Anyone do the Penny Auction sites?

[Jeff_Green]

I have heard a number of people talking about the deals that can be had on penny auction sites like beezid.com or skoreit.com.

I was wondering if anyone has messed around with them or has made any good purchases through them?

I looked at beezid.com and followed a couple auctions, but got tired of watching the timer keep increasing. Of course after I looked at other sites I realized that is how they all do it. It seems pretty straight forward, you buy so many bids and then bid and hope you win. Plus side, you can make some good purchases. Down side? If you don't win, you have still payed something for the bidding.

I then went to skoreit.com. DON"T DO IT! I was checking it out and realized that to follow the auctions you have to sign up. I signed up and read the first page thoroughly. Entered my information... name, addy, email, username, password, etc. Second page that came up was the shipping information and card information. It was laid out just like the first page with the difference being the information requests. Didn't think anything about entering the credit card info because it is usually just the companies way of ensuring they get paid for what you purchase.

What I didn't catch was what was written in light blue font... $159 charge to sign up. It didn't even send me a verification email with purchase info on it. It didn't send me a registration email. Didn't send me ANYTHING. Now I am jumping through hoops to get this thing cancelled. They say you have to fill out paperwork and mail it in in order to get a refund, but I don't have any order number info or anything.

Lesson learned. I'll get my money back eventually... one way or another!

I do like the idea of the penny auction which is why I am posting it here looking for experiences and posting mine.

... Anyone? Bueller?

[PhotoEA]

I just signed-up on quibid a few days ago and it seems pretty good. You can check out the auctions before buying any bids. You do have to buy a $48 worth of bids to start with but I think I read that they will buy them back from you if you don't use them.
Picked up a 16GB Sandisk Ultra II SDHC card last night for $0.04. Counting the shipping and the cost of the bid it ended up costing $4.63. The bidding on the big ticket items goes on forever and you have to make sure you don't let yourself get carried away bidding.

[srwatters]

These site are basically legalized gambling. You are betting that nobody else will value a product and you can sneak in a get it cheap. Problem is the better sites have many people doing the same thing.

I was approached by someone who wanted me to modify a template so they could put up their own penny auction site. After researching how they work I believe playing the lotto offers better odds. Of course YMMV...

BTW, I turned down the job

[picman]

I hope your card is the real deal - they are counterfeited like crazy.

eBay Guides - FAKE SanDisk Ultra Compact Flash Cards Exposed

But for $4.63 if it works still a good deal.

[Jeff_Green]

But would it be worth it to pay $60 in bids and $30-$50 for the winning bid on a 32G iPad? $110 for an iPad. So you lose the first auction and win the next one? $110 plus another $60 = $180. Or you lose two and win third? $240. Still ahead. You'd have to go through approx. 9 auctions just to make it back to the cost of the iPad. I like the odds, Scott!

[PhotoEA]

Hopefully it's the real thing... If it's a fake I'll be trying out their bid buy back policy.
I'll let you know when I get it.

[srwatters]

That is if they keep putting up the item you want to bid on AND you are lucky enough to capture one. For every one person who gets one, there are many that fail and give up. That's what the operators are betting on. They have already won though as the business plan is based on the bids you buy. The items are paid for before a bid is even placed. Trust me Jeff, I've done the research. You are better off in Vegas...

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I've heard about them and I know some of them offer "gift" cards of major retailers and some are even Visa or Mastercard "debit" type cards that people have picked up for less than 1/2 price so for a big ticket item I would grab several of these cards and then just buy the item using the cards.

Yeah there are a whole bunch of fake storage cards on the market, some are just rebranded actual cards while some are just totally empty cases with the name stuck on.

Many of the "off" brand cards are actually cards whose test batch didn't meet the standards of the mnftg and they are sold as slower speed or lower storage cards of the off brand name-so if you opened up the card you would see the same guts as the big name card-see the big boys just won't dump a several thousand batch run of cards into the dump they just will not brand them with their name and let the second tier makers sell them with their name and whatever standards the cards meet. (this stuff is so automated people are not really in the loop of making them at all pretty much).

[janikphoto]

I agree that it's basically like Vegas... and a few people actually win in Vegas. Most come home with a hangover and an empty wallet.

[Jeff_Green]

Originally Posted by srwatters

That is if they keep putting up the item you want to bid on AND you are lucky enough to capture one. For every one person who gets one, there are many that fail and give up. That's what the operators are betting on. They have already won though as the business plan is based on the bids you buy. The items are paid for before a bid is even placed. Trust me Jeff, I've done the research. You are better off in Vegas...

Oh, I believe you did the research, but the odds have to be much better. As you said, the company will get their money, no question. The only question is how many bidders are there? With sites like this, they aren't popular like ebay yet so the number of bidders is going to be very small.

A 16G iPad just sold for $63.23. There were 426 bids placed. At .60C a bid, that is $255.60. If you had 42 bidders, that is $6.08 per person. I'd take the odds for that! BUT chances are, there are not that many bidders, maybe only 10-15 at this stage of development. With 15 bidders, it's only $17.04 a person (if all bid equally). I would take that risk in a heartbeat, especially since your odds of winning just went up exponentially.

You really consider that Vegas odds??

[ST77]

I have looked at them for some guitars but I tend to go with the age old saying "if it sounds to good to be true...."

[srwatters]

Go for it Jeff. I hope you are successful, but I still believe you would be better off investing your time and money just ordering one from the manufacturer. But I don't play the lotto either, so take it with a heavy grain of salt...

[Jeff_Green]

Originally Posted by srwatters

Go for it Jeff. I hope you are successful, but I still believe you would be better off investing your time and money just ordering one from the manufacturer. But I don't play the lotto either, so take it with a heavy grain of salt...

I've paid good money for two dell computers... I'm used to playing the lotto... unfortunately I lost those bets.