Everyone has a chance to put their bid in before the auction ends. If someone wants to put their bid in with 6 hours left... fine. If another person wants to put their final bid in with 6 seconds left... fine.

Who cares if you use a piece of software to do it either. Some people use software to upload their auctions for sale. Is that wrong? No, it's more efficient. Some people allow software to place their bid for them too. I don't see what's the big deal. Heck, I had to spell check this message four different times before I finally posted it.

It's all the crying about sniping that I don't understand!

Here's an idea that no one has ever suggested...

How 'bout eBay only allows you to bid ONCE on an item. No bids or activity is shown whatsoever. When the auction ends, eBay processes and shows all of the bids/bidders at that time. And the highest bid gets it.

I hate it when I get out outbid against someone with zero feedback and I wonder if it's a shill. This would solve that problem too.

Here's a perfect example... I bid on this auction and got 2nd place on it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320174602765

The next day after the auction was over, the seller offer me a "2nd chance offer" on it. What???? On the same tickets??? How does that work? I don't even respond to the guy. Then he posts another auction for what appears might be the exact same seats. Pretty obvious to me that he was trying to drive up the price with another account. Hard to prove since he didn't put the exact seat numbers up in the auction. Real shady tho' if you ask me.