I was wondering why the bidders on an item are hidden?Is that so secret?
I was overbidded in the last 15 seconds FFS....So i wanne know who it was..

Good luck with finding out...
Ebay has been ramping up the privacy settings every year.  Shopping on ebay.co.uk is much different than on ebay.com too.  All bidder's info is hidden on the UK site (for UK based sales), where you can see a partial name and feedback total on the US site on each bidder.
A year or so back, you used to be able to see all the bidders and their feedback information for any auction.

I suppose these measures prevent the non-winning bidder from heckling the winning bidder.  ;)

Yeah..thats what i tought,against heckling..... :-/
Just wanted too see who he was...i was countdowning the last seconds...then suddenly it appeared but i had no more time too bid :'(

ALLSTARR wrote on 04.01.10 at 22:58:18:

Yeah..thats what i tought,against heckling..... :-/ Just wanted too see who he was...i was countdowning the last seconds...then suddenly it appeared but i had no more time too bid :'(

I doubt that he outbidded you manually in the last seconds, he probably put a high limit and set it to "click" in those last seconds if he's not the top bidder.

There are some automated tools to help you bid on ebay.  A tool I use to help is called ReloadEvery.  It's a firefox tool that refreshes the web page to a custom time, so you always have an up to date view.

For me, I love it when I bid at the last second, it gets the heart and blood pumping!  :)  Although sometimes my Internet does not go fast enough....    ::)

Well its kinda frustating...there were 4 bidders,after while there was only 2...so it was me against him.He falled off,and then suddenly a person stopped by and putted higher bid then me while i following the auction 2 or 3 days...Its not right... :-/
2 dogs fighting for a bone and the third goes away with it...

If you badly want it, bid on the item like you badly want it :).

If the item is 75 EUR and someone bids 100 EUR in the last hour then you might think: that's too much! If the item is 75 EUR and someone bids 100 EUR in the last 10 seconds you might think: darn I've been bid over! The latter won't happen if you bid 150 EUR in the last 10 seconds as well but then you just have to pay a premium price :) (and the item is probably worth that much as the other person went high, too).

I'm glad that the bidder is being protected by a scrambled name. Just a little bit extra privacy won't hurt :).

ALLSTARR wrote on 05.01.10 at 09:46:10:

Well its kinda frustating...there were 4 bidders,after while there was only 2...so it was me against him.He falled off,and then suddenly a person stopped by and putted higher bid then me while i following the auction 2 or 3 days...Its not right... :-/ 2 dogs fighting for a bone and the third goes away with it...

That's also unlikely, not impossible, but very very improbable. 

I bet that the third person watched the item from the start (or at least for quite a time), but decided to bid in the last seconds, that's a very common strategy, I've seen a lot of persons who just watch at biddings, they don't bid until the last second, if the price is not too high already. This way he has much more chances of getting the item at a good price.

Imagine that you bid on something, nobody else bids, so you're confident that no one else is interested. Then bang, in the last second your item is won by somebody else. Do you really think that "that someone" noticed the bid only in the lat seconds ? Come on... If he bids right after you bid, then you see that someone else is interested and you raise the price, he does the same and the price go up fast.

So its better too bid the last seconds....zzzz,but then you got too be at home too watch this all and be there...Or doing it by phone?
then perhaps its better too bid directly a very high price and hoping there are not much people bidding on it so the price stays low !!

ALLSTARR wrote on 05.01.10 at 11:31:27:

then perhaps its better too bid directly a very high price and hoping there are not much people bidding on it so the price stays low !!

Exactly. If you really want an item, that's the best way. Think the maximum you are willing to pay, bid that and wait for finish. If you are outbided, no problem, you aren't willing to give more anyway. If no one is interested, again - no problem, ebay will just bid minimum. win-win situation.

For me, it always has, and always will be watch, and then bid with ~2-3 seconds left.  No point in running up the price and showing more interest in an item than needed. (which would only cause others to bid higher and draw more attention) Automated programs or websites are no fun, I would rather snipe myself. :)

IMHO, there is no reason to know who is the winning bidder. When "game" is over, it is simply over, that is all. Nothing good you can do about your loss. If I knew the winner, I could only bore him with stupid questions he never reply, and this is not good.

If something goes wrong, there will ever be another chance

It's a dogfight for these items, especially the more rarer items.  There are a few good strategies mentioned in this thread. Like Thandor and rottentreats' post.   ;)

Thandor wrote on 05.01.10 at 10:12:53:

If you badly want it, bid on the item like you badly want it :). If the item is 75 EUR and someone bids 100 EUR in the last hour then you might think: that's too much! If the item is 75 EUR and someone bids 100 EUR in the last 10 seconds you might think: darn I've been bid over! The latter won't happen if you bid 150 EUR in the last 10 seconds as well but then you just have to pay a premium price :) (and the item is probably worth that much as the other person went high, too). I'm glad that the bidder is being protected by a scrambled name. Just a little bit extra privacy won't hurt :).

;)

I often had to do the same if I really wanted an item - make rather hilarious high terminal bids to make sure, within the last ~5 Seconds.

I've always put my cash to where my desire was - sometimes payed a high price but sometimes got lucky. That way I got the two large collections into my hands and quite a number of rare single cards.
(at that time the names weren't scrambled and I got quite a reputation - upto a point where alot of competitors stopped bidding just when they saw my name *g* , that actually saved me a bunch I guess)

In any way, I never had any regrets, even if a similar item got sold for like 1/6 the price a week later again. That's life.

:)
I check G on the bidders...but i guess you have all now ?
btw **G** im new here...And i got a HUGE 3DFX collection.....................................of games only :-/
They told me that every new person on the forum here gets a 3DFX card from you :o

FalconFly wrote on 07.01.10 at 14:51:54:

In any way, I never had any regrets, even if a similar item got sold for like 1/6 the price a week later again. That's life.

I bet you are referring to the 16MB Daytona  ;D

In my opinion, the time when you bought the big collections where the best and most interisting times with regard to collecting 3dfx. A lot of v5 6000's on ebay (and I dare say cheap too). 

omega_supreme wrote on 08.01.10 at 15:01:52:

In my opinion, the time when you bought the big collections where the best and most interisting times with regard to collecting 3dfx. A lot of v5 6000's on ebay (and I dare say cheap too).

Good times, good time.

Paid $880 for my first Mercury brick, $79 for a bare Q3D Raven PCI board and other insanely priced stuff but all good fun.

Nothing like the last few seconds of an auction and seeing the price rise by a few hundred bucks while bidding like mad.

You spend the most when you start collecting. You don't have anything and you have a lot of desire to get items, all items looks atractive (since you don't have them) and you are willing to pay high prices. Then, after you get the most common items - two things can happen :

1. You stop collecting (and only buy very cheap items, for trades, resell, change your actual items - maybe you have a bulk card - you paid for it 15 euro, you might find the same card boxed with only 10 euro, so you buy it, then you try to sell the bulk card).

or

2. You keep pumping even more money in rare items and protos and boxed/sealed cards.

But, in the end - you hit a limit, your house is flooded with cards - those can take a lot of space, especially when they are boxed. At that point - you either completly stop collecting or you just sell your collection (especially if you have now a family, kids, a lot of bills to pay, etc)