I was fairly diplomatic in my earlier blog post about penny auction site grabaid. While it looked a bit sus, I’m wary of jumping to conclusions and calling something a scam when it could be legitimate.
I’ll not make this mistake twice.
Penny auction sites, which seem to be popping up all over the place these days, are little more than a scam. If you bid, you will lose. This includes, but is not limited to:
- grababid.co.nz (and .co.uk .com etc)
- swoopo.com
- ipennybid.com
- bidrivals.com
- planetbid.co.nz
If you’re considering bidding on one of these sites, I highly recommend you read the following posts:
- Profitable until deemed illegal – Jeff Atwood
- Planetbid, Swoopo & bidding not to lose… – Dyland Bland
Don’t be sucked in.
Penny Auction Watch exposes scam penny auctions: http://www.pennyauctionwatch.com.
That site is very much in favour of the concept of pro-penny auctions in general and I’m tempted to remove the link but in the interests of being balanced I’ll leave it.
The domain was registered by proxy… which doesn’t necessarily mean they have anything to hide, but it does suggest the webmaster wants to remain anonymous.
If I had a vested interest in penny auctions and wanted to improve the image of the concept in general, that’s exactly the sort of site I’d set up.
Caveat Emptor.
Thanks for your post. My name is Josh and I am the founder of the Penny Auction List – http://pennyauctionlist.com
I started bidding on penny auctions in 2009 and wasn’t sure whether or not they could be trusted. What I learned over time is that some sites were fraudulent, but other sites delivered on their promises. Those experiences led me to create the Penny Auction List, a carefully-filtered penny auction directory. Only sites that have real contact information (physical address, phone, and email) are included to help ensure their legitimacy. Sites must also have clear terms of use and winner testimonials. I won’t even use Google ads on the Penny Auction List website because I can’t verify their legitimacy. You’ll notice that other penny auction directories don’t take those same precautions.
Some penny auctions can be trusted, but winning does require some investment up front, a little bit of strategy, and some luck as well.
Josh
Thanks for your comment Josh. While I applaud any effort to expose scam sites, I think your site misses the point.
Myself and many others believe there is no such thing as a legitimate penny auction site – they’re not “auctions” in any true sense of the word, and I wouldn’t consider any such site legitimate unless governed by the same rules and regulations as gambling sites.
You only need one winner in a million to get testimonials (which are not hard to fake anyway), and I’d question the value of checking for contact information unless you visit the physical address and personally verify the identity of the owner.
Even if a penny auction site is not fraudulent and abides by its stated rules, there are still many problems with the model, and I hope people will be smart enough to avoid bidding scheme web sites altogether.