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We get sent many questions, so the following is a list of the responces we gave.
Questions
1. does this work for UK ebay customers using GBP’s?
2. is this an automated auction tool? It only says it snipes but doesn’t explain whether it is manually or automated.
3. How close are your snipes to the end of the auction?
4. What is sniping?
5. But eBay is using proxy bidding, and all I have to do is to submit my maximum bid to eBay. What’s the point of sniping then?
6. How do I sign up?
7. Is it safe to just give away my eBay credentials?
8. What happens if I mistype my password while logging in?
9. What kind of guarantee do you offer you will timely submit my bid?
10. Can I change my bid after I’ve entered it in Last Minute Bid?
11. If I enter my maximum bid in Last Minute Bid, will I have to pay that amount if I win?
12. Do I need to be logged into the app in order for it to place my bid on eBay?
13. I changed my eBay password and now I can’t find any of my scheduled snipes on Last Minute Bid. What happened?
14. The bid has ended but the app still says the snipe has remaining time.
15. I lost my bid, but my snipe would have one if it was placed, last minute bid does not work.
Responses
1. Does this work for UK ebay customers using GBP’s?
The app works globally, where ever your account is registered. All final bids are placed in your local currency. Bid amounts are always in the currency in which the auction was listed. Thus, if the current bid in the auction shows as GBP 1.50, then entering a bid of 3.00 in Last Minute Bid would mean GBP 3.00.
2. Is this an automated auction tool? It only says it snipes but doesn’t explain whether it is manually or automated.
The system is fully automated. All bids are placed on our server. You can completely forget about a bid once placed. Our servers will do the rest!
3. How close are your snipes to the end of the auction?
Your bid is placed 6 seconds or less before the end.
4. What is sniping?
Sniping is submitting your bid to eBay just a few seconds before an auction ends. This way other bidders have no time to raise their maximum bid. Last Minute Bid is a service that conducts automatic bidding for you.
5. But eBay is using proxy bidding, and all I have to do is to submit my maximum bid to eBay. What’s the point of sniping then?
Even though it is not rational, human nature is such that people often give as their maximum bid the amount with which they would like to win, NOT the maximum amount they are willing to pay.
Further, people start to appreciate goods more when they notice someone else is also interested in them. And finally, emotions spike during auctions, and bids can go unreasonably high. Sniping avoids all this – it is RATIONAL to use sniping whenever possible.
6. How do I sign up?
No sign-up is necessary; just use your eBay username and password to login.
7. Is it safe to just give away my eBay credentials?
Yes. Last Minute Bid is using SSL both to transmit your password from your browser, and to authenticate it with eBay. Furthermore, your eBay password is not kept for long after auction ends – after your bids are submitted to eBay, your password is deleted within 48 hours to minimize the risk of it being compromised in the future.
8.What happens if I mistype my password while logging in?
You will not be able to log in, as authentication is done using eBay.
9. What kind of guarantee do you offer you will timely submit my bid?
None. A whole range of issues can happen that we cannot influence: network outages, eBay might make software updates that can make the sniping software incompatible, etc. Use at your own risk of losing or missing an auction. No sniping service or software can give you 100% guarantee, only eBay can.
10. Can I change my bid after I’ve entered it in Last Minute Bid?
Yes, just tab the item from the homepage, and enter the new amount.
11. If I enter my maximum bid in Last Minute Bid, will I have to pay that amount if I win?
Not necessarily. All Last Minute Bid does is enter your bid on eBay just before the auction closes, and then eBay’s proxy bidding system takes over. The winning bid amount will be the second-highest bid plus up to one increment, which could be much less than your maximum bid. Thus, you should always enter your maximum bid, just as you would if you entered it manually directly on eBay.
12. Do I need to be logged into the app in order for it to place my bid on eBay?
No. In fact, that is the point of using last minute bid: you can enter your bid and then forget about it and the app will enter it at the scheduled time for you.
13. I changed my eBay password and now I can’t find any of my scheduled snipes on Last Minute Bid. What happened?
The snipes were effectively cancelled when you changed your eBay password. This is by design. Note that unlike other sniping services, Last Minute Bid does not store eBay passwords longer than necessary to execute snipes: it only stores them for 48 hours past the latest scheduled snipe. Every snipe is saved as (item_id, username, password, bid) in the database; thus, changing your password cuts the database links to your scheduled snipes, effectively cancelling them.
14. The bid has ended but the app still says the snipe has remaining time.
The auction has ended early. This happens when sellers either cancel the listing or sell to the current high bidder at current price. Unfortunately at the moment we can not do anything about sellers ending an auction early.
15. I lost my bid, but my snipe would have one if it was placed, last minute bid does not work.
When you place a bid, eBay bids on your behalf an amount just high enough to beat the high bidder’s maximum bid. The bid increment is the amount by which the current high bid is raised each time someone places a higher bid.
Here are the standard bid increments:
| Current Price | Bid Increment |
| £0.01 – £1.00 | £0.05 |
| £1.01 – £5.00 | £0.20 |
| £5.01 – £15.00 | £0.50 |
| £15.01 – £60.00 | £1.00 |
| £60.01 – £150.00 | £2.00 |
| £150.01 – £300.00 | £5.00 |
| £300.01 – £600.00 | £10.00 |
| £600.01 – £1,500.00 | £20.00 |
| £1,500.01 – £3,000.00 | £50.00 |
| £3,000.01 and up | £100.00 |
Note: A bidder may be outbid by less than a full increment. This would happen if the winning bidder’s maximum bid beats the second highest maximum by an amount less than the full increment. Here’s an example:
You’re the first bidder and you place a maximum bid of £20.00. The bidding system will automatically bid on your behalf up to £20.00 against other bidders. When a second bidder places a maximum bid of £9.00, your bid will automatically be raised to £9.50. When a third bidder bids £20.01, this bidder becomes the high bidder because your maximum bid is only £20.00.
It might seem that the third bidder should be required to bid in 50-pence increments, which would be £20.50. But not in this case, because the third bidder needs only to exceed the next allowed bid amount of £10.00 (£9.50 plus £0.50). Since £20.01 is more than £10.00, the third bidder satisfies the bid requirement. Experienced bidders often use this technique of bidding a few pennies over the bid increment.
A bid increment will go higher than the standard increment in two situations:To meet the reserve amountTo beat a competing bidder’s high bidIf you were bidding against another bidder’s maximum bid, your bid had to meet the other bidder’s maximum bid to become the current high bidder on the item.
Sometimes the item page will show that there are 2 bids, yet there is only one bidder. This happens when a member places more then one bid to increase their maximum bid amount. For example, if you are the first bidder on an item and you place a second bid to increase your maximum bid amount, the item page would show the current high bid at the opening bid amount, but would show that two bids have been placed on this item.