Well, they "sniped." That is a slang expression that was coined to describe bidding in the last few seconds of an Ebay auction. Although it may seem unfair, it is legal. So if you are going to beat the snipers, you have to either outbid them or out-snipe them. It really doesn't matter when the bid is placed -- the HIGHEST bid wins. So, in order to outbid the snipers you enter a proxy bid that will be higher than their snipe. But you must be prepared to pay that much if you win. Only bid the highest amount that you are willing to pay for the item. Then, if somebody snipes higher, you will be comfortable stepping back and waiting for another one to show up on auction. The other alternative is to snipe the auction yourself. You can stay up and do it manually, by counting off the seconds and entering your bid personally. Or you can use sniping software and let it bid for you. There are a number of sniping programs available on the Internet. I personally recommend the following:

Vrane Automatic Auction Snipe Bidder  Free for single snipes or you can pay for a membership and set several snipes at a time.

Esnipe Automatic Auction Snipe Bidder  Low fee to purchase snipe credits and you can set multiple snipes at a time.