Full FeedPay to bid? Meet swoopo.com
New to the US market is swoopo.com an auction site, but not one like you know and hate love like eBay. No, swoopo is a very different and interesting concept. The price you pay is the cost of bidding plus the ending final price. Confused?
Each bid costs $1. Yes, you pay to bid. You can buy bids in groups of 20 up to 500. So every time you bid, you are charged $1. Now the flip side of this is the prices are very low on goods. For example, a 2nd gen 8gb iPod touch just went for $73.80 (final sales price, who knows how much that person spent in bids to claim it). They seem stocked with lots of gadgets, laptops and even jewelry.
But wait, there is more
It gets more interesting. The rules are bids are increased in $0.15 increments. So, that iPod grossed the site $565.65 (final sales price divided by the number of bids plus sales price). Each bid pushes back the auction timer 15 seconds giving others a chance to respond to the bid. Bidding starts for each product at $0.15, which is figured into the above equation.
It looks like the company will do OK. Getting paid $565.65 for a $229 product says there is some power in this model.
Scammers?
Like anything though, some people believe it is a scam.
“This site is a complete joke! It is just a big SCAM. I stared at the counter until it went down to 1 second hit bid, and NOPE I didn’t win…”
One commenter on that complaint site says swoopo isn’t a scam, and he himself had won several laptops at amazing prices.
Buyer beware. Let us know in the comments if anyone gives this a whirl. Math majors only, please.
Site [Swoopo.com]
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um…in order to be a scam, a system has to be one thing while claiming and appearing to be another. it has to involve some degree of deception. swoopo does nothing of the kind. they tell you right up front exactly how the system works, and when you use it, it works exactly the way they told you it would work before you even signed up. where, pray tell, is the scam in that? what do you fancy they’re lying about? what, exactly, are they hiding?
i see them hiding nothing and scamming no one. if a person is unable to control their own spending at swoopo, the fault is no one’s but their own. anyone who tells you different is just trying to find someone to hold responsible for their own irresponsibility.
on February 24, 2009 at 03:35 AM - LINKThose sites are not scams people are just jellis when somebody makes
on February 24, 2009 at 09:36 AM - LINKmoney.I found cheapest site zoozle.com they only charge 50c bid.
Hey
on March 3, 2009 at 08:58 PM - LINKCheck this site out.http://www.budizo.com.
I have been bidding on bidonetwo.com for the past week. I’ve seen three to five people going back and forth bidding for an item; however, when the clock counts down it skips from whatever to zero thus ending the auction. - OR - The site freezes and when you refresh 10-15 secs the auction is over. Thought, I was just seeing things or had bad luck with my T-1 internet connection so my girlfriend and I bid together all day on an LG 32inch LCD TV and this time we both saw the clock go from 5 - 4 - to finished.
on March 4, 2009 at 01:07 PM - LINKAdditionally, the pay pal service to feed your bid credits had stopped providing service to the site. It stated it was a temporary problem…who knows.
Exerpience, I’ve particpated in 5 auctions and believe this to be a fraud. Note: their website does not provide an address or phone number only a link to email customer support (the thieves taking your money).
It is a scam because;
on March 4, 2009 at 06:51 PM - LINKa) They (Swoopo) represent themselves as an auction site, while they are actually a gambling site. Gambling is betting on an uncertain outcome, staking something on a contingency, or playing a game for money (freebids, cash, bids themselves) or property. (the item listed) Online gambling is illegal in the US.
b) They post numerous items of a similar nature/type in various countries, which are invariably won by one bidder. For example, the same bidder has won a sony viao laptop computer in the US and an acer laptop in the UK. This ‘bidder’ is most likely a ‘swoopo bot’ that hyperinflates the prices of items, making ‘real’ bidders fall by the wayside, with swoopo thus pocketing all the change. Too many other examples to list here.
c) If you check closely, you shall see that the majority of winners seem to have won in majority of the other bids (just google the names of the winners and see) and even spend more than the retail price for the product. Some bloggers are terming them powersellers, but if you look closely, they are ‘swoopo bots’, ghost winners!
d)Bidbutler/s? Please. Just another way to explain away the scam! For those familiar with bidbutler, you pick a start and end amount, say between $10 and $20, and place a certain number of bids you want to place when the bid falls within these amounts. Just watch the auctions and see how two bidders under bidbutler shall be pit against each other, and in just a few seconds, have their valuable ‘bids’ gobbled up, just to introduce another group of bidders, who fight like gladiators, and inflict mortal wounds to each other, all the while while swoopo (the nefarious emperor) cheers on, giving the thumbs down. The ghost bidders, obviously on bidbutlers, pick up the bodies, and prepare the arena for yet another bloodbath! Entertainment for Swoopo (they call it ‘entertainment shopping’) but a no win situation for the gladiatorial bidders (also called gambling, which is illegal, I repeat)
e) Scams always depend on public gullibility, misrepresentation about the issue in question, a smokescreen to pacify initial disgruntlement (I guess some real people actually win $10 HDTVs or $2 iphones!) and the inevitable escape route! If it walks and talks like a ponzi scheme, it is most likely a ponzi scheme. If not a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. Remember the people burnt by the Madoff scheme? Madoff misrepresented the process, just like Swoopo is doing here.
