Bidding Sites
deans6571
Posts: 6,137 Forum Member
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Has anyone ever had any success with these bidding sites?
I came across www.swoggi.co.uk , whereby its free to sign up. Once you log in, you can buy 'bids' (there are various different sized packs available but I just bought the cheapest at £15 for 30 bids) and then you just basically bid on items you are interested in.
The items start at stupidly low prices and there is also a time limit set on the auction (I saw an Xbox One auction starting at just £20) and then you just place a bid on the item.
If you are the winning bidder when the countdown reaches zero, you win the item at the price it was currently at (each bid increases the timer by about 20 seconds and also increases the item price at around a penny). It sounds quite easy - I tried to bid and win a '100 bids pack' which started at around 25p, but wasn't successful!!
I was the winning bidder at several points in the auction (with less than 10 seconds remaining) however, it seemed that whenever the timer on the auction reached to less than 5 seconds, all these bids would come flying in, which would obviously knock me out the 'highest bidder' first place and in turn, would also extend the time on the auction to past the minute mark at which point, the whole process repeats itself (the timer starts counting down again and so you have to wait until near the end of the auction to bid in the hope that your bid is the last bidder when the timer hits zero)...!!!
Any one had any joy or experiences with these type of sites?
I came across www.swoggi.co.uk , whereby its free to sign up. Once you log in, you can buy 'bids' (there are various different sized packs available but I just bought the cheapest at £15 for 30 bids) and then you just basically bid on items you are interested in.
The items start at stupidly low prices and there is also a time limit set on the auction (I saw an Xbox One auction starting at just £20) and then you just place a bid on the item.
If you are the winning bidder when the countdown reaches zero, you win the item at the price it was currently at (each bid increases the timer by about 20 seconds and also increases the item price at around a penny). It sounds quite easy - I tried to bid and win a '100 bids pack' which started at around 25p, but wasn't successful!!
I was the winning bidder at several points in the auction (with less than 10 seconds remaining) however, it seemed that whenever the timer on the auction reached to less than 5 seconds, all these bids would come flying in, which would obviously knock me out the 'highest bidder' first place and in turn, would also extend the time on the auction to past the minute mark at which point, the whole process repeats itself (the timer starts counting down again and so you have to wait until near the end of the auction to bid in the hope that your bid is the last bidder when the timer hits zero)...!!!
Any one had any joy or experiences with these type of sites?
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Comments
You genuinely bid on the items with the bids you have bought.
And there is your "scam" bit. Ok, not a scam in the true sense of the word, but you've paid for bids, to get something there is almost no chance of getting.
And that's how the site wishes it to remain.
Remember, there's only ONE winner, but thousands of bidders! The only people "winning" is the company selling bids.
You spent £15 on 30 bids, did you get anything with those 30 bids?
....sadly no!
Just thought that £15 wouldn't been an awful lot to waste if I didn't win anything!
I guess like the other posters above have said - there is probably no chance of winning the items if there are truly thousands of bidders.....!
Surprising, the headquarters of this company are based in London:
Sophora Media Ltd
145 - 157 St John Street
London EC1V 4PY
United Kingdom
It's a blatant scam. The only way to get something for less than its market value is to steal it or use an employee/student discount
..yea, I guess, when you put it like that, you do indeed have zero chance of winning!
Glad I only lost £15 to test the site out then...!
i use one on ebay
Quite a number of Google hits also saying the site is scam, here is one of them:
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20140512072007AA6Au76
They are, though, pure concentrated consumerist evil. If you work out how much money they make on each individual item, it's staggering.
.....no more penny auctions for me!!!
....no more penny auctions for me then!!
I remember it being something like a brand new car was sold for £500 but they failed to mention that thousands of failed bids resulted in them making tons of money. The misleading part was people were bidding for things that didnt exist at the time of bidding. The company would put a ipad on, and it would sell for £50. The company would then go and buy an ipad for £200 and mail it to the winner. What they left out is that they probably made £500 in failed bids.
So basically one person won by getting a cheap item, the company made hundreds of pounds profit on every item and millions of people lost out.
Every bid you place you are basically giving money to the owners of the company for nothing.
I can't believe people still are duped by all the hype, administered by these 'penny auction' sites. As has been said, how do we know the items have been bought by anyone? This could be a ploy to part us from our hard earned. Most people love a bargain, and it is this which caused the invention of these sites. I hate losing money, more than I love a bargain, so I would say these sites are screaming 'scam'.
Does the amount you can bid, depend on how much you have in bidding credits? If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it definitely isn't a pig!