Is Swoopo Nothing More Than a Well-Designed Gimmick?

By Ed Oswald | Wednesday, September 17, 2008 at 1:14 pm

[UPDATE: We’re about to talk to Swoopo. Have a question for them? Tell us here.]

I first ran across Swoopo in one of my Google searches earlier this week. What caught my eye was the claim in its ad that it had just sold an iPod Touch for $28.05. My journalistic curiosity got the best of me, so just for the heck of it I clicked the link to investigate.

Indeed Swoopo was legit: the company was selling not only iPods, but computers, televisions, and other products at prices that seemed just too good to be true. So where did this company come from? Apparently its not new at all (at least in Europe). Founded in Germany in 2005 as Telebid, it expanded to the UK last year, and launched in Spain this Spring.

The concept goes something like this: items are put up for bid, and each time a user bids, the price is increased by 15 cents. At the same time the amount of time added to the auction also increases up to 20 seconds with each bid. If no new bids are received before time runs out, the last bidder wins the item.

Swoopo claims that this allows users to purchase items at about 35 percent of the retail price. A check of recently ended auctions seemed to indicate that was generally accurate, although most seemed to either be at substantial savings or not much of a deal at all.

It is fairing rather well financially for a start-up. In 2007, the company recorded about 11 million Euros ($15.5 million USD) in sales, with 20 million euros ($28.3 million USD) in revenues expected this fiscal year. It expects to attract 50,000 customers in the US during the rest of 2008, increasing to 800,000 by next year.

These deals sound too good to be true to you? In a way they are. Users cannot just simply register and bid. Instead once registered a user must fill his or her account with prepaid bids. Yes, that’s right, you pay to bid. Each bid costs the user $1, and can be purchased in packs of 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500. There is no discount for buying larger packs.

Here’s where it begins to get gimmicky, and Swoopo begins to lose me. Before the first bid, you’re already financially into the whole thing for as much as $500. What’s worse is that if you lose an auction, you also lose all the bids you placed, and thus have essentially given the site free money for just giving you the privilege to bid on the item.

Thus once you start bidding, you have a vested financial interest in winning that item. While the winner is likely to get a very good deal, especially on bigger items where the final price is hundreds below retail (even when you add the cost of bidding), those who lost could have spent quite a bit just to bid, and are likely doing so because of the money they need to spend to win.

Suddenly it does not look like Swoopo is really that crazy: in some cases, they could be making quite the profit through this system. Take this auction for example: this guy paid $423.55 altogether for an 80GB PS3 worth $399.99. I’m sure there are other examples, or auctions where the total number of bids from all bidders when added to the final selling price mean a sizable profit for the site.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand these sites need to make a profit. However, the way this is done just doesn’t seem right. Shouldn’t those who lose get their bids back, even at least partially? I think that is much more fair, and would make using the site more attractive to many.

403 Comments

Read more: Auctions, Swoopo

391 Comments For This Post

Chad Says:
September 17th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

That’s horrid. Good find though.

moucon Says:
September 17th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

The concept is wack, with questionable ethics, and will probably go down in flames. Caveat Emptor to anyone stupid enough to throw their money away on an auction site that takes your money like a slot machine…stick with eBay.

James Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 1:47 am

“example: guy paid $423.55 for 80GB PS3 worth $399.99… I’m sure there are auctions where total bids from all when added to final selling price mean a sizable profit for the site.”

Let’s talk specifics (UK is same as USA/Europe, just more expensive currency):

Canon 450D camera worth £938.61 = 13,423 bids @ £.50 (50p per bid)
= Total spend of 6,711 pounds plus fixed price of 39 pounds =

Total Revenue to Swoopo of 6,750.50 pounds !!!

That’s if the item breaks even… it’s a lottery, really…

James Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 1:49 am

£6,750.50 GBP = $12,080.00 USD

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Lawrence Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 9:38 am

I have been watching this site for a couple of days now and I must tell you about this auctionon their site where the winner paid more than the stated MSRP. Keep in mind it is a fixed bid at $98.00. The winner submitted bids totalling 1399.00 and the MSRP is stated at 1199.99

WOW!

Worth up to: $1,199.99
Placed bids (1339): $1,339.00
FreeBids (43): $0.00
Final price: $98.00

Savings: $0.00

DJ Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

To be fair, you’re only into the game for $500 if you choose to buy a pack of $500 bids.

Basically, the losers subsidize the winner.

DJ Says:
September 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

Now I’m getting this:

For every 15¢ the price goes up, Swoopo also gets $1 for the bid.

So, if an item goes up $15 in price (15¢ x 100), Swoopo gets $100! If it goes up $150 in price, Swoop makes $1,000!

That means they can sell a $1,000 item for $150 and make $150!

Clever.

Phil S. Stein Says:
September 19th, 2008 at 1:16 am

Why is this legal but I supposedly not allowed to put $10 on tomorrow’s Cubs game?

scott Says:
September 19th, 2008 at 7:47 am

And this analysis here is not even factoring in the ‘penny’ auctions. These are a type of auction that only goes up in price by $0.01 for each bid. The time still gets increased by 15 seconds, so an item that sells for only $10.00 still has provided $1000 of bid ‘income’ to the site.

See
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/toshiba-qosmio-g55-q801-18-4-core-2-duo-/100751.html

Savings:
Worth up to: $1,299.99
Placed bids (1323): $1,323.00
FreeBids (190): $0.00
Final price: $47.30

So the bidder spent $1323 on a machine worth $1300. And the site took in $1323 + $4730 = $6053. WOW.

Steve Says:
September 19th, 2008 at 8:43 am

Why do I get the feeling that Swoopo is winning a lot of their own auctions? All of the $15 PS3s on penny auctions are making them a ton of money and they never have to produce the product.

Is there any sort of regulatory oversight on this?

Sean McAfee Says:
September 20th, 2008 at 8:30 am

I just found the site myself yesterday through a friend. I got real excited until I read through the system. I say no thank you to this nonsense.

CONCERNED Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 2:47 pm

im glad we have the internet and in most ways its useful but its too much BULLSHIT like this on here. shut them down quick. please dont be a DUMBASS and waste any of your moulah. talk about ULTIMATE HUSTLER .
READ A BOOK
……….
it helps!

peace&more hair grease

Mike Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 7:29 pm

Some of your math is a little screwy. There is no way that any one person places 100% of the bids. At most, he or she places half of them. People are mad because the company is raking in the cash, but if the bidder times it right, the savings can be substantial… I’d say good for them. If you don’t want to pay a dollar per bid, don’t use the site. If you can’t see the big picture and blow all your money on bids to buy a ‘cheap’ item, it’s your own dumb fault… It would be like buying 100 one-dollar scratch-off tickets and winning a $2 prize and being happy about it.

