It's not exactly clear to me what the OP is describing -- I assume he means his last-moment bid got either sniped or that an earlier bidder had a higher reserve bid than his, which of course happens in "real life" auctions too. All the bidders on the floor at a live auction may still be outbid by a reserve bid. I've won a few things at live auction houses this way.
However, if he was "sniped", that's a different story, and I feel for him if he's a relative newcomer to eBay. From my own experience I can say that no matter how early you bid, or how reasonable a bid you place on a sought-after item, if there's a sniper involved, you'll probably lose.
Personally speaking, it was sniping that put me off bidding on eBay, and particularly those instances where there were already serious bids on the table and the seller was obviously going to get good value for his item. The first time it happened to me years ago, I couldn't believe an actual human being could be entering a bid at T-0.5 seconds for exactly enough to win (considering there may have been other bidders with reserve bids).
Later of course I learned that there were sniping programmes out there that could out-manoeuvre any human being, and that knowledge more or less ended it for me where buying at auction on eBay was concerned.
I must say I was tempted on more than one occasion to place an early bid so outrageously high that I'd call the sniper's bluff, say $1,000 on something that should really go for $100. I never did, because I didn't have enough cash to throw away on such nonsense. I just stopped looking at auction items completely, particularly if they were items I knew to be of high interest. Now I almost exclusively focus on BIN items.
It's just my opinion, but I don't think sniping is ultimately good for buyers or sellers -- it may be great for a seller to get a slightly higher end price due to a sniper, but how many disgusted "legitimate" human bidders (perhaps like the OP) is the seller putting off, who won't come back? I might consider bidding on auction items if eBay could get rid of sniping programmes, or automatically cancel "sniped" bids -- but is that even possible?
By the way, I would love to have an explanation from someone who is techno-savvy on exactly how sniping apps/programmes work. For example, are they somehow able to "read" the reserve bids placed by earlier bidders? Does the human bidder behind the programme have to set a maximum bid beforehand? Or does the sniping programme just throw out an impossibly high bid at the very last nano-second, knowing it's unlikely to be challenged by anything on the table?
The OP's experience is also the reason, incidentally, that as a seller I rarely offer items at auction anymore. I find BIN with "Best Offer" is a much happier solution for both buyer and seller.
