I've won quite a few items on eBay using the NBS996 method and it works fine, just stick in your max bid within the last minute and if you get beaten, well the point about it being more than you'd have wanted to pay anyway is a good one.
The other point to mention is that you really don't need to get carried away bidding for an item. Unless it's a really rare item, there's usually another one along in a minute, or a day or a week or month or whatever. I remember bidding for a tacho not so long ago, cos mine had bust. Popped in a bid for £50 and got beaten, saw that there was another tacho auction ending 10 minutes later and won it for £23. So, if you have a bit of patience, don't sweat it and go for the next one that comes along.
Another thing that I've found is not a feature of eBay as such, more to do with human nature. We all tend to think in £5 increments, so when we place our Max. bid we'll tend to pop in £20, £25, £50 whatever. Most people do that. If your max is £50, pop in something like £51.50 and you'll be suprised to find yourself winning more.
I do all this in the last minute or so (sometimes the last few seconds). I guess the only advantage of sniping software is that you can be down the pub when the auction ends and let the software do your bidding instead of being hunched over the PC.
The only time I got ratty about losing was when I wanted a standard right hand exhaust for my ST. Watched the auction all week, it had zero bids. It stayed at zero bids until the 30 seconds when I put the first bid in at it's £10 start bid - I did this from work. With virtually zero interest in it until the last 30 seconds I was confident that my winning bid would stick and went to get a coffee, by the time I got back I had been sniped and someone had won the auction from under me for £10.50...DOH!
Jools
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