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I'm just wondering whether I should worry about whether or not ebay -- or a specific seller -- knows that one uses an auction sniper.
They typically can’t tell.
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they "watch" for snipers, but can they really know?
They only know if the bid was placed in the last few seconds, but they can’t know if you placed the bid yourself, or some service did.
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Can they even tell the difference between a snipe and a last minute bidder?
Typically not, but there is one indication that a sniping service was used. Since AS places multiple snipes via multiple servers, sometimes those snipes are so close together that eBay will record multiple bids with the same timestamp and for the same amount. That’s not suppose to happen, as eBay is suppose to prevent duplicate bids from the same person, but it does sometime (rarely) happen.
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and does it matter?
Apparently it does to some sellers. Best to avoid those that mention that they dislike snipers.
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If detected, would negative ebay feedback, or anything else, result?
They could decide not to sell the item to you, or not ship it to you, or try to figure out other ways to be pissy.