This site shall go down later due to legal reasons and/or bidder fatigue (previously gullible public). The misrepresentation shall be questioned both legally, and more and more by regular Joes who shall have spent money and not won anything. At this time, even posting pictures and videos of ‘winners’ shall not matter. The site shall go down. The escape route? They are making piles of money, which shall insulate them against the inevitable lawsuits, a cost of doing business! Remember, even snakeoil had its supporters, and people wondered what the big deal was ‘since everybody knew snakeoil to be a placebo ‘; not everybody knew, and the snakeoil salesmen misrepresented the oil as having true medicinal value. It is the same with the swoopo scam. Please keep off swoopo, send the letters to the FTC, and warn all others to avoid spending their money on this modern snakeoil!
I got a great deal on several items at bidwinflip.com. I didnt understand the reserve for the auctions at first but I did a little looking in the terms of use and figured it out. Its not a bad deal at all. The auctions with no reserve have green text while the ones with the reserve that isnt met are red. I had my bids on a couple of items where the reserve wasnt met and when the final auction date came I got all my bids back plus some because I was the last bidder. That gave me some extra bids to win a few Nintendo Wii games for about 5 bucks. There site says its an American owned and operated company so I dont think they are affiliated with Swoopo. I cant win anything at Swoopo so I just gave up trying, its like they have something bidding against you no matter what. I’m Done with Swoopo
on March 7, 2009 at 03:38 PM - LINKyeah, that swoopo is very bastard, i signed and also i payed twice 25$, but i didn’t buy any thing, and also my credit card is empty,....
on March 20, 2009 at 01:39 PM - LINKI gotta say I don’t see a thing wrong with these sites. There are others out there too, operating in my opinion honestly like http://BidFight.com
As long as they state the rules and follow them they are legal.
on March 31, 2009 at 01:43 PM - LINKI saw a similar site called Worm Deals Auctions that is similar to Swoopo. They have 2 winners to every auction and the second winner only has to pay $1. Plus they have a video section showing winners opening up their packages when they receive them. Is it for real? They are at http://www.wormdeals.com/auction
on April 4, 2009 at 12:55 PM - LINKApparently the folks claiming “scam” have never attended a live auction in their town or anywhere else. Ignorance is NOT a virtue, but you would think it was, by reading some of these posts. These days, it seems intelligence is measured by one’s ability to search Google, read some blogs and jump on a bandwagon. Kewl…
The problem with Swoopo is that it requires one to navigate a learning-curve before dipping their toe in the water. You have to READ and UNDERSTAND how it works. Just because someone isn’t willing to do their “due diligence” doesn’t mean it’s a scam. It’s not rocket science. Sitting at a computer all day trying to win a Nintendo for your kid’s Christmas, is not going to get it done most of the time. You have to use your noggin. For impatient people who want instant gratification without having to use their heads much, eBay is probably the way to go (just don’t call eBay an auction, because it isn’t even close). But if you spend time learning how Swoopo works, you can maximize your chances of winning and getting some great and sometimes, amazing deals.
on April 10, 2009 at 07:15 AM - LINKI didn’t attend a lot of live auctions like you but I never have to paid for anything at those live auctions until I win. You must attend some very unique places that have to pay when placing a bid…..
on April 10, 2009 at 07:54 AM - LINKHey everyone,
There is a new site using this model that you might be interested in, http://www.yottabid.com. It is new, so there are way less users (much better odds of winning, if only just temporarily). They also are doing their best to be as transparent as possible and avoid some of the potential pitfalls of this model.
In the name of transparency and disclosure, yes, I am affiliated with the site, but not one of the owners.
Thanks,
Jani
on April 15, 2009 at 02:39 PM - LINKHere is the new like swoopo auction, but you can sell on it to!
on April 26, 2009 at 05:37 AM - LINKhttp://www.bidhof.eu
Swoopo is listed as a auction site but after bidding and watching for over a month on a daily basis I find it is more of a gambling site. The system seems to be setup for Bid Butlers to win over single bidders. I have had the auction close even though there was still one second showing on my computer.
I do believe you can win on this site but it is expensive to learn and find when odds might be more in your favor.
Also be careful when they list the high price for an item. I have found in my state (OR) that some of those items are priced higher then they sell here.
