The web site uses false advertising and peddles scams. A $26 price for a Mac Book Pro, for example, was completely false.
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Why does Mac Rumors have anything to do with Quibids?
- Thread starter kilowattradio
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You pay money for each bid you make, and a lot of bids are made. It's how they make money, and some lucky people do get Apple products for a fraction fo the cost. Most bidders pay for nothing, however.
You buy bids, you bid, and it raises the price and time until it ends.
I'm not sure if 'QuiBids' is a penny auction or not, but if it is, then the price is raised by a cent each time a bid is placed.
Ignore them, that's what I do.
I'm not sure if 'QuiBids' is a penny auction or not, but if it is, then the price is raised by a cent each time a bid is placed.
Ignore them, that's what I do.
QuiBids is a scam, penny auction site that has been around for a bit now. These scams have existed in one form or another for a while now. Essentially here is how it works.
You buy bids at $0.60 per bid. Depending on the item being auctioned, each bid raises an item buy a penny or two, or 5. There is a countdown on the item and every bid resets the countdown. So, for example, say there is an item going for $1.50 and you use one of your bids. That item is now $1.51 and the countdown clock resets to 15 or 20 or 30 seconds. This goes on and on until the countdown finishes. If you are the winning bidder you pay for the item for the winning price plus the bids used to get there. Seems like a pretty easy way to win right? Wrong!
Let's look at the math a little closer. A quick visit to the site shows an 8GB iPod Touch going for $26.00 with a 10 second countdown timer and each bid raises the price by 2 cents. And let's make the assumption that you are the winner at $26.00.
Each bid raises the item by 2 cents so it will take 1,300 bids to get to $26.00. And we know that each bid costs $0.60. Thus, the company has made $780 just from bids. Lets say it took you 200 bids to get to the item. So that (200*.6)+26.00 = $146. You spent $146 to get the item. A great savings no doubt. But the people who lost do not get their bids back. The company made $780 (bids) + 26(item) = 806. And let's say they bought the item for $230 so they made (806-230 = $576) on one item.
Make sense? See the scam part. If you lose your screwed.
My question is, how do you know there are not bots there boosting the price higher and higher?
(I hope my math is right. Did this in a rush.)
You buy bids at $0.60 per bid. Depending on the item being auctioned, each bid raises an item buy a penny or two, or 5. There is a countdown on the item and every bid resets the countdown. So, for example, say there is an item going for $1.50 and you use one of your bids. That item is now $1.51 and the countdown clock resets to 15 or 20 or 30 seconds. This goes on and on until the countdown finishes. If you are the winning bidder you pay for the item for the winning price plus the bids used to get there. Seems like a pretty easy way to win right? Wrong!
Let's look at the math a little closer. A quick visit to the site shows an 8GB iPod Touch going for $26.00 with a 10 second countdown timer and each bid raises the price by 2 cents. And let's make the assumption that you are the winner at $26.00.
Each bid raises the item by 2 cents so it will take 1,300 bids to get to $26.00. And we know that each bid costs $0.60. Thus, the company has made $780 just from bids. Lets say it took you 200 bids to get to the item. So that (200*.6)+26.00 = $146. You spent $146 to get the item. A great savings no doubt. But the people who lost do not get their bids back. The company made $780 (bids) + 26(item) = 806. And let's say they bought the item for $230 so they made (806-230 = $576) on one item.
Make sense? See the scam part. If you lose your screwed.
My question is, how do you know there are not bots there boosting the price higher and higher?
(I hope my math is right. Did this in a rush.)
Because if this was the case then it would really be a scam; we are to assume this is not done, therefore this is not a scam, just their way of doing business.
Thanks for the illuminating maths. I had wondered how they worked. I see it all now.
Another point - suppose you decide not to make a bid, or you miss the 10 second timer. So you see the item, maybe a fully loaded Mac Pro, sell to someone else for $30. Dang! you think. I must bid quicker and more frequently!
How do we know that Mac Pro actually sold to someone else? Maybe there was actually no other bidder, or the value of the bids coming in was not enough to justify selling the item, so the company sends you a webpage that fakes selling it to some other bidder, and the company keeps the item for the next auction.
My point is that the company has total control of what you, or each bidder sees about the overall auction, and there doesn't seem any way for bidders to cross-check the validity of unknown winning bidders.
Another point - suppose you decide not to make a bid, or you miss the 10 second timer. So you see the item, maybe a fully loaded Mac Pro, sell to someone else for $30. Dang! you think. I must bid quicker and more frequently!
How do we know that Mac Pro actually sold to someone else? Maybe there was actually no other bidder, or the value of the bids coming in was not enough to justify selling the item, so the company sends you a webpage that fakes selling it to some other bidder, and the company keeps the item for the next auction.
My point is that the company has total control of what you, or each bidder sees about the overall auction, and there doesn't seem any way for bidders to cross-check the validity of unknown winning bidders.
I saw this thread because I'd recently "joined" Quibids and wanted to see what opinions there were out there on it. I don't think it's a scam, but it is, essentially, a gambling site. Sort of.
