BidBuddy Overview

BidBuddy is a great tool that you can use to win auctions.

We understand that you cannot always be in front of your computer, watching auctions on which you would like to bid. The BidBuddy can be told to place bids for you when you cannot be there yourself. It will place bids for you on the auction that you like at the price that you set and it will bid as many times as you want.

To set up your BidBuddy, click on an auction you would like to win. On the right side, you will see the "Add a BidBuddy" box. This is where you tell the BidBuddy how you would like it to bid.

To set the amount range you have to specify the from $ amount at which you want BidBuddy to start bidding and the to $ amount at which the BidBuddy will stop bidding. You can also specify the maximum number of bids that you want your BidBuddy to use.

The BidBuddy will place bids for your specified price range randomly when there is between 10 and 3 seconds left on the auction.

If your from $ amount is not reached before the auction ends, your BidBuddy will not be triggered. Your BidBuddy's reserved bids will be returned to your bid balance.

You can cancel your BidBuddy at any time.

Example

For example, let's say you set up your BidBuddy to bid on a Nintendo Wii auction from $50 to $55, placing a maximum of 10 bids. We will reserve 10 bids from your bid balance for the BidBuddy, to make sure it has the bids when it needs to bid. Your BidBuddy will then silently sit and wait for the price of the Nintendo Wii to get into its target range.

No one sees your BidBuddy - he is your stealth weapon. When someone else bids up the price to $50, your BidBuddy notices. However, he is clever and does not place the bid right away. In order to maximize your chance of winning, he will wait until the auction time almost runs out before placing your bid. Once the time left on the auction gets down to 10 seconds, the BidBuddy will decide when to place the bid. He will always bid before the 3 second mark, but to keep your opponents on their toes, he will do it at a random time. Of course, if your opponent is watching, he may decide to bid the price up higher. Your BidBuddy will continue to outbid him until either BidBuddy wins the auction for you, it runs out of bids, or the price reaches its maximum price.

There is an exception to the rule if two different people set up a BidBuddy for the same price range. When the price ranges overlap and the price of the auction reaches the place where they overlap, the BidBuddies will duel immediately. To read about the details, please see "Overlapping BidBuddies".

The Bidbuddy must be created before there are 10 seconds left on a given auction. The system picks a time between 3 and 10 seconds to run bid buddies. If you add one with 5 seconds left, it may not fire, because for this run of BidBuddies, the time for processing may have been at 7 seconds.

To be sure that BidBuddies fire, please make sure that they are set up before the 10 second mark on the auction. If you understand the concept and want to take part, buy some bids and set your BidBuddy right now.