Comments on: Swoopo Looks to Set the Record Straight

By: Penny Auctions

Penny Auctions — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:56:26 +0000

The apparent downfall of Swoopo is very significant for the penny auction industry as a whole. However, new sites continue to find ways to be successful, and offering a bid to buy auction seems to be one of them.

Mr. Oswald clearly doesn't care for penny auctions, and for some understandable reasons. At the same time, paying "retail" price at a store can be considered somewhat scandalous as well, especially when you see the same item you just bought sell for $200 less a week later.

Penny auctions that offer a bid to buy feature give consumers the chance to get something they want for less, or in the worst case scenario, pay retail.

To learn more about sites like Swoopo, visit the Penny Auction List – http://pennyauctionlist.com

It will be interesting to see what happens with the Swoopo branch based in the US…

By: Alex

Alex — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:22:31 +0000

The only trick there is to swoopo is to use analytics to try to beat the system, although many people wouldn't try this method there were a bunch of people who still won items. I'm sad to see Swoopo go

By: Swoopo Quietly Files for Bankruptcy

Swoopo Quietly Files for Bankruptcy — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:51:30 +0000

[...] most highly trafficked and commented posts ever. They would later return in October to attempt to explain their side of things. The European Commission said that the company’s business plan was following laws governing [...]

By: emmet

emmet — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 02:17:39 +0000

That's because they are the same auction. If you look at the auction IDs on both they are the same

By: James

James — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:19:06 +0000

Go through the Swoopo registration process and try to create a username containing uppercase letters but your registration username will end up only lowercase so any usernames containing any uppercase letters did not go through the normal registration process otherwise their username would only contain lowercase letters. Give it a try yourself. Try to create a username with an uppercase letter and it will convert your username to lowercase. Be suspicious if you see usernames that have any uppercase letters as they are not registered users.

By: Simon

Simon — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:52:20 +0000

I know this was written several years ago but here is my question which has not been asked…how many bids does swoopo make themselves to save the sale from being made too far below the cost of the item.

Does swoopo engage in this type of activity?

the equivalent would be you pulling your name out of the fish bowl in a lottery drawing to save you from giving out the prize…

even if they don’t win the auction they can keep bidding to extend the auction and hope it drives others to bid again

If they’re engaging in this practice then they are breaking the law, no doubt about it

By: Jessica

Jessica — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:20:56 +0000

I myself wanted to check things out. I was in the market for a Kindle DX and I thought why not watch a little while. Soooo as I watched, I saw a Kindle DX go for .87-ish and one go, just several hours later, for .54 cents. I was dumbfounded. It was torture. What should I do. I am somewhat intelligent and therefore I knew that it was all completely chance and that I could maybe win with a little luck and the right timing. So I started bidding. I spent 20 bids on one DX and it just wasnt going to happen. That auction got down to 5 seconds so many times that it went on like that for HOURS. I continued to watch AND I started to research. I have read ALL these posts and mostly what I have noticed is that the BidBot or uuhhhuhhhmmm, BidButler winners seem to have names that could be construed as a funny play on words for double meanings. Like Mask, and Chairman, butlermaster, and the list may go on. I didnt dig that deep, those are just the names that struck me as odd. Anyway, I do think that there is in house bidding going on. I dont know what will be done about it or if it will. I for one am saying, Lesson Learned.

By: efSD

efSD — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 03:35:36 +0000

no they manipulate the situation but we(the people) control your outcome not ours but one of us gets lucky. its like a raffle with 50000 but only the last 50 actually had a chance.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 06:54:38 +0000

I am familiar enough with the math behind what Swoopo is doing to know that it is definitely gambling; although they may say it is a game of chance (same thing).

Aside from all of the things people have already pointed out about how Swoopo can deceive the bidders (shill bidding, etc), there is something that I noticed while watching the actions.

You have an item being bid on, say it is around $12.00. The bids have been slowing down so you think now is a good time to bid. BAM! The time gets 10 or 20 minutes added to it, although the bid amount does not jump up a corresponding amount. Since they state that 10-20 seconds are added for every bid, you would have needed 60-120 simultaneous bidders to add that much time.

If you had that many bidders you would have seen the bid amount jump from $12.00 up to between $12.60 and $13.20. The bid didn’t change at all! Basically, Swoopo must have some automated system to add time when there aren’t enough bids and the auction hasn’t generated enough revenue for them.

This is a total SCAM since this is NOT explained on their Help page (no matter what people have said above).

Also, it should be noted that most of their high-tech items are “Penny” auctions; meaning that every bid (at a cost of 60 cents USD) raises the bid $0.01 USD. That means they are making 60 x the bid amount. So if an iPhone was at a bid amount of $50, they have collected $3000 just in bids!!! Just take a peek at all the Penny autions they have and multiply any of those bid amounts by 60 and you have the amount they collected in bid fees.

Given the extortionate profit they are making I don’t believe the response they gave to the press about how they are losing money. They are making money hand-over-fist. OUR MONEY! Let the insanity stop.

All of this is not to say that people haven’t gotten some deals, but they are doing it by using the other bidders fees to fund the items that Swoopo is listing.

By: Omar1962

Omar1962 — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:45:53 +0000

Funny, I can win a item for 10 bids @.65=$6.50, they had total bids of 4200 bids @.65=$2730.00 for that much profit, and everyone has a shit fit, but you take your money to the bank that pays you 1.5% interest, while they make 30-40% (global average I learned in a course)interest, plus charge you fees to use your money, and you go there everyday and give them money and pay your charges, and nobody says shit. Think about it, your just mad because you didn’t think of it. I don’t care how much they make off the item, its what it cost me on bids, if I did care care how much they made off an item, I would of killed myself by now as everyone I deal with in the public is doing the same thing, computers, cars, homes etc., everyone is doing it to you, just greaseup and go with it idiots.