Ronnie Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 You must have seen the adverts where people get a new car for £400 and ipads for £40 So I had a look at the site. Oh, it's all flash and exciting and you watch the auctions and bids and see things going very cheap alright. So I studied it closely - it took a while but then I saw it's a total 'legal' scam and rip off. here's how it works and why it looks so good. A blue ray player comes up for sale for £0.00. Someone bids for it and it goes up to £0.01p You only have a set time to bid - a time counter counts down to zero seconds then the auction is over and the highest bidder wins. Sounds great so far! Well of course everyone is bidding while the price is very low - so the price soon shoots up to £30 Then it is sold for £30. A bargain you think. £30 for a £100 blueray player - and of course, it is. But - and here is the big BUT - you have to buy bids. You can't just bid money for it like Ebay You have to buy batches of bids for money. Something like 50 bids for a tenner. So........... you fall for it and buy 50 bids (cost to you now £10) You see the blueray player and bid while it's low (oh and most items cost you 3 or 5 bids a go and more) Someone outbids you the timer is falling to zero, you bid again and again and again - someone always outbids you until the price gets to around £30 then it slows down. You bid again as the timer gets to zero, you see your name as the last bid - the auction finishes but somewhere along the line someone manged to outbid you in the final millisecond. So you dont get the item. But, you have used nearly all your bids up and paid a tenner for those bids - so has everyone else who was bidding and only one person gets the item at £30 The other thousand of you that were bidding have used a tenners worth of bids trying to get it. It's only guesswork here but if a thousand are bidding for the same item and all use up their £10's worth of bids madbid.com have scooped £10,000 for a £100 blueray player - they have sold it for £30 true enough but raked in a fortune You have paid a tenner and got ###### all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Grumpy Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I had a "special offer" deal a couple of years back with them where I got X free bids which I used and realised then what a F***ing rip off it was. I stll get emails on odd occasions asking why I haven't bought some more bids. Cheeky bastards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepper Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 easy money for the people running the site, just sit back and watch it roll in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobra Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 (edited) If that is how it work what happens if you were to put your 1st bid down as say £50 for a £100 item. As it sounds to me like the more of a Cheapskate someone is the more it will cost them. just had a look on the site and I'd like to know who sells the items on this site is it ppl like me & you OR is it Madbid that sell all the items I'm asking as I just seen a HTC Desire HD Sim Free go for £1.89 this is a £400+ phone and I'd be fu***t if I'd let it go for less than £150 let alone £1.89 And have a look at this one is this legal http://uk.madbid.com/show/794308--400-Cash/ Edited March 19, 2011 by cobra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamer Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 My Father always said to me, "if something sounds to good to be true, it usually is" probably the best advice I have heard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronnie Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 I think you have missed the point cobra - and it is easy to do. And it's the word 'bid' that causes the confusion. You have no say in how much you bid - each new bid makes the price go up 1p The item starts at 0p with 20 seconds left on the auction. If you were the only person to bid you would get it for 1p (and that's why everyone bids) You can't see and are not told how many people are watching or trying to bid Each time someone bids the timer is reset to 20 seconds. But it's not a bid really, it's a paid ticket to allow you to participate in the auction. Which auction do you know of where you have to pay to raise your hand and you can't see any other bidder. It's a sort of Dutch auction where you have to pay to bid I suppose the concept is brilliant - some clever dicky thought of it and will be very rich by now Imagine you being the owner and every item you auction you recieve thousands of £sssss for a £100 item Go to madbid and watch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobra Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I have just read up on all this @ http://pennyauctionscam.org/ The more people that know about a pennyauction site the cra**er that site is have a look at this less known one http://www.bidrivals.com/uk/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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