I was asked to look into one of the many penny bid auction sites. What I found went with the saying "If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.". Everybody gets so excited to get a good deal but if you don't read the fine print of some of these sites you will end up feeling like you were scammed!
I started with the Quibids auction site and didn't notice anything really alarming so I started with my good old google search for Quibid reviews. It's never good in any rating to have a 2 out of 5 stars! When I started reading all the reviews many people thought it was a scam. Upon further digging and research I found that in fact the Quibid sites much like the other sites are technically legit you just have to read the fine print and it's much like gambling! So in theory you could get a $1000 item for $500 BUT here is where the sticky, scammy parts come into play.
Say you want to get an Apple Ipad that is retailed at $1000 so you hop on the penny auction and notice one that is only at about $1. So you figured you'll get a better price then retail if you go for the penny auction. First when you sign up you HAVE to buy a bid package say $40 worth of bids. Then when you find the item you want to buy every time you want to bid the price goes up a penny BUT in the tiny fine print that penny bid just cost you 25 cents plus the time adds back on. If you sit and watch some of the penny auctions going on (without having to sign up) you'll see that every time the auction price goes up a penny, the time goes back to 15 seconds! So lets say you end up winning your item you wanted (it happens but rarely, like I said its like gambling). When you win you have to pay the ending price say it ends at $500 BUT you also have to pay for how many bids you made on that item...if you bid 100 times then it would of cost you 25 cents times the 100 bids which would be $25. Now if you get a retail item normally priced at $1000 for $525 that is a pretty good deal. BUT say you didn't win the item. You still have to pay the $25 it took to get those 100 bids!
I'll stick to Ebay since I know that if I want to bid 1000 times on an item at least I'm not paying for the bidding. I also know that the auction will have an end time. Whereas the penny auctions keep adding time every time someone bids for an almost never ending auction! If you feel like gambling your money on the slim chance you'll get your item then make sure you still read all the fine print so you don't feel like you've been scammed!