Mike Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 9:43 pm

I have to admit, after trying the site out and figuring out its methods of listing details that the math in the original story is valid. After a completed auction, it shows the number of bids made by the winning bidder along with the price paid (without S&H) and the percentage saved. Sometimes, like the PS3, the percentage is ZERO. They don’t show an ‘overpaid’ percentage.

It is difficult to track your own expenditures (read failed attempts to buy something). There really isn’t any record of it once the item is won by another. During the auction, the totals box shows how many bids you’ve made and your potential savings (pay attention to this, or risk overpaying!). Some people luck out and happen to bid at the last second and get a great deal, but it takes a lot of losing bids to get that far!

Henry Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:35 am

I gotta agree with all you guys and this company seems to have produced a nice gimmick and clearly is raking in the cash. However, as for the PS3 example provided, the winning bidder may technically have not paid for all 253 bids because they do offer these bid voucher auctions:

http://www.swoopo.com/brw/vouchers_58.html

As far as I can tell there’s nothing illegal about this site, just maybe unethical. Basically they’re just hoping to play off of trigger-happy bidders. Interesting concept though, to say the least.

areyoukidding Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 7:02 pm

This cannot be legal in states like mine where you cannot charge to enter a contest. It’s gambling. They better rake in enough cash to cover the impending lawsuits!

Mike Says:
September 22nd, 2008 at 9:16 pm

It’s not true gambling. That would mean that winners are chosen at random. This system has winners determined by the last one to bid (highest bidder). The determining factor is the bidders themselves. I don’t see how that is gambling.

I think gambling was brought up as a way to justify and/or compare the mindset required to participate in an ‘auction’ like this. You have to realize that you have a good chance of putting money into nothing other than your own adrenaline rush and chance at winning, while it pretty directly goes into the owner’s pocket.

Peter Says:
September 28th, 2008 at 9:04 am

Actually, it is gambling, because to the user, winning is purely by luck. If this is not gambling, then poker isn’t gambling either… You don’t win in poker by chance, you win in poker by outplaying your opponents. The chance comes in not knowing what your opponents have or will do, which is the exact same thing with these auctions.

I’m glad I saw this site to see how the auctions worked before signing up for it… granted, I’m sure I would have realized that it was crap before buying any bids, but this way I know what their system is before giving them my name and address.

Brian Says:
September 28th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

True, lottery style games are not legal in the United States, which is why US-based sites like BestOfferAuction were shut down last year, and UK-based (EU et al) sites like Swoopo and SpreadBid continue to operate.

The CEO of Swoopo explained on another blog that Swoopo loses money on some of the auctions, therefore some of the profitable auctions pay for the losing auctions. While this may be true, the Penny Auctions for instance appear to be VERY profitable for Swoopo.

Swoopo CEO: “Any of the money received from bids will first go towards paying for the product that is being auctioned. If there is a surplus of money from one auction, the remainder will be put toward any auctions where Swoopo does not cover the costs of the products in an auction. The latter group making up about 70% of all auctions.”

BestOfferAuction was the type where you paid $1.00 to guess the lowest, unique bid for an item. Same result, invest $20 for a chance to win $500 in merchandise. One of the tricks BOA used when it was still live was to let 2 or even 3 people win per auction so the odds were higher for the bidders — thus feeding the frenzy even more.

On a side note… Good luck to you, Gunnar. I’m hopeful that Swoopo will fine the right balance between ‘too good to be true’ and legal.

Brian

PS. (shameless plug) Note to Swoopo… If you need new sources of merchandise, consider the Better line of Money Handling Electronics for Cash-based Retailers at http://www.BetterBusinessElectronics.com

Brian Says:
September 28th, 2008 at 4:21 pm

As a follow-up, sites similar to BestOfferAuction in the USA, such as Voovy.com, have switched to a ‘charitable fund raising’ purpose, which BestOfferAuction tried for awhile before closing. A charitable purpose is a method for getting around the lottery legal concern, albeit not nearly as lucrative or energizing.

Brian

john Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 1:23 pm

“Basically, the losers subsidize the winner.” Yes, that is called “gambling”. When you gamble at Vegas or the track, odds are that you will lose about 5% of your stake over the course of time. In most state lotteries you will lose about half your stake, or more. Swoopo is more like the lottery. It is a BAD BET. I registered for the site, watched it for about 20 minutes and then resisted the temptation to throw $20 down the drain and closed my account. It is not an auction site, it is a gambling site and needs to be regulated as such. It is not a particularly unethical concept if you like gambling at low return rates.

Jeremy Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

Wow.. okay guys, you are thinking about this all wrong. It such a great deal.

You have chances to buy 1,000 dollar TV’s for like 200 bucks. It isn’t only 1 person bidding, its like 500 people from around the USA. Sure, it makes money for the website, but each individual person is only paying a buck.

This is just like a Raffle Drawing, except you have a little more control over what happens, because you can bid extremely late on an item, and win, just for $1.

This isn’t a scam, its totally legit, its almost like.. what if Ebay made you pay 10 cents a bid? Seriously.. this is a hell of a great way to make money I wish I had thought of it.

Chris Bauman Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

*** Disclaimer – I work for Swoopo***

Like many live auctions, auction winners are 90% of the time those who utilize “staying power” – perseverance, strategy, and patience. So, there is skill inherent with winning auctions.

One bidding tip, is to watch the auctions take place, and if you choose to try it, start on smaller valued items. BlueRay DVDs, Video Games, etc… Typically, there are fewer bidders on the lower priced items than things like 46″ HD LCD TVs.

Ed Oswald Says:
September 29th, 2008 at 11:36 pm

Chris:
Thanks for paying us a visit. I do think the issue people are having is the fact that people lose money on the bids they use even if they don’t win. For the record, I will say I also tested out the site before I wrote about it to be fair to the company. I just don’t know how to feel about it when I’m not getting my bids refunded.