The scenario that TwoSocEmBoppers lays out is exactly correct. While it is possible to get very good deals (again, assuming the website isn't lying) on some desirable items, in general it appears you should go in with the assumption that you'll save some money, but won't walk away with a $35 MacBook Pro.
Certainly it happens - and when it does I wonder if it's been "artificially" allowed by cutting off other bids so they have these super low-cost items, or if it's just that everyone is playing a game of chicken on the bids and nobody beat the clock.
Going back to the iPod Touch example. If it's at $26.00 and the counter is clicking down and there are 12 bidders working the item, the 11 bidders that aren't the current highest bidder don't want to "waste" a $.60 bid if someone else is going to jump in, so they wait to the last second to drop in the bid. What then happens is that either many jump in at the last second, and there are 4 or 5 bids at once, or no one jumps in, hoping someone else will, and the last bidder gets it at $26.00.
It's somewhat like going to a casino and playing a slot machine for 10 minutes, pumping in coins and not winning anything, then leave and the next guy drops his first quarter in and walks away with "your" jackpot. The one difference is that if you're bidding on an item and decide after you've lost the auction that you want to buy the product outright, you can do so by applying your bid cost to the item. So you haven't lost your bids, but you also haven't received any discount on the product. And you've wasted hours of time. I'd imagine this happens maybe 2-3% of the time at most; the rest are bids that go straight to Quibids' bottom line.
I've been watching it for the past 2 days and it is obvious to see that what happens is that no one wants somebody to get a $10 laptop, so they keep bidding and bidding, when in reality there many laptops, iPads, iPods, etc., every day (or at least every week), so it's better to bide your time and find one more "ripe" for getting at a reduced rate, I'd think.
We got a couple of smaller, hence "less desirable" items for $.04 and $.06 (plus the bids and shipping, so total of under $10), so certainly saved money on a couple of holiday gifts. Overall, it's an interesting model, but not for everyone, especially if you don't have time to watch the auctions (one MacBook Pro was auctioning in earnest for about 12 hours) or if you're solely trying to get super cheap goods.
If, however, you're willing to bet some money (bids) that you'll get a good deal, and can live with losing that money completely (a la the casino) then you may have fun with "the chase".
The scenario that TwoSocEmBoppers lays out is exactly correct. While it is possible to get very good deals (again, assuming the website isn't lying) on some desirable items, in general it appears you should go in with the assumption that you'll save some money, but won't walk away with a $35 MacBook Pro.
Certainly it happens - and when it does I wonder if it's been "artificially" allowed by cutting off other bids so they have these super low-cost items, or if it's just that everyone is playing a game of chicken on the bids and nobody beat the clock.
Going back to the iPod Touch example. If it's at $26.00 and the counter is clicking down and there are 12 bidders working the item, the 11 bidders that aren't the current highest bidder don't want to "waste" a $.60 bid if someone else is going to jump in, so they wait to the last second to drop in the bid. What then happens is that either many jump in at the last second, and there are 4 or 5 bids at once, or no one jumps in, hoping someone else will, and the last bidder gets it at $26.00.
It's somewhat like going to a casino and playing a slot machine for 10 minutes, pumping in coins and not winning anything, then leave and the next guy drops his first quarter in and walks away with "your" jackpot. The one difference is that if you're bidding on an item and decide after you've lost the auction that you want to buy the product outright, you can do so by applying your bid cost to the item. So you haven't lost your bids, but you also haven't received any discount on the product. And you've wasted hours of time. I'd imagine this happens maybe 2-3% of the time at most; the rest are bids that go straight to Quibids' bottom line.
I've been watching it for the past 2 days and it is obvious to see that what happens is that no one wants somebody to get a $10 laptop, so they keep bidding and bidding, when in reality there many laptops, iPads, iPods, etc., every day (or at least every week), so it's better to bide your time and find one more "ripe" for getting at a reduced rate, I'd think.
We got a couple of smaller, hence "less desirable" items for $.04 and $.06 (plus the bids and shipping, so total of under $10), so certainly saved money on a couple of holiday gifts. Overall, it's an interesting model, but not for everyone, especially if you don't have time to watch the auctions (one MacBook Pro was auctioning in earnest for about 12 hours) or if you're solely trying to get super cheap goods.
If, however, you're willing to bet some money (bids) that you'll get a good deal, and can live with losing that money completely (a la the casino) then you may have fun with "the chase".
Swoopo just went bankrupt, so it's likely that many of the auctions are bid up by puppet bots.
This. If hese sites were legit, they'd be RAKING in cash hand over foot even for the most simple of sales. They get so much profit theoretically for each item that if they were legit, there's little chance they would need bankruptcy protection.
If you watch their TV ads, they have some actor say "I'm Jonny/Janey whatever, and I just won all of these items on Quibids for 90% off retail value", and they'll have large screen TVs, Ipads, MacBooks, etc. Fine print says "results not typical", so they're clearly just saying what a sucker would like to hear.
The web site uses false advertising and peddles scams. A $26 price for a Mac Book Pro, for example, was completely false.
Everyone already knows that just by looking at it. You're obviously angry that you didn't.