The highest bid always wins!

Actually the lowest, high bid that always wins.

If you bid $25 and someone has a snipe set at $45 it will win the auction for them at $25.50 and it will appear you just got beat. Not so.

Bid as high as you are willing to go, (with minutes to go) and if you lose, let the other "sucker" win the item. Chances are it will come around again. Almost all the bidding takes place in the last minute.

Paid sniping software will time the bid to the last few seconds, free sniping bids in the last 15 seconds. That's to give an advantage to the paying snipers.

Ken's theory of bidding an outrageous sum, works in theory. I had the same idea, until Archie mentioned, "what if two people do this"? The someone is going to pay $100 for something that's not worth $100 and be pretty unhappy. It will work, but beware. If two people use the same method, one is going to pay a bundle!

Last of all, sniping is part of eBay. I lose plenty of auctions by 50c and one was 1c because someone had an earlier bid entered. That's life. Don't let it bug you. I bid as much as I was willing to pay, and if someone wants to pay more, best of luck to them, I hope they enjoy the chip as much as I would have.

The apperance that you are losing by pennies, is just that. The other person could have bid $10 more, but... The lowest of the winning high bids, always wins.

It's a buyers market.