Erica Maille Says:
September 30th, 2008 at 9:57 pm

I will be stickin with ebay! Good find though. I know of another site for bidding on jewelry in the same manner. Difference is they don’t charge you for each bid….www.bidz.com

Abby Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 6:23 am

Thanks so much for writing this article! It was extremely informative.

john gray Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 11:56 am

do people know that swoopo in uk , us , germany ,spain , can all bid on the auctions , i thought it was a seperate site for all countries , no wonder i lost over £400 , trying to win a £500 auction , its all a con to get money from us . i will stick with ebay

Walter Says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:05 am

Nice Tool for swoopo. Is shows all bids, not only the last 10.
wikiwif.de/bidwatcher.php

Aaron Says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 10:41 am

After discovering this today myself, I did some calculations to come up with the profit model:

Profit = (auction selling price) – (original “actual retail value”) + #bids

(This assumes they pay “retail” for their items.)

Recall each bid nets them $1. #bids can be calculated by:
#bids = [(auction selling price) – $0.15]/0.15

Therefore, the profit model simplifies to the following:

Profit = (23/3)*(auction selling price) – (“retail” price) – 1

What is the break-even point? If the (auction selling price) = (3/23)*(“retail”). So if the item sells for just over 1/8 of its retail value, Swoopo will profit. Sounds like a win-win for them! I can’t imagine them losing money on many auctions.

Obviously, this model is generic, doesn’t include overhead costs or other considerations. Thanks for reading.

Mike Kilpatrick Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:09 am

Look, this site is the best if you want to buy something very cheap and have fun. kcbidz.com is a unique bid auction where the lowest unique bid wins!
For example: if you choose a PS3 than you can win it for less than $11.60. Let’s say that you invest $5, that means that you place 5 bids and your winning bid is $1.29. At the end you pay $5 + $1.29 = $6.29. Shipping is Free. But with swoopo you end up paying more than the retail price for a PS3, because is not limit in how many bids day collect.

So go and try kcbidz.com you will not regret!

Robert Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:18 am

Not only did they sell the $399.00 ps3 you’re talking about for $423 but after many many people bid unsuccessfully, swoopo made hundreds. Also, it is nearly impossible to win unless you use the bidbutler scam they have going. and that makes their profit higher. SCAM SCAM SCAM SCAM DO NOT USE SWOOPO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Justin Says:
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:32 pm

Its not gambling. You’re putting your money towards an item, but others have the same chance, so far indistinguishable from gambling. The difference here is that there is very little luck. If you keep bidding till your the last bidder than you win whereas in poker if you keep raising but have no good hand and wait for the flop you can still very much loose. I don’t agree with swoopo but this is NOT an example of gambling.

Laz Says:
October 4th, 2008 at 4:51 am

Swoopo, I think they call it this, because that is the sound made by your money being taken. I am glad I read and concur with most of you. Have to take my hat off to whoever thought of it though. In reading the their fine print I found the dollar per bid language but I had to search it to make sure I was understanding it correct. Obviously I did and you all just verfied it.

Laz Says:
October 4th, 2008 at 4:53 am

I agree with most of you, good gimmick. I was able to read through the brief mention they make of $1.00 per bid and had to search to verify what I was reading. You guys have the same answer I did…..

Will pass………………….nice try.

Checkerhead Says:
October 4th, 2008 at 5:52 am

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-80-cash-/104821.html

Gambling???? They are selling cash. Sweet. That is nothing like a lottery. Nothing like one at all.

You can also bid on bids.

69 Says:
October 4th, 2008 at 8:30 am

Ok people here is the scoop on Swoopo! You pay for your bids up front which the minimum is 20 max is 500 there called bidpacks each amount of the bidpack you buy is $1 per bid number 20=$20 etc.. once you get in to bid this is the TOS:
( Each new bid resets the ‘remaining time’ for an auction up to, but not above, the displayed countdown reset value (usually, 10, 15 or 20 seconds). The one exception to this rule is when two Bid Butlers bid against one another. For more information, please consult the ‘Help’ section. The auction ends when the remaining time reaches zero. The user who was the last to bid then wins the auction. All other bids on the item expire and will not be refunded. The last bidder is determined based on the records in Swoopo’s database and Swoopo’s decision regarding who is the last bidder shall be final (save in the case of manifest error). When the bid butlers are on and several go at it they will run the clock up not just a few secs like it says it where it wont go over 10,15,20 secs it can go up hours if it wants to you would think the amount of bids per 10-20 sacs would add together ie.. 10 bids at 15 secs would be 150 secs or 2mins 30 secs but I have seen it several times jump up 30 mins or more. Also if you calculate the prices on this ea. Bid costs you $1 regardless of your win but only moves the bid price up $.15 at this rate if the product costs $500 retail & Winning bidder price has reached say $300 that means 2000 bids have been made on this item @ $1 a bid that’s $2000.00 they made just on bid money not to mention the $300 the bidder will pay on the purchase granted some auctions the winner may not pay anything for at the end or a small set fee but they don’t care about that they made $2000.00 – wholesale cost not retail and they are looking at a nice profit of at least $1500. There is no way this can be legal I have tried to email these people about problems with this site it freezes up and quite a bit but here is their ploy on that (A system outage has occurred if no bids can be submitted for items due to an unforeseeable disruption in a system. In such a case, auctions will be temporarily halted and the remaining times for the auctions, the current bidding price and the current highest bidder will be maintained. After the disruption has been resolved, the auctions will be continued and 10 minutes will be added to the remaining times for the auctions. Temporarily halted auctions are clearly indicated. Bidders who are bidding on temporarily halted auctions shall have no right to a refund for bids used or other costs incurred.) This is crap I have been on here a few times and the site pauses and freezes and sometimes it does what it says but then I have lost auctions because of it and I have a feeling that they have people on here to make the bids go up there is no regulation of this site no one contacts you back on your email complaints I have sent a few and no response. It boils down to this who has spent more on their bidpacks and how long you are willing to stay on this computer and keep bidding on something because if you have been bidding for HOURS & its down to the wire and you think everyone has given up and you make your last bid hoping to get it and someone new just woke up logged into it noticed the bid, makes one bid because the last bid you made upped the time 10-20-30secs or a big jump due to bidbutler they have time to pardon the pun swoop in and take it with $1 bid after you spent say $50 in bids and all night sitting up and guess what you don’t get anything except your out $50. It’s a scam if you ask me stay away!!!

Don Says:
October 4th, 2008 at 11:52 am

THIS IS NUTZ !! I have been watching a Wii auction that is currently at $165. 165 bids / .15 cents = $1100.00. And its not over yet, this is a huge scam. There looking at making over $800 on 1 auction !!

