hey, i've got one of those. i always thought that it was a KO. it's real?

There may be knock offs but I've never seen them. There's plenty of Convoy and Megs out there.

Yup! Ghost Starscream is a chase PVC from Takara's ACT V wave.

EXTREMELY HARD TO FIND! Up there with Silver Alloy Convoy I'd say and the Scorponok Chase/Bonus figure.

Hear hear! eBay need to take a lesson from Yahoo and set it up so that any bid in the closing seconds of the auction automatically extend the deadline by a couple of minutes.

Then again, if we really want to talk about the problems with eBay then there are more pressing issues over sniping...

Yeah ... like friggin over-changing big time on listing/seller rates ...

*cough* Paypal the unregulated faux-escrow-bank *cough*

Hi there. I was doing a web search and happened to stumble onto your blog. Interestingly enough, I just happen to be the fellow who won that auction for the ghost Starscream PVC. Sorry for upsetting you so much, but I don't feel like your namecalling is justified. (Of course, you probably thought that on a public forum that's available to millions of people, how could the person you're insulting possibly ever see it?)

I'm a little perplexed by your animosity towards people who use sniping software. If you see something on eBay that you want that badly, why not place a higher bid? I can't use sniping software if your maximum bid is higher than mine, after all.

I'd also like to mention that I've been actively searching for a ghost Starscream PVC figure for almost four years now (doing multiple keyword searches several times a week with various combinations of "SCF" and "ghost" and "ACT-1" and "clear" and "Starscream" and "translucent"). I don't mean to suggest that I'm somehow more worthy than you to have won the auction, but I feel like I did expend considerable effort towards obtaining it.

On the bright side, you still have a collection approaching nearly 2000 other pieces of "plastic crack," right?

In any event, I just wanted to offer a different perspective on things. Feel free to embrace or disregard anything I've written here.

Zob

Zobovor:

I have, and always will have, animosity for those who use sniping software. I completely understand that I can put a maximum bid in and so forth but that does not change my animosity towards the software.

It is the same animosity I have for those who use auction software to manipulate key words and embed other invisible crap in the HTML so that when you do a search for say SCF you also get crap results for other items because the data is being manipulated.

I am a proponent of non-manipulation (of anything) and in my opinion, auction software that manipulates search results is no better than sniping software which can manipulate involvement. It is all manipulation in much the same vein as spammers using remote automated spambots to flood blogs and websites. The activity is very much the same.

Obviously it doesn't matter to eBay. They make just as much money off any anything if sniping is used or not. eBay doesn't particularly care about customer service all that much either so it really is likely to never change.

I appreciate your commenting here.

While I will always despise sniping software, I typically have written these posts immediately after it has been used so there's a touch of immediate and harsh animosity right there.

Reminding me of these old posts helps to remind me that they're just fucking toys and for that I thank you.

Nala,

I do sympathize with your position. My early eBay experiences were frequently horrible and frustrating precisely because of the automated software to which you so strongly object. There's nothing that takes the wind out of your sails quite like being the high bidder on an auction for three days running, only to have somebody swoop in at T-minus 10 seconds and outbid you by twenty-five cents. (And while I still advise placing your maximum bid, I admit there's always a little bit of wiggle room. If you're willing to pay $20.00 for an item, you probably also would have been willing to pay, say, $20.25.)

My introduction to sniping software improved my eBay experience considerably. Rather than becoming angry and frustrated that I was constantly losing auctions (and being outbid by paltry amounts), I actually started winning the auctions for the toys I wanted to own. It was a sufficiently satisfying outcome, and I stopped complaining that eBay was so unfair, because I was now using the same tool that other people had been using to upset me so much.

I'm not expecting to change your outlook, of course, but I did want to explain where I'm coming from. I don't use sniping software because I want to piss people off; I just want to win the auctions I'm interested in.

Zob

The whole sniping software use has become quite the topic of conversation over on this post.

I just wanted to see readers' opinions and it has become quite all over the place.