus not pay any Final Value Fees. He would make more money off of that then he would lose by going down one increment, and thus cheats eBay as well as the legitimate winner.
No cover charge, I'm with the dee-jay	Taking a cue from the example above, let's assume that Anti-Sniper lists an item and it gets sniped. He refuses that bid and sells the item off-eBay to the Second Highest Bidder (SHB). Anti-Sniper claims that the deal went sour, and gets charged no Final Value Fees. If he has two identical items, he might even be able to insert the second item free, claiming that it's really just the first item. He has cheated eBay twice!
Doing it without protection	If Anti-Sniper refuses a sniper bid, and sells to another bidder, this is called an off-eBay transaction. eBay tends to frown on this, and of course, no feedback can be offered and none of eBays normal protections come into play. You, as the SHB, could pay him, then he could never send the item. eBay wil probably not intervene in this case, since you are not the legitimate high bidder for the item (by their rules, if not Anti-Sniper's). eBay would not recognize your claim to the item.
One little, two little, three little snipers	Problems can arise if the definition of "sniper" differ among many people involved in the same auction. If you bid on an item with 3 days remaining, then go on a 5 day trip, you could (with some accuracy) define every other bidder after you as a sniper, since you would not be able to respond. If many people have this situation on the same auction, you could easily end up with a dozen or more people all claiming to be the real winner.
Order in the courtroom, here comes the judge (and the lawsuits)	The existence of such a major disagreement in the TOS for eBay and the Anti-Sniper could cause major legal problems. Let's assume that I just sniped you on an item, and Anti-Sniper refuses my bid. Further assume that I'm a real snake-in-the-grass, an assumption that may not be completely un-false :-). In any case, I want to file a huge lawsuit to get some back. Performing a cold calculation, I decide that you don't have a lot of money, and I determine that even if I had a case against you, I could only manage a "win on principle", since you're too broke to make it worth my while. eBay, on the other hand, is making some nice profits, so I decide to sue them instead. After all, this happened on their site, under their rules, which name me the winner. This could get ugly, should such a sequence of events happen to the wrong people.
Yo, 'da boss wants his money, youse guys!	Suppose I sniped you for an item, and Anti-Sniper refuses my bid. Could he then force you to pay? Under eBay's rules, only the legitimate winner can be required to pay. However, under Anti-Sniper TOS, you ARE the legitimate winner, even though eBay says you are not. This is quite the conundrum. No doubt, a dishonest Anti-Sniper would say that the SHB is the official winner and therefore must pay. This could get confusing, and time-consuming trying to sort out.
Take my payment, please	Let's follow up on the fact that many people have different definitions of the term "sniper". Suppose you bid $100.00 on an item with 3 hours remaining, taking the lead at $10.50 from some poor chump who only bid $10.00, then I snipe you at $200.00 with 12 minutes remaining. This particular Anti-Sniper defines sniping as anything in the last 10 minutes, so I am clean. You, on the other hand, define the sniping window as 1 hour. You declare my bid as a Sniper bid and demand that instead of selling to me for $102.50, that the seller must sell to you at $10.50, you original lead bid before the sniper came along. With such a TOS, your arguments may carry some weight, since you would naturally claim that my bid was and "obvious" snipe (obvious to you, anyway).
Responde, sniper vous plait	Suppose that Anti-Sniper has a specific deadline by which he defines sniping (one minute). I am currently the lead bidder, and you outbid me at 1 minute, 1 second. I see this and respond by outbidding you. Unfortunately, my response bid comes in with 30 seconds. Is that bid a snipe? Some might say yes, but I would certainly not see it that way. I was the leader, and I was only responding to a bid. It's not my fault if the timing of his bid forced me to re-bid inside the "line of death". This brings up an interesting paradox. If you define sniping as anything in the last minute, then technically a bid at 1 minute 1 second is also a snipe bid, since that would leave no time to respond, since we can't respond in the final minute. By defining a hard sniping window, you are in effect creating a "soft sniping window" of perhaps 30 seconds before that which is also sniping, therefore it technically becomes part of the hard window. This in turn creats ANOTHER soft window 30 seconds before that, which then automatically becomes hard, creating yet another soft window...
The Lowball Olympics	Anti-Sniper lists an item opening for $1.00. I bid $1.00 A.S.A.P. During the next several days, several other bidders bid the price up to $500.00, but that $1.00 was my only bid. With 2 seconds left, I bid $600.00 and take the item for $550.00. eBay would easily recognize me as the winner, but I could claim that my final bid was invalid according to the seller's TOS. Therefore, I claim to be the winner according to eBay, but I demand that I should only pay $1.00 which was, after all, my only valid bid. I'll admit that this example is kind of weak, but it shows some of the ways that you could twist this TOS.
How many snipers could a woodchuck chuck...	If Anti-Sniper lists and item and 10 people place bids of varying amounts at various times in the last few minutes, could they all accuse each other of sniping? What would probably happen is that each would define all later bids as sniping, but not theirs.
Double-Dipping	Every once in a while when I win an auction, I can determine the last name of the seller and pay thru PayPal before making contact. It's never been a problem, alhtough I no longer do this. However, what if a sniper wins one of Anti-Snipers auctions and does this? Anti-Sniper will still refuse to honor the bid and sell to the SHB. Anti-Sniper will probably not refund the sniper's cash, so that Anti-Sniper has in effect been paid twice for the same item! Not a bad deal...
A slippery slope	Overall, I've painted a pretty doom-and-gloom picture, with auctions collapsing, lawsuits abounding and the whole of eBay self-destructing in a mass of confusion. I doubt that this will ever happen. However, the concept of sellers placing rules in their TOS that directly contradict eBay's established rules has the potential to do a fair amount of damage to eBay, both in client loyalty, public image and their profits.
Sniping? Fuggedaboutit!	Believe it or not, this rant is not about sniping. It's about the integrity of the eBay system. If more sellers begin to post TOS's that violate eBay's, we'll have a mass of confusion. Every seller, maybe even every auction, will their own rules, each incompatible with the others. I can't imagine eBay surviving for long under such conditions. Of course, sellers can control some things. They can determine the type of payment, the minimum bid and the shipping terms, for example. However, it is my belief that a Grand Unified Theory of Bidding is necessary for the long term survival and health of eBay. As buyers, we need to know that the same bidding rules will apply consistently across EVERY auction. As I understand it, any bid (and I mean any bid) counts as valid if it agrees with certain conditions. Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe these are... The bid is received by eBay inside the preset timeframe. All auctions on eBay begin and end at an exact time. Any bid that is placed during that time is valid. Of course, the seller can always end the auction early. The bid has been placed by an active registered eBay user. All this requires is that eBayers bid using the appropriate methods. There's a gray area if you give out your password, or somebody gets it accidentally, but I'm not sure what the rules are in those circumstances. The buyer has not previously been asked by the seller to refrain from bidding. Sometimes, sellers will ask buyers not to bid on their auctions, but they do so anyway. The buyer has feedback that is compatible with the seller's wishes. Sometimes, sellers will say in their TOS that buyers with feedback below a certain number may not bid (I"ve seen numbers from -2 to 3), but of course they bid anyway. There may be other conditions, but these are all I can think of right now. If, however, sellers can manipulate these rules and prohibit or restrict bids for reasons of their own, then chaos will result and nobody will know what's going on, least of all eBay.