WHO WINS THE MOST: THE OWNER OF SWOOPO.COM $$$$$$$$$$$$$
on May 3, 2009 at 04:20 PM - LINKjust curious if any of you people ever thought about the fact that a whole lot of these products are made in asia at rockbottom prices then sold to you at a markup of about 600%!!?
you know how much any laptop costs to make? never more than about 8 - 16 dollars per unit.
think about that next time you want to yell scam scam!!
fools.
on May 5, 2009 at 06:22 PM - LINKfurthermore every business works in such a way.
almost anything you buy is marked up at a rate that competes with inflation and competition, simple business mathematics.
ask good ole mike knight how much he makes when you buy a pair of Nike’s….
the answer might shock you guys since you don’t seem to understand that everything in the developed world primarily comes from the third world, at a ridiculous markup…
nike pays about half a dollar to make any given shoe, then charges you about one hundred dollars on average for those shoes,
call you congressman and ask him to do something about that scam…
on May 5, 2009 at 06:26 PM - LINKI’ve seen lot of websites like this one, and I watch a lot of auctions before subscribing or paying… at the end I decided to buy a small pack of bids in http://www.bidoo.us I bid on a trip to mexico, I didn’t won. I was so angry that I watched all the auction till the end (2 hours 44 minutes later) so since I started biding till the auction ended I counted approximately 30.000 bids… I don’t know how expensive is go to mexico… but I’m sure is way way way more less than what bidoo earned.
By the way winning on the cheap products is easier ... I actually won a game for xbox 360 but I don’t have an Xbox so I sold it on ebay
on May 6, 2009 at 05:58 AM - LINKWell I like this kind of website I actually “played” on http://www.bidoo.us and I actually meet some people who also played here… and I got surprised by hearing this (transcription almost literally):
The secret on this places is to buy big packs, and look for expensive auctions since they start till they are almost ended… from that point is where people starts bidding… and you must wait (that’s not a science) like 2 or 3 more hours… and then start bidding nonstop. NONSTOP… so the people who bought cheap packs they are going to run out of bids or they are not going to bid if they see that someone is always bidding… so in that nonstop bidding you may spend lot of money like $200 or $300 but you win most of the time… in that point you maybe spent $300 but you win a television worth $5.000 and then you sell it on ebay for $4.000 and you actually make lot of money…
so there is a lot of professional bidders out there… winning is possible but look out for those sharks…
on May 6, 2009 at 06:04 AM - LINKSwoopo is not a scam, but watch out because you can very easily spend a lot of money and not get anything. If you do win the auction you will get the item though.
on May 14, 2009 at 05:26 PM - LINKThe following link is that of a BEGINNNER auction in Swoopo.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-playstation-3-80-gb/181472.html
Beginner means those who has not won any auction. Please take a look at the number of free bids (273 free bids) the person has placed without winning. This is pure cheating of the new members….. mentioning that this is a begineers auction
on May 27, 2009 at 01:42 PM - LINK@Pradeep - no cheating has occurred. The user that won this auction has accumulated enough FreeBids in his account (without ever winning an auction until this one) to place those 273 FreeBids used to win this auction. Now that Bidder Adnanac has won, he will not be able to participate in any beginner auctions.
on May 27, 2009 at 02:45 PM - LINK“Third, I wanted to let you know that on 70% of our auctions, Swoopo does not make enough money from bids to cover the cost of the product. So, it is a bit of a gamble for us in hopes that we can cover all of our product costs (and other overhead costs) with the remaining 30% of the auctions.”
Quit playing the role of volunteer charity worker, Chris. Nobody is buying your BS. This is a gambling web site, plain and simple, and I honestly believe it’s rigged, based on some of the cash auction results and other items I’ve seen people “win” by placing more $$ in bids than the item is worth on the street.
on May 28, 2009 at 09:17 AM - LINKI have a Co-Worker that won a 42” 1080i LCD TV… and he only spent a total of $225 shipped to his door… he got on the site after his friend won a TV as well…
... so i find myself with my one and only attempt to win a small laptop… im not gonna try more than once… and hope for the best…
... but unlike 90% of you complainers… i know that i am risking $22.50 to try and possibly win a Laptop for under $100 ...
...THAT’S FINE WITH ME!!!.... but if you don’t like the fact that you may never see your money again…
... just don’t even sign up… JUST STAY AWAY if you cant live with yourself, if you loose a little bit of money.
... FOR CHRIST SAKE YOU GUYS ARE ALL BEING LITTLE BABY’S… no one should tell me what i can and cant do with my money… no ONE!!!
on June 1, 2009 at 11:51 PM - LINKhave to admit i used to be skeptical of a company that could sell a laptop for £15. However, having analized the principles swoopo use i came to the conclusion that at increments of $0.5 per bid they make a profit even at such a low price, so that should be all right I suppose.
on June 2, 2009 at 08:51 AM - LINKactually i even came across the resembling site, that is likely to be younger than swoopo. As far as guessed that is why their price for a bid is even lower – just $0.05.
Has anybody participated in auctions on luckberry.com?
i’d like to know whether everything is ok with them
I would agree with Jared about surplus of idiotic bidders. These people didn’t care to even read how their bids work and pretty much the way the bidding system on the site works.
on June 2, 2009 at 11:08 AM - LINK