7 replies to this topic

[NickYerPesos]

hey guys. received an email from a penny auction in the states called beezid. gave them a try and thought they were shite so went back to an kldt favourite... MADBID.
according to madbid you can get items a ridiculously low prices.. by bidding on them with credits that cost money.
now last night I had a good night.. well marginally.
I got given an offer of 100% more bid by entering a code. which I did and thought id buy 500 credits for £50. so I had 1000 credits. I won an auction for an extra 1950 credits and payed £11.00 odd for them and a few more smaller credit packs I won for pennies.
now the long and short of it is this...
ive just paid £50 + £11 + £5 for essentially nothing so far. that £66.
I still had about 2400 credits by this point after winning that huge credit bundle.. but my eyes were literally drifting to the land of nod and I could do nothing about it. so in pops AUTOBIDDER... "daa da da daaah".. and I set that on itd merry way and fall asleep. wake up at 5am to find the auction stops at 2am anyway to wait for the next days suckers to arrive.
it doesnt say ive won anything and im down to 1000 credits.. :-(
bugger.. ive just spent loads of money on essentially nothing.
so waking up a while ago I think "ok ive got 1000 credits.. gotta see how im doing on that 2am suspended auction" cant see it anywhere.. then I notice the won auction button is lit up to review.l click it and its a treasure chestnwon by a complete stranger. why is it showing me this..
after scouting the website for a while.. turns out it was a website bug and I had infact won my auction at 1:14am.. nice.
so I have now won a pocket led projector, with movie player and converter, slideshower.. quite handy and something I will enjoy.. however I won the auction for £15.00 odd and £12.00 p&p.
so now ive spent £66 + £27...
THATS £93.00!!!!
the item is apparently worth £150.
so theres a little saving... and I still have 1100 credits left to try and win something else.. but wow... what a money drainer without realising eh??

has anyone else had any experience with these sorts of sites.. any good wins.. or huge blowouts.??

Edited by NickYerPesos, 15 March 2014 - 09:34 AM.

[aaamusements]

Always thought these things were a con. The usual caveat applies - "You don't get owt for nowt"!

[fuzion]

Total con.  I've never been to or used a site like that, but rest assured someone will be making lots of money from the poor people who think they are getting something cheap.

 

J

[killcrazy]

They're a total con, if they weren't then plenty of people would be making quite a nice living off them

 

 

Conveniently the final prices advertised never include the total amount spent on bids!

[NickYerPesos]

also won a remote control helicopter with my remaining bids.
yeh its funny if you think about it.. they advertise an 18,000 car was won for 1,500.
but each 1p increment was 8 credits per bid. each bid is worth 5p-10p per credit. so thats 150000 bids at 8 credits each. so thats a minimum of 1,200,000 credits and at a minimum of 5p per credit.. that £48,000 for that car. plus the 1500.
so that one person gets a great deal but loads of other people have missed out.

its not a con.. its as bad as gambling.
lots of losers but single winners.

[richy1976]

Was going to compare it to gambling myself after reading.

[aaamusements]

also won a remote control helicopter with my remaining bids.
yeh its funny if you think about it.. they advertise an 18,000 car was won for 1,500.
but each 1p increment was 8 credits per bid. each bid is worth 5p-10p per credit. so thats 150000 bids at 8 credits each. so thats a minimum of 1,200,000 credits and at a minimum of 5p per credit.. that £48,000 for that car. plus the 1500.
so that one person gets a great deal but loads of other people have missed out.

its not a con.. its as bad as gambling.
lots of losers but single winners.

 

It kind of is a con really because they misrepresent the total cost of the items...

 

Was going to compare it to gambling myself after reading.

 

Yes, indeed that comparison has been a number of times. I think the Gambling Commission may even have talked about an investigation - I can't remember for certain... but it's in the back of my mind somewhere...

[ritdav]

very clever how it works but somebody always seems to out bid .If you want something save up for it and buy it properly would be my advice.You could bid £200 on an ipad and end up with nothing so you have basically wasted £200. Much worse than gambling .Also open to abuse by the people running it .Who checks to see if they don't up the bids themselves.Bit like e bay when last minute bids come in.