[osc]

The idea of sniping is that you won't arouse the interest of other buyers who might get excited and outbid you. When I was lazy I would bid my maximum and lose 90% of the auctions I wanted. Now I bid very late or put in a nominal bid up-front.

There's nothing really wrong about sniping though. It's how the game has been played since 1996 when I got an account.

+1 - Sniping was the standard back in the days and still is.

If you think about it, if I were to bid on an item 2-3 days prior to the ending, another buyer has the time to incremental bid and eventually win (I know it's a little tedious to do this, but it does happen). Also, sniping benefits the buyers as it doesn't necessarily cause inflation prior to the auction ending.