Sharma Says:
October 4th, 2008 at 7:50 pm

I agree with all of you, who ever have lost their money for buying bids and who ever had a jackpot. Well, ofcourse, I did loose £100 behind this site. To assess critically,
1. When a bid is placed it must not accept a second bid placed at simultaneous time and at simultaneous number of bidders. In other auction sites like eBay or eBid when you place your bid and it gets clashed with another bidders then it ask you to refresh your bid immediately. Such options are knowingly forbidden here in Swoopo which is the first reason loosers loose.

2. Secondly, when a player join a game he either have to know the rules of the game or the gamers must elucidate the pros and cons. Well, check Swoopo, it just says increment of price from each bid but it does not tell you how much of the time it take to end the auction, it does not tell you how much of the bid amount is considered enough to end the auction. Here if it is not gambling a static parametre that regulates the auction will be time like in eBay and other auction sites while it is shear chance that Swoopo decides ……..when?

These concept of auctions are not new but have been running since ages. It is we who must make sense whether it is wise to greedy or it is wise to let the vice run on its own to perish one day. IT IS WE WHO COMMIT MISTAKES WHILE BEING SELFISH. We feel not to pay for once hardwork, that hardwork which may be looking as a item in the auction or it might be the brain which created Swoopo.

Hah h ahhahhha…… Just feel happy you realised.. get back to proper business.

Matth Says:
October 5th, 2008 at 8:48 am

Had a go at Swoopo yesterday, seems that they are making a lot out of these auctions. I did an breakdown for an XBOX 360 auction and reckon they made about £600 from it!

Bob Says:
October 5th, 2008 at 4:57 pm

Why would someone use swoopo when Bidtunnel.com is free to bid and sell??

Rob Says:
October 5th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

This website reminds me of the old game of getting people to pay more then a dollar for a dollar. You set it up like this:

1) Tell the contestants that they will be bidding on one dollar
2) Stipulate that the person who bids the highest has to pay what he bids
3) Stipulate that the person who bids second highest also has to pay what he bids
4) Only the highest bidder gets the dollar

So now the game commences. Player 1 bids 50 cents. Player 2 then bids 55 cents. This continues until the price gets to 99 cents. At this point the players realize they are at the break point for making profit. However the player who is not the highest bidder is out, say, 98 cents. He then bids a dollar figuring he can break even. Now the low bidder realizes they are out 99 cents unless they bid. They figure that a loss of 1 cent is better then a loss of 99 cents so they bid 101 cents. This continues ad infinitum.

This is the model that swoopo functions on. I didn’t think it was anymore then a party game but lo and behold. Wish I had thought of it.

Jon Hughes Says:
October 6th, 2008 at 10:02 am

Swoopo feels like a complete rip off, their pricing and costs are hidden deep in the help section, they send automated responses and do not get back to you, the whole set up is gambling with very little chance of winning. You can easily end up paying more than retail for things and after spending all your money “bidding” you still have to buy the item and get it shipped.

Telebid & Swoopo – Avoid like the plague

Tommy Says:
October 6th, 2008 at 11:25 am

Wow, Amazing Idea, I just think to myself, I wish I came up with a idea like this, It is a major scam but the things that get to me are these type of auctions? http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/300-freebids-voucher/106098.html 300 bids cost £150 so why is it still going on, some people are crazy.

Buyitonline Says:
October 6th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Forget it, there’s plenty of etailers that can sell stuff way cheaper like Ebuyer, Dabs, Amazon. I’d say download PriceGoblin and check who’s selling cheapest, you’ll be amazed at the price differences on the web, sometimes the best deals aren’t who you’d expect.

Failing that, if you’ve access to the trade/distribution route, check out people like Computer 2000, Ingram Micro, Midwich, Northamber…. list goes on

Mike Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 10:02 am

This looked too good to be true and your reports has saved me further investidatiom – and probably money.

I’ll stick to ebay!!

Krystyl Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 6:01 am

I checked this out, and for kicks i bought $20 worth of bids. The crappy thing is that each time you place a bid, they charge you $1. And like you said, everytime someone places a bid, the time goes up 20 seconds. So an auction that says has 20 seconds left on the time, can go on for hours upon hours. Its really a waste 🙁

Brian Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 9:21 am

LOTTERY = “consideration, prize, plus chance” and can only be run by State agencies:

+ Consideration = $1.00
+ Prize = ‘HD LCD TV’
+ Chance = 1-in-10 chance of winning the Prize (non-guaranteed win)

RAFFLES can be operated by Non-profit organizations [501(c)3], but not businesses or individuals.

SWEEPSTAKES (Also Called Games of Chance):

GAMES OF SKILL: Games in which skill predominates over chance in determining who is eligible for a prize. There is no predominant skill required in Swoopo bidding, so it falls on the Chance side of the rule.

Brian Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 9:22 am

SWEEPSTAKES (Also Called Games of Chance): “no purchase necessary”
SWOOPO: “purchase necessary”

tom Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

its a nice idea though, but obviously a bit darksided.

also I wonder if they have people on their staff bidding to ensure great profit

itsliz89 Says:
October 11th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

So that’s how Swoopo works. I too clicked on an ad while on Google because it sounded interesting. When I saw that the winning bid for an ipod was $28.00, I became skeptical and searched for any information online about the site. So it tunes out that Swoopo is basically like a gambling site and bidding site in one.

Thomsky Says:
October 12th, 2008 at 3:19 am

Yeah, apart from all the stuff about buying bids which are not refundable and in no way u can be sure of winning the auction there is one thing which just keep coming to my mind- bid buttler. But not just for a bidder but for Swoopo. If they have their own bid buttler which oversees all auctions and notices that an item is not moving well i.e. lets say, is just to be sold but the money they had earned from bids are not enough (to the treshhold they can set at their own whims) then the Swoopo-buttler places its own bid in orde to keep the auction alive i.e. make other bidder(s) to place more bids. If it however fails to continue the auction (no other bidder) then Swoopo loses nothing- buttler was theirs, so the money comes back to them and the item comes back to them as well and it will be put on auction again and again. Have u noticed that there is very limited number of items? What if actually THERE IS NO ITEM to sell? Just a bait, hook to make people bid? And once Swoopo decieds that they raked enough they finish the auction and place the virtual item again on auction starting again from GBP 0 and wait for new bidders to start paying for this virtual item again? So, the bottom line is: MAY BE THEY DONT ACTUALLY SELL ANYTHING ELSE BUT BID?? Notice that they already sell money for “auction” price being a fraction of the “money” value?

