I have just a small collection of Sansevieria. I've always liked them. My mother and Grannie grew them, but not like you guys! Jeez! I doubt that I will ever be spending that kinda dough for one, but I do want to learn their proper names and more about them. I have two very large pots of Mother-in-Laws Tongues that I have had for about 8 years. Started with a clump of four leaves I got from smeone - one pot has bloomed a few times. Really incredible to see them bloom. I have another Sans. that is variegated with yellows. Really nice plant. It was once a big pot too, but got damaged by a pet when I was gone a few days and is slowly recovering. I have a small variety that I have had for twelve years and it is still only about 3 inches tall. Forms a round rosette shaped clump of chubby leaves. I got some this past May from a guy who needed to thin out the plants in his greenhouse as he was emptying it out for the summer. I was having a PLANT SALE in my folks driveway and he stopped and offered the plants. Drove home and brought them back to me. Pretty cool. a good variety of not-too-common plants, and I got several small Sans. Now, I need help identifying them. Heck! Maybe they are all the same kind. Is there a chance that you guys can help me do that? I have one that forms a rosette, and is rather small. I have one that is about 6 inches tall, and the leaves form a long tulip shaped plant.The tips of some of the leaves curl a bit and remind me of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit flower. Really pretty. I will have to more closely examine the others tomorrow. I will look on the internet, too and check out eBay. I can take digital pics, if that will help. Hope you guys can help me ID them. Thanks ~ Annie

chemocurl - I have never heard of Bid Assistant. I will have to check it out. I just noticed it this weekend. It appeared as a link on my page on the items being watched. It wasn't until after I bought 2 items this weekend, that I went and looked at the form. I assumed it would only allow you to bid one amount for any/all of them...but it wasn't. It allowed you to put in a max amount for each watched item. Like I asked b4...I wonder if it might bid after the snipers. Also say something is going for $1.99 and you want to get it as cheap as possible. But you know it is worth $9.99. If you put that amount in and there is a bidding frenzy it will drive it up to your Max. I swear there are kids out there who do that just for fun to see what your Max Bid is. If you had waited till the last minute to bid, you might have got it cheaper. I really doubt if there are folks who bid them up...just for fun. They 'might' get stuck winning things if they did. I have used Max Bid in the past. The problem with that is unless you are around, someone can beat your Max Bid by 50 cents or a dollar. And you kick yourself because you would have paid that extra 50 cents or a dollar to win it. But who know what the winners max bid might have been. It might have been $5, $10, or $50 dollars above your max bid. One just never knows. I just put in the max I am willing to pay and let it ride...occasionally even upping it another time. 99.9 times out of a 100, it isn't anything I have to have and there will be another one come along b4 too long. I think I'm gonna go and try for a steal deal with bid assistant now. Here is a link that might be useful: I won today at $12 below my max bid-Woohoo!

nosoccermom, that's kind of a tough one. If the item is unique and you can't buy it elsewhere, you could try contacting the seller and asking for a Buy It Now price. (You're sure it's not that they are just relisting an identical item, right?) Hard to know how they will react but I don't see what it could hurt. I would write the request carefully so they can't really tell if you're accusing them of shill bidding or not; if they think you are going to report them, they'll probably just block you immediately and move on. How is the rest of their feedback? Sometimes you can look at the detailed feedback other buyers have left to figure out if the seller is above board, or not well behaved. If they react negatively (or if you find bad things in their feedback) and you decide it's a lost cause, then I'd probably contact eBay and report the practice. As far as I know eBay still does not look kindly on this practice at all. However, I don't think there is really a way to force the seller to act like he should (to make sure you can buy the item.)

In your settings you can choose to have your buying history private. If you do & you win an auction it will come up User ID kept private. Otherwise it will come up w/ the asterisk's. Ebay started using the asterisk's to protect members from scam 2nd chance offers, other against the rules contact & general privacy.