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Penny auction advertising on MacRumors

Would you like to see penny auction ads disappear from Macrumors?

  • You betcha! Penny auction ads have no business here.

    Votes: 59 44.0%

  • Meh. I don't care one way or the other.

    Votes: 36 26.9%

  • Keep 'em. If MR pulled every ad that somebody didn't like ...

    Votes: 39 29.1%
  • Total voters
    134
ehoui said:
Oh come on -- that guys looks totally trustworthy.
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You didn't put a smiley at the end of your statement; I presume it's not sarcasm.

I noted the class action lawsuit which has been filed against quibids.com in this message. While the existence of a lawsuit doesn't mean it's an unscrupulous company, reading the complaint will give you some idea why people are not fond of quibids.com and the other penny auction businesses.

I contacted quibids and asked them a couple of questions about the buy-now prices for items. The buy-now price is offered to anyone making a bid on an item who fails to win it. For those losers, they can purchase the item at at the buy-now price discounted by the cost of the bids they placed on that particular item.

Clearly, the value of this service is related to the buy-now price for items -- and how much shipping and handling gets tacked on to the item. Quibids has said that the buy-now price for gift cards is the face value on the card. I asked them how much S&H they charge to deliver those gift cards; quibids would not say. I also asked them to tell me what the exact buy-now cost would be for one of the iPads they were selling; they would not tell me.

I do expect them to have some overhead for this service. OTOH, the buy-now service is worthless if they charge an excessive premium for such items. There is no reason that a legitimate company should not address my questions.

The second thing I asked them about was the smartsaversjournal.com advertisement noted in this message. I asked them:

Please go to the page smartsaversjournal.com. You will see that it says there are 173 comments, but I can only see the first 14. How do I access the other 159 comments?
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The quibids customer service representative responded:

QuiBids has no affiliation with smartsaversjournal.com.
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I find this response quite strange for several reasons:
  1. The sole purpose of smartsaversjournal.com is to promote quibids.com.
  2. All of the questions asked in the comments section have a response by "jannet@quibids". If quibids has no affiliation with the site, then how did those responses get there?
  3. Why would someone with no relationship with quibids create the website and buy advertising for it?
  4. At the bottom of the webpage, the site says to send any questions to Support@QuiBids.com. If they have no affiliation with quibids, why would they do that?
smartsaversjournal.com does not pass the smell test, and quibids seems to be misrepresenting their relationship with them. If the quibids lawsuit proceeds, I'm guessing that this website will be more grist for the mill.
 
We've requested removal of every ad mentioned above but we're slightly suspicious that some of them have come back. Perhaps they are almost the same but not identical. In any case, we'll remove those that are reported to us.
 
Doctor Q said:
We've requested removal of every ad mentioned above but we're slightly suspicious that some of them have come back. Perhaps they are almost the same but not identical. In any case, we'll remove those that are reported to us.
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Thanks, Doctor Q. One thing I noticed: the link in message #47 of this thread references the site buyersguide.macrumors.com; the link in message #56 references www.macrumors.com. Perhaps your Google rep is viewing those as two different sites and is managing MR's preferences for them separately.

Do all civilizations in the universe have the concept of whack-a-mole?
 
Quibids.com ads still appearing



It looks like the advertiser is using securedjump.com as a means of obfuscating the advertiser (quibids). IIRC, this is different than different links.

I can't imagine that Google would be happy with advertisers doing shenanigans like this.
 
Quibids, again.

The securedjump.com URL appears to be identical to the one submitted in message #60 five days ago.

Fire quantum torpedoes!

 
We seem to be having very little luck stopping the Quibids ads, but we've been reporting each one mentioned here.
 
Doctor Q said:
We seem to be having very little luck stopping the Quibids ads, but we've been reporting each one mentioned here.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Q.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Have you requested an escalation with your google reps: asked them why the quibids ads keep showing up even you have clearly expressed your preferences to keep 'em off of the site?

I really dislike the "department stores are ripping you off" riff. They have absolutely no comparison to a retail store; the vast majority of people who bid on an iPad with these guys will never ever win the product. In my score card, that is the true ripoff.

Alaerian said:
Then you're using software we don't speak of, because it deprives MR of funds. What do you think pays the bills?
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Just one reality check: I have click-to-Flash installed on all my browsers; I never see the Flash-based ads here. In my scorecard, any advertiser who runs Flash advertising on this particular website is really stupid and deserves to have their advertising ignored.

You don't expect users to turn on Flash when visiting the MR site, do you?
 
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As I see it, there is a difference between blocking Flash-based ads because they are annoying/intrusive, and blocking ALL ads.

Granted, either way potentially deprieves MR of funds, but blocking some is better than blocking all.
 
leftywamumonkey said:
You don't like it when the majority of the websites you visit are clean looking?
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Heh. Your comment reminds me a bit of the guy who preferred it when a majority of the traffic lights he encountered were green:

A Longmont man has been ticketed $50 for suspicion of interfering with a traffic signal, but he says he really enjoyed using it. Jason Niccum told The Longmont Times-Call that he bought a device that let him change traffic lights from red to green, called an Opticon, on eBay for $100. He told the newspaper the device "paid for itself" in the two years he had it, helping him cut his time driving to work. Niccum was cited on March 29 after police said they caught him using the strobe-like device to change traffic signals. Police confiscated the Opticon, and informed Niccum it was illegal to possess it."I'm always running late," police quoted Niccum as saying in an incident report.
Click to expand...

The comparison is limited: your activities are legal; Niccum's strobe light was not. But both of you fail to comprehend how your activities have a negative impact on the community as a whole.

One side note: I really can't believe that the driver only had to pay $50 after knowingly zapping traffic lights for two years. Never mind slowing down his fellow drivers; Niccum could have easily caused traffic accidents through the hundreds of light cycles that he flipped. Causing a severe injury or death with his toy might have cut into his enjoyment.
 
I would LOVE to see penny ads, or really ANY ads besides Rift (the MMO). Mainly because I already own rift, so seeing ads for it is just.. repetitive?
 
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