Mike Kilpatrick Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 10:03 am

kcbidz is much better than swoopo. You will never pay more than retail price even you spend $50 in an auction.

for example: KCBIDZ auction an iPhone 3G unlocked for $7.68.
You need to bid between $0.01 and $7.68.
Let’s say that you invested $50 in this auction and
your winning bid is $1.23. You pay for an iPhone 3G
unlocked $50 + $1.23 = $51.23.

Shipping is Free!

So for a retail price of $699.99 you pay $51.23.

YOU SAVE $648.76 that means 93%.

What are you waiting for go and try lowest unique bid auction at http://www.kcbidz.com

Brian Says:
October 13th, 2008 at 10:25 pm

Based on the other “Lowest Unique Bid” sites (e.g. BestOfferAuctions, BelieveItOrNotAuctions) that have come and gone in the last year due to court orders, I give kcbidz.com until January [maybe February] before a cease-and-desist order will arrive from the Kansas City’s AG’s Office.

Until then… may the site owner enjoy the rake, and the ‘bidders’ enjoy the won items!

Brian

Brian Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 12:12 am

PS. You could win a number of these items for no charge (gratis), including a 42 inch LCD TV, a Corvette, et cetera via the $100 Million Marketing Challenge at http://www.dotcomsecrets.com/blogs/brjohn1 which teaches you to build traffic to your own site or online business via VIDEO tutorials.

Adam Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 12:57 am

Just google for: swoopo lottery
http://www.google.com/search?q=swoopo+lottery
-> 2000 search results

or: swoopo scam
http://www.google.com/search?q=swoopo+scam
-> 3600 search results

I was a bidder for 6 month. My recommendation: Stay far away.

Brian Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 10:25 am

Sorry, the link to the Contest portion of the site mentioned above is supposed to be: http://contest.dotcomsecrets.com/brjohn1

AJ Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 6:56 pm

Check this auction out, this guy won $1000 cash and paid up $2393 for it.

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/104860.html

And Swoopo made $6126 – $1000 = $5126 on this auction. This is what Swoopo does to you. I spent $20 trying it out and I’m done with it.

Stay far away!

Uifz Says:
October 15th, 2008 at 8:02 pm

This site will never become bigger than it is now simply for the reason that if this website is making it a requirement for buyers to “pay to bid”, most buyers will agree that they can resort to other websites, where it is free to bid. Therefore if no buyers are placing any bids because they have to “pay to bid”, that means not many users will bid which results to very little bids being place, which then leaves the seller with a question in mind most likely refusing to sell their items at an extremely low prices since no bids were placed. See, it’s a simple chain reaction.

Sam Says:
October 16th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Thanks everyone – I agree Scoopo is a rip-off

Jerry Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 7:48 am

Swoopo is a genius site. Go on and see how much some things are selling for [especially “fixed price” auctions.] Then divide that by .15. In some cases you will find swoopo making a $10,000 USD profit from an item costing a tenth of that value.

In any one is actually duped by this site i feel sorry for you, after 5 minutes of reading i realized how much of a gamble it is. I don’t think it is a scam at all i think the terms and conditions are layed out so that even a five year old could understand the. If you choose to roll the dice then that’s your call.

gazj Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 9:41 am

I don’t see the problem at all with this site, the total bid amount, isn’t what you have put in, but the accumulative amount that everyone has bid, and so what if they make loads of the site?
Thats business, and how they can afford to let stuff go at crazy cheap prices

Darin Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

Their scam isn’t so obvious with the price of the product slowly rising. Imagine if they let the product go for free!

You would never have to pay anything for the product – just be the last bidder.

You could auction a car. Bidders would continue bidding and bidding – for years. As bidders run out of money, new dupes replace them. The auction is perpetually 20 seconds away from closing.

I could set up a website with a single item like this – just pour the money I make off bids back into Adwords and create a business for myself that would never end… who wouldn’t spend a $1 bid for the chance of getting a car?!

MUAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Darin Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

Just looked at kcbidz… same scam… perhaps you lose less money in the short term. Even if swoopo refunded some of your bid money it would still be the same scam – you just lose money more slowly.

How long before someone sues swoopo? Don’t we have a case??

Has anyone else received the chain letter where you send a dollar to the six people whose names are at the bottom, then you copy your name in and send that out to millions of people, who would then send a dollar to you? In the letter it was stated that the only way to make it legal was to have you purchase something. So your 6 bucks actually got you a book of addresses or something.

Swoopo doesn’t give you anything. There’s no way of guaranteeing you’ll ever get anything either.

Can someone please post some information on how to get this site legally taken down?

Darin Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

We’re in an economic crisis. We need to get rid of parasites and scammers. Concentrating money into the hands of people providing a useless, costly service isn’t going to help anybody.

Clive Says:
October 17th, 2008 at 8:08 pm

Twice I decided to go for it at all costs and it would not accept my bid at the last minute costing me the purchase for a similar item to sell for peanuts seconds after.

Alto Says:
October 18th, 2008 at 4:34 pm

I’ve noticed just by watching some of the auctions that the time remaining on the auction changes as bids are placed. (Like every time a bid is placed more time is added to the clock) But how they add time is confusing. Sometimes its 10 seconds. Other times it’s 12 minuets.

Ra Says:
October 19th, 2008 at 7:13 pm

I spotted the site and got my heart racing. But something too good to be true, it’s normally is. I saw an auction ended with $20 plus shipping for a one grand LCD. I was hooked and trying to make sense of this. After reading the help section I understood the concept. However, one thing lingered in my mind. What if the auctions were fixed. Swoopo would have a small army of bidders with bidbutlers do the dirty work. If any auction is performing less than expected such as low number of bid. One of the soldiers will come in and place the bid until the number of bids has reached for profit. Who would know. I don’t trust this site. There was one bidder with a nick name ‘Easymoney’ and some numbers at the end. Then I looked at the history of winners. They tend to have names with numbers at the end.

This is pure gambling “The house always wins”
The site should be shut down.

RC Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 9:45 am

I just caught the site and wasn’t quite sure it was passing the sniff test. Of course you add up the numbers in your head. Say a laptop cost them $1000 and the bidding started at 15 cents and goes for $300.15 (for the sake of rounding). The amount spent on bidding by all bidders was $2000. So the revenue from the bids plus the selling price totals $2300.15. Subtract out the cost of the laptop and you have a profit of $1300.15. Take out $300 for overhead, and you’re still at $1000 profit from one item. I doubt they carry any inventory. They probably drop ship from a wholesaler of some sort so I imagine their overhead is low.

