penny auction sites

[ryan4blu]

hey, just wondering if anyone has had any good luck trying these penny auction sites. looks pretty hard to win something decent on them. i tried quibids a few weeks ago and i got s few lucky things. it cost $60 for 100 bids and i ended up winning a bid pack of 25 bids and a $25 gift card to applebees.

so basically it cost me $60 for a $25 gift card. oh well i tried it and i stopped when they were all gone.

just wondering if anyone here won anything good on any of the penny auction sites??

[My_Two_Cents]

Sorry, man. Live and learn.

[ryan4blu]

Originally Posted by Ricshoe

Sorry, man. Live and learn.

so you think they are all scams? if so why so many penny auction sites going on?

has anyone here won something good for very little bids?

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by ryan4blu

so you think they are all scams? if so why so many penny auction sites going on?

Well.... let's see.... Their business model is to sell 'bids' (winning a bid-pack isn't really winning at all) and you basically paid $60 for a $25 GC..... with that said, look at what they sell....

Say for instance they sell an iPad.... I don't know how much those things cost, but say they sell one for $100 If bids cost $0.25 each for instance, and 2,500 bids are made before the auction ends, they just made:

2,500 * $0.25 or $625 + $100 that it's sold for......

Apparently (I've never been on these sites) whenever someone bids, it adds time to the auction..... so they're taking advantage of the "Bid at the last second" people so it may seem like you're "SOOOOOO Close" to winning an item.... but the auction continues. My friend who checked it out said an auction he was watching was 3 minutes from the end, and didn't end for 2 days......

Like I said... they're making money by selling bids, and since 'bids' don't have any intrinsic value, they get 100% profit from them, and could run to the store and buy electronics etc. at full MSRP and it wouldn't matter because they aren't trying to make margins from the product, they're trying to entice people to keep clicking 'bid' and advertising the "crazy low" prices things are selling for, so people (Like what you did) will jump on the computer, and buy a bid-pack for $60 only to discover that it's nearly impossible to win any highly sought-after item.....

Even when they advertise on T.V. about selling a brand-new car for $1,000 or whatever it is..... if you think about the amount of bids that probably went on, they probably sold a $25,000 car, and made about $40,000 in bids.....

[My_Two_Cents]

And I wouldn't put it past these sites to have their own shill accounts set up to keep the bidding going to the point where they have made back the price of the item being sold for "most" auctions. They'll let the occasional iPad sell for $200, but those are certainly the exceptions.

[ryan4blu]

Originally Posted by Ricshoe

And I wouldn't put it past these sites to have their own shill accounts set up to keep the bidding going to the point where they have made back the price of the item being sold for "most" auctions. They'll let the occasional iPad sell for $200, but those are certainly the exceptions.

i have seen ipads go for $24 on these sites, but the catch is that for $24.00 on a penny auction that is 2400 bids and if the bids are .60 cents per bid like quibids site than that is $1440.00 they made for a $500 ipad. yes i know how it works, but still my real topic has not been touched yet


i am trying to find out if anyone has won anything good on any of these sites for a good price without having to buy alot of bids, maybe got lucky or something. just trying to see if it really works for some people or not.