As an avid member of eBay, and the occasional sniper, I must take issue with the way this method is described in this thread. First, the highest bid DOES always win an auction, no matter what time the bid was placed. Someone who carefully watches the clock on an auction and then times his bid to best another still has placed the highest bid, no? For those who complain about this "unfair" practice, resulting in losing a pair of earrings or other item, why did you not place your highest maximum bid initially and let the system proxy bid for you? Both eBay and Audiogon appear to use virtually identical systems, so why not place a bid, as recommended, for the MOST that you're willing to spend? Should a sniper come along and bid more, then you have very little room to call "foul" since that person was willing to spend more than you. If you REALLY want an item, why not bid $100,000? I'm pretty sure you'll get it... The whole point of the proxy bidding is to avoid problems with slow versus fast connections, since nothing is faster than the system to increase the current bid price.
To that last argument, some might say "But what about those nasty people who just bid and bid just to drive up the price?" To me, this argument appears specious, since I know of no one who has unlimited funds just to ruin other people's days. In fact, I believe that the overtime system utilized here (and I must confess that I have never used the A'gon auction system and am merely going on a logical extension of what was described in this thread previously) lends itself to a higher incidence of shill bidding which could result in unfair auctions. An "associate" of the seller can easily bump up the price in the last few minutes of the auction, especially if there is considerable interest in the item, and cause a new round of bidding which inflates the price. Again, I make no accusations, and have no idea if this takes place. I would like to hope that it does not, since the vast majority of people on this board appear both congenial and sincere.
I'm terribly sorry if this post has aggravated anyone. I don't post very often, quite rarely in fact, although I do enjoy reading the dialogues in these threads and I do see some names above which regularly contribute and whose opinion I respect.
To that last argument, some might say "But what about those nasty people who just bid and bid just to drive up the price?" To me, this argument appears specious, since I know of no one who has unlimited funds just to ruin other people's days. In fact, I believe that the overtime system utilized here (and I must confess that I have never used the A'gon auction system and am merely going on a logical extension of what was described in this thread previously) lends itself to a higher incidence of shill bidding which could result in unfair auctions. An "associate" of the seller can easily bump up the price in the last few minutes of the auction, especially if there is considerable interest in the item, and cause a new round of bidding which inflates the price. Again, I make no accusations, and have no idea if this takes place. I would like to hope that it does not, since the vast majority of people on this board appear both congenial and sincere.
I'm terribly sorry if this post has aggravated anyone. I don't post very often, quite rarely in fact, although I do enjoy reading the dialogues in these threads and I do see some names above which regularly contribute and whose opinion I respect.