It would be interesting to see the winner’s total expenditure. # of bids + selling price + shipping to see how much of deal someone is getting. Also take into account how many auctions they’ve lost. Lose an auction they placed 50 bids on and add that $50 to the amount they spent on something they won.

Two things that scream scam though, and they’ve been mentioned above.

1. Swoopo shills bidding on items to drive up the price and profit. There are no “sellers”. They are the seller for everything. And there’s no one to police their actions if they chose to be devious and bid up slow moving items or just any item to maximize their profit.

2. Who’s to say they even have product. Maybe their inside bidders win the auction so they don’t have to deliver on anything. The real bidders just think they lost and are none the wiser.

Without anyone policing their actions, there is no way anyone should take a chance on spending money on the site.

Also, they mention that when bids are placed in the waning moments the timer gets put up to 20 seconds again. But from watching the timers, they are extremely random. The timers get reset to a heck of a lot more than 20 seconds. If it truly was 20 seconds after every bid there would be many auctions ending quicker as people thought out whether it was worth it to bid again or not, and the auction would ultimately end in a more timely fashion. So their wording of this rule is just a lie.

Just too many variables against the bidder that say scam.

RC Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 10:03 am

also…the auctions for the money, say the $1000 auction. The person didn’t pay $917 and change for a $1000. They paid the cost of all their bids and the delivery charge if there is any. So even if you made 500 bids you still won $500.

Here’s the definition of a 100% off auction from their site, and notice they leave the part out about you just paying the cost of your bids:

Where an auction is marked “100% off”, the winning bidder does not have to pay the final price. That’s right: the price is zero! You just need to pay the delivery charges.

TerryDan Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 10:15 am

Thanks for all the information. After reading many of the posts, I decided not to try the website. As I started to close it, something caught my eye; an “auction” for “300 FreeBids”. Bidding was just below $300 & I was curious where it would end. I was stunned as I watched bids pour in so I thought I’d do a little research.

This is not a scientific examination but just a peek at one item.
I googled the site for “Cheap 3000 Freebids Auction” and found 79.
I considered the $300 as the cost of the item and subtracted that from the total generated by bids.
They sold for $2.85 to $764.55.
The $764.55 bid netted Swoopo $4,797.00!
28 auctions resulted in a “loss” for Swoopo.

The Bottom Line:
This concept is brilliant, ruthless, and probably immoral.
Legitimate auctions do not require bidders to pay for bids on items they do not win.
The 79 auctions I looked at netted Swoopo $69,252.00!
If you like auctions, go to a legitimate web site and enjoy the thrill of placing a winning bid.
If you like to gamble; go to a casino.

Cheryl Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

You have to look at it like going to Vegas. If you are completely okay with losing every dollar put in, then go for it. If not, stay away. Far, far away! They do call it Entertainment Shopping for a reason!

Brian Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

Here’s a thought…
What if all of the winners are actually log-ins created by swoopo. Then they are raking in all of the dough from poor hopefuls while not paying out anything!
Great scam! Where can I create one?

juan Says:
October 21st, 2008 at 10:14 pm

I saw something really FISHY on this site. I found this site searching for low price TVs on google, i wasn’t sure about how the biddin worked. I stayed on the site and was looking at TV and some people were biding at it. It came to up to $490 at 0:10 seconds and then something strage happened! Time went up like for hours! now thats cheating. Even if i have subscribed i wont buy anything from the site yet………

Dane Says:
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:48 am

I won this auction (http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-playstation-3-80-gb/108274.htm)wining cost 18.00. I paid 20.00 to get 30 bids and recieved a 15.00 rebate on item cost from swoopo. So…

18.00 Item Cost
18.00-15.00= 3.00 After rebate
3.00+12.80= 15.80 After Shipping
20.00+15.80=35.80 Total cost spent for 399.00 PS3

So in this case i made out and would like to thank all the others who bid to make it possible. 18.00/.15=120 bids. 120*1.00= $120.00 + 35.80 i spend= $155.80 so this is one case where swoopo didnt make out but there still not far behind at all plent of profits to be made on other auctions. I think people loose site of the idea of the site its to keep the bids low so it doesnt get rediculous but people get bid crazy and next thing you know they’ve spent more than an items worth.

ken Says:
October 24th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

hello everybody.i think you are missing the point.when you bid on an item say a t.v.the auction runs in each country but only one t.v. is sold.all the bidding in each one is totaled against one t,v……not bad for swoopo do you think.

Cleopatra Says:
October 26th, 2008 at 9:19 pm

Check http://www.kcbidz.com! kcbidz dot com
it is the best website if you want the most for your money. You will never pay more than a product worth like in swoopo case!

http://www.kcbidz.com auction a Chevy Malibu for $49.99.
Your bid must be between $0.01 and $49.99. Make the math: for example you spend $500 and your winning bid is $12.23. Your total price is $512.23 for a brand new car that cost $30.000. That is a really deal!

Best unique bid auction website : http://www.kcbidz.com

Michael Kaplan Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 8:50 am

Absolute and undoubted scam!
The mere fact, that they show that somebody is bidding much more money for the bidding voucher, than the actual price of this voucher, says that their scamming software has a serious bug in it:
300 FreeBids Voucher – bid $330.30 (instead of $300.00) Elliott24

Joe Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 11:47 am

OMG How come i did not thhink of this scam- Think about it right?

If a laptop cost $1000 to buy – think of the profit.

You get 100 people bidding on 1 (item the laptop) average person (desperate for a good deal)spends 100 bids at $1 per bid = $100, $100×100 people = $10,000 – $1,000 for the laptop, they have made $9,000 profit selling a laptop.

Even say 50,000 registered users each user bid and 50% of registered users bid once on that dang laptop they profitted $24,000.

I REFUSE TO PARTICPATE IN THAT AND WOULD ENCOURAGE THE SAME. —

We do not know if they have bots – hosting the bids to get more of your $1 a bid.

SwoopoScam Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

Tell everyone to stay away from Swoop.com unless they’re willing to gamble.

There is only one guaranteed winner (Swoopo) and a whole lot of people
losing money at $1/bid everything they try to grab something for cheap.

Swoopo also operated illegally in several states without proper commerce permits. Also, once to buy your bids, there is no way get your money back
for unused bids. It’s very much like gambling and not an auction. In no auction to you have pay every time you submit a bid. You only pay when you are the highest bidder. With Swoopo, you pay to bid and you pay again to buy.

STAY AWAY!

Jose Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 11:15 am

well 1st of all i dont know where u guys got the convertion 1 bid = 1 U$ but thats wrong, if u go to the website the packages are:

750 bids = 500U$
350 bids = 200U$

and i dont remember the rest but all i know is that is 0.68 US cents per bid, im not trying to defend the site but theres gotta be something because they have user constantly bidding unless they r fake shell accounts, but if not u might be able to get good deals out of it…anyways im going to keep an eye on the website and find out more

Swoopo Scam Says:
October 29th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

Jose,

750 bids = $500USD
350 bids = $200USD

What about lower denominations? If someone wanted to buy less than
350 bids?

This is taken directly from their help pages…

How much does a bid cost?

Each bid costs just US$1, and are available in “BidPacks” of 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 bids.

…maybe all this bad talk is making them a little less greedy. I don’t
know but that was what it cost.

Vladi Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 7:30 am

Hi!
We are ready to sell out the ready system, such as telebid. Ready to discuss the price. Take a look http://www.uspel.net

Mike Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

Wow this site is a huge rip off! They’ve got things on there for a 100% off auction. This means you only pay for your bids. Meaning if you make a bid at 15 cents it costs you a dollar. Here’s one example, they have a 100% off auction for 300 free bids. The current price is $944.85 now if you divide that by .15 you’ll get the number of bids people have made on it 6299… In other words they’ve just made $6,299 (atleast) for something they value at $300. This actually doesn’t cost them anything since they have to pay no one money for it. It seems the only way this site is worth using is if you wait until the last minute (because all auctions list a hard end time) and bid on something, even then it’s a gamble.

Unknown Says:
October 30th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

So its a scam because you have to buy bids? So does this mean gambling such as poker, black jack are all scams 2? Its basically the same thing. You lose your bids you placed, big deal, its the same way with poker and other gambling games.

Also why do people care if swoopo makes $$$ then the product? I think thats a very good idea, also you forget that members are not posting up auctions, Swoopo is, reason for them costing per bid is because they take that money to buy more product.

I’m not gonna complain about it, Why? If I got a brand new 40inch TV for about $20, I will be happy period, If I win more stuff from Swoopo, I can take that and sell that, making a profit.

You have to be smart, bid at the right time, and don’t be afraid to gamble.

sameer Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:56 am

i think you need to be smart bidder to get something out of the bid else it makes no difference atall

Russell Says:
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 am

Take the guy who won the $1000 cash auction. He placed 2393 bids, and if 1 bid = $1 then he spent $2393 to get $1000. Obviously he lost money on that deal. Look at all ended auctions and look for 0% savings. Another one I came across was a $400 PS3 that someone paid $421 for plus 504 bids so they paid over $900 for the PS3 (count all the other bids and i think swoop made somewhere around $2800 on that auction). It’s obvious these people dont understand what they are doing. Also notice that most of these “winners” that are losing great deals of money are using the bid butler. No one in their right mind would spend more than 1000 bids for 1000 dollars but this guy, using bidbutler, ended up spending more than double for what it’s worth. Seems too easy for manipulation by swoop

the count Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:59 am

SCAM!

this is pure BS, right now i am watching people bidding over 1350 for a sony vaio fw170 that you can get from newegg for 1195!!!

folks, how about researching a purchase before getting caught up in an auction?!

people are idiots, and swoopo is capitalizing on it!

CLEODIA Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:07 am

http://www.kcbidz.com – More rewards for unique bid auctions ! – More credits and free bids !!

Kcbidz.com decided to give more rewards for every dollar spend with us.

Here is a list of how our members will be rewarded when they buy credits:

$10 – 3% bonus account credits + 10 free bids

$20 – 5% bonus account credits + 20 free bids

$50 – 6% bonus account credits + 50 free bids

$100 – 7% bonus account credits + 100 free bids

$250 – 8% bonus account credits + 250 free bids

$500 – 10% bonus account credits + 500 free bids

Visit http://www.kcbidz.com !

POMPADURYA Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:10 am

Better than swoopo- http://www.kcbidz.com

Here is a list of how kcbidz members will be rewarded when they buy credits:

$10 – 3% bonus account credits + 10 free bids

$20 – 5% bonus account credits + 20 free bids

$50 – 6% bonus account credits + 50 free bids

$100 – 7% bonus account credits + 100 free bids

$250 – 8% bonus account credits + 250 free bids

$500 – 10% bonus account credits + 500 free bids

http://www.kcbidz.com is not a scam and do not sell overprice products like swoopo

Matthew Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:46 pm

Look at http://www.yellmann.com. I think it is kind of similar service to Swoopo.com.

J Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:34 pm

This site should be illegal. They don’t list the current # of bids on an item and they could have insiders bidding on items, thereby continually jacking up the price of items and resetting the timer just to keep other people bidding (wasting $1 per bid) on products.
Who is to determine the company is not doing such illegal activities?
I seriously think the site should be investigated.

NotoriousR.O.B. Says:
November 6th, 2008 at 7:23 am

well in a way this site is pretty much the same as ebay. you buy the product at a cheaper price and they charge you 1 dollar per bid.. how many times have you purchased something off of ebay and the person charges you 10 bucks for shipping then you get the package look at the shipping label and it says .50 cents either way your getting a good deal. i’m just mad that i didnt think of it first. i’ll buy a gps for 30 bucks when its 400 in the store anyday and even if it takes me 30 bids thats still only 60 bucks so i’m saving a ton of money

Joe Says:
November 8th, 2008 at 9:26 pm

Actually you are all wrong!

There is a system is stacked against you yes. But there is a huge loophole no one saw. If you do this then you can bid for free and get the actual deal price. Here is what you do:

Do a small “Buy In” for like $20 to get a discounted 30 Bids

Start bidding on free bids low auctions ones like 50 free bids, this will cost you your 30 bids but you now have 50

Keep on doing it, move up to the 300 free bid auctions and bid for free the rest of the time.

Dont forget it still stands for real money you have to pay when you win so dont go crazy just cause you have 30000 free bids.

PS:You might still have to pay for the free bids in which you just paid 20 for the chance to pay 20. Either way the web site is down now either to people exploiting the loophole or by customer complaints, either way it was a short lived scam.

jane Says:
November 11th, 2008 at 12:52 am

Does anyone know http://www.yellmann.com???

Zach Says:
November 12th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

Kudos to the people that thought this up. They are making a killing. The real question though: Is it real? Has anyone actually won? I have a feeling that they can just set up bots to outbid actual people and people will never win. If this isn’t the case, then I would say there could always be a chance to buy 20 bids and nail a low auction and get real lucky. Odds of that happening have got to be pretty high though. Yes they are making a killing per auction like you all said. But in the bidder’s eyes they have only paid 20 dollars to bid on the 300 free bids. The auction itself might be pretty high but unless someone is extremely stupid they wouldn’t pay more than 300 dollars to win that auction.

ghvz1 Says:
November 13th, 2008 at 12:12 pm

All I can say is I wish I had thought of this! I watched a Swoopo.com auction last week for a $400 GPS. It was a penny auction (meaning for each bid, the price goes up $0.01). The winning bid was around $28, so Swoopo made $2,400 ($2,800 in bids less $400 value of the unit). DANG!

One thing that bothers me is the BidButler. Just now, I was watching a Nintendo Wii being auctioned. All at once, about 50 BidButlers hit. There was no winding down of the clock, no chance for SingleBids to get in. Seems a ripoff to me to use BidButler.

Greg Says:
November 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am

Jees! I just won an iPhone, scam??? If you don’t believe check out yellmann.com =)

Joanne Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am

I won a Nintendo Wii on Swoopo 20 days ago and there is still no sight of it. I paid £107 but it took them 6 days to confirm that they’d received my payment. Despite chasing a couple of times the item hasn’t arrived and Swoopo have said that they are having supply problems. For the money they received in bids (each bid costs 50p and the price increases in increments of 7p so to get to £107 they earnt around £700 on this auction) they could go and buy one in any retail shop and mail it to me.

It’s a complete con, you have to spend a fortune to win an item and then when you do win you have to battle to get it !

David Says:
November 16th, 2008 at 12:19 pm

Hey guys,

I just published an ebook on my website with a ton of reasearch in it. Let me know if you have any questions at support@beatswoopo.com or beatswoopo@gmail.com .

Check out the site and let me know if I can help in any way. Happy bidding!

-Dave

Mark Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 6:22 am

Hey!

Everybody!

They might not make all that money that you think!

I’ve been thinking about this for a long time now. Some of the auctions are for more “bids”. So, just because someone uses 1324 “bids” to win an item doesn’t mean they spent $1324 dollars purchasing those bids. Bid packs go on sale, people can be rewarded with free bids.

What this means is that swoopo is helping experienced users beat the competition. If I have 2000 bids, of which I’ve only payed $300, of course I’m going to win an auction, because I don’t mind using all my $2000 *worth* of bids on an expensive laptop.

It’s like getting comp’ed in a casino, but some how worse. You’re odds of winning black jack don’t increase if the casino gave you a free hotel room.

Kingkong24 Says:
November 17th, 2008 at 6:47 pm

The site makes money indeed, but it also offers a chance at incredible delas for the lucky winner.

Please investigate a little further before posting.
Example below, yes 2300 people bid on the $1000 cash, and the top “bid” was over $900 however the AUCTION was for 100% off.

What this means is the winning bidder does not pay the $900, they only paid whatever total bis were submitted.

So yes Swoopo made a great deal just by collecting $1 bids, but the winner certainly made out as well

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/-1-000-cash-/104860.html

Zach Says:
November 18th, 2008 at 6:02 am

I’m a little confused at the people saying that they want their bids refunded. The fact that you don’t get your bids refunded is the exact -reason- why the site is profitable in the first place and allows one lucky person to win items cheaply. If you don’t like the luck element, use ebay. Considering that you have to purchase bids up front, I can’t possibly imagine someone getting confused over the fact that they are already invested in the auction when they begin one and then getting upset later when their bids aren’t refunded.

I think this is a great idea TBH. It’s not for everyone, it’s definitely not for those who are opposed to taking risks. But if you’re the type of person that buys scratch offs or lottos, it will be right up your alley.

For the record, I don’t believe it is as obvious as some people are making it out to be as to whether or not Swoopo can be called Gambling. I believe it would make an interesting court case, and no doubt both sides’ lawyers would be making compelling arguments.

Elliot Says:
November 19th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

I for one love this site… I haven’t bid on anything; but you have to admire the thought that went into this site. I am amazed at how much money they make on one item, and I applaud them for it. And it’s not all bad! The other day when I was watching it, I saw a guy bid twice (so he spent $2) on a Nintendo Wii. His final bid brought the item to $5 and change. So he spent a total of $7+ change on a $250 item!!! It was amazing! I love this site and I wish the best of luck to the owners and the future bidders.

arana Says:
November 20th, 2008 at 8:44 am

all looks good to me (as a betting site) except for one thing that to me smells real fishy,
there are many auctions won by “people” that end up paying a lot more than what a product is worth, like placing 80 automatic bids on a product that is worth 36 dlls, this is when i get suspicious of the site, this are probably bots from swoopo that win their own bids in order not to give you anything and instead keep people bidding as long as they can,
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/star-wars-clone-trooper-voice-changer-he/121144.html

that guy ended up paying more than 90 dlls (71 bids)+26 dlls final price
i highly doubt any human could be that stupid, even when setting up your bidbutler.

this looks more like a real scam

Robyn Says:
November 20th, 2008 at 11:29 am

Does anyone know Swoopo’s telephone number?

Darin Says:
November 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm

I don’t understand why some people think you can use “strategy” and be a “smart” bidder.

For those of you who already know the “strategy”, I’m going to ruin it all for you now by posting the winning Swoopo strategy right here:

Bid last. Never bid on an auction until it’s just about to close.

There you go! The playing field is now level.

Sammy Ashouri Says:
November 23rd, 2008 at 4:20 am

Saw this site and thought it was just a complete joke… they are probably making a TON of money just by people paying to bid on the items…

Can’t hate them for uniqueness though!

D. Rindahl Says:
November 23rd, 2008 at 5:46 am

I found the site by accident. Checked it out, and purchased the $20.00 bid pack. No problem so far, as my bids account was showing 30 bids.(ten free for a first time user). I entered auction# 119233 for a PS3 and watched the bidding for a bit. Decided to set my bid butler for a minimum of $99.00 to a max of $101.25 in three bids.
However, here is where the problem came in. The auction was closed at $78.15 with another bidder, and my deducted three bids were added back to my bid account.
I have sent an e-mail to customer service, and expect the usual glitch in the program reply.
If the answer is not satisfactory, I will contact my state’s Dept. of Consumer affairs with a complaint.
I figured that the company model itself is a definite moneymaker though. With the company making $+ – 6.50 for every dollar bid in an auction.

Gary in NYC Says:
November 23rd, 2008 at 8:34 am

Swoopo is a fool’s game, through and through.

The winner may find themselves at a better closing price than retail, but they must also add in the $