We’ve all seen the commercials of how people claim that they bought the latest iPad for $32.04 or how they bought a brand new Mustang for $750; wonder if it is a scam? Is it too good to be true? Are Websites like Quibids.com and Beezid.com going to steal your money? YES AND NO! Here’s Why:
Yes the sites are legit, and yes they really do auction off real items, but I bet you’re wondering how they sell them for so cheap. On these penny auction sites you have to pay per bid. Each bid costs between 40 and 90 cents, and bids raise the price of the item one penny. Sure you could bid on an item that only costs $.25, but it might cost you $.50 cents to do so. Here’s some math to put this concept into perspective for you.
If a Brand new mustang is sold for $750, then that means there were 75,000 bids on that item. Take the 75,000 bids and multiply that by the $.50 it costs per bid, and you end up with $37,000 made on that item. If you raise the bid price up to $.90 then the auction site makes up to $67,500 on that item.
The auctioneers don’t care how much the highest bidder pays for the item, because they just made all of their money back by charging people to bid. You could lose hundreds of dollars from getting caught up in the bidding war too! If you keep bidding, then you are just spending money on an item that you most likely are not actually going to get.
Heres where they start to scam you. The time left on an item appears to be 10 seconds, so you bid frantically! It turns out that once you bid, the time left jumps back up to 30 seconds. It’s true, after every bid, the timer resets. This could keep the bidding going indefinitely! If they make people feel like the auction is about to end and that they can win then people are more likely to bid. The site tricks you into bidding.
In conclusion, these sites are legit, yet the only person who is left with any kind of deal at all is the person who wins. The only way you could get a real deal on penny auction sites is if you are the last bidder, you bid only once, and you win, but that is highly improbable. These sites are in essence a scam, because they make people pay to bid for items they probably won’t win. Instead of making one person pay for the full price of an item, they make a large amount of people pay small portions of the price of the item. A scam is a scam, and if you want to stay away, don’t even bother with penny auction websites.
Leave a Reply