What is bid sniping?

Sniping is when, in a timed auction, a bidder waits until the last second to place a bid. You could have been watching the lot for the last few hours and then they swoop in and win it before you have the chance to react.

We don’t think this is fair practice and therefore have procedures in place to protect you from this.

Any sniping apps that are available to use with other online bidding sites are not compatible with our portals for this reason.

To prevent sniping, if a bid is placed near the closing time, the lot time will extend. 

The standard for this extension is any bid placed within the last 10 minutes of the defined time period will extend the time back up to 10 minutes, eg:

If there are 8 minutes remaining on the time and a bid is placed, the time will increase by 2 minutes to reset to 10 minutes
If there are 2 minutes remaining on the time and a bid is placed, the time will increase by 8 minutes to reset to 10 minutes

Auctioneers may choose to adjust this time period to be longer or shorter. 

Don’t forget, just like when you’re in an auction room, bidding online is a contractual commitment to buy and there is no option to retract your bid. 

This is to allow other bidders to have a fair chance to compete.