eBay tightening rules

[mario]

I write this after I spent almost 24 hours until I made the service function again, after ebay tightened things as never before. It took quite some work and skill to make it work again. Operating logic now deployed on Gixen servers (to avoid captchas) is very complex.

So far, to the best of my knowledge, no other service fixed the problem. I got contacted by two smaller competitors asking for help / advice (I did help them somewhat), and from what I can see all the other large services are still having the issue.

It's hard to be jubilant about it - as I am actually very worried that this may be the last time I managed to fix the problem. The next time it may be the end of all sniping services, including Gixen.

[blargg]

Just when I finally find a service I'm comfortable trying. I take it Gixen can't force the CAPTCHA before the auction ends so that it can pass it through to the Gixen user to solve, so that when it comes time to bid eBay won't give a CAPTCHA.

[mario]

blargg, it's really difficult to pass captcha, as eBay intentionally implemented it in such a way to prevent that.

As I said, I fixed the problem in quite an interesting way, and since then I have only seen two captchas in the past 24 hours, out of tens of thousands of snipes submitted. Gixen is as reliable as ever again. However, I am worried about the pattern of ebay's changes. I do not know what awaits us in the future.

[fishrman1234]

Looks like it might have stopped working again.

[Gixen]

[Cupid]

fishrman1234,

If it is not working for you please could you report that in the Support area, and provide some examples/explanation of the problem.
_________________
Mark

[dan]

[Cupid]

Ebay target what they consider might be sources of hacking attacks... sniping services get caught in the cross fire of that.

It is not Ebays' intention to close down sniping services, however they show little regard that the measures they take may indeed cause such services to become not viable to continue operating.

To elaborate on the technical details of how Ebay make things more difficult, is complex, and different every time Ebay make such changes, so it isn't possible to predict where issues will arise next. To do so, in great detail, could also help those trying to circumvent Ebay security, causing an even faster escalation in the measures that Ebay are taking... and so it is not in the interests of the sniping services to reveal too much of that detail.
_________________
Mark

[fallerist]

[Cupid]

I think they would see a reduction in the amount of traffic, then a lower number of sales being achieved by the sellers on Ebay, and thus subsequently a drop in the fees collected.

Like you, I would be far less interested in buying from Ebay at all if sniping were made impossible, much of my buying would shift elsewhere there are many other sites that cater for my interests these days, very little of my buying is at 'Buy It Now' prices, and that would be all that was left for them from my perspective.

I think there are still enough people at Ebay that know this, and thus there is an advantage to them looking again if they do ever, unintentionally, make things impossible for Gixen to operate... But there can be no guarantees in this.
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Mark