I generally place once bid very late at my absolute maximum and don't bid again. I do this for the same reason as most - to keep it a secret that somebody else is interested in buying. You hope that your counter-bidder has placed a low proxy bid and is not around when the auction ends.

It's a fact that items with bids attract more bids, and items started at $0.99 usually end higher than ones started at, say, 90% of the average end price.

The snag is that new bidders are not aware of the practice and can get frustrated when they are constantly outbid on items. The official advice is to place a proxy bid at your absolute maximum.

There are some funny results of sniping though. Often a sniper will put in a very large bid to be sure of getting over another sniper's bid and occasionally you will get two people who do this and the high bidder will end up paying a lot. I have seen a $120 item go for over $500 due to this, and seen that the transaction went ahead!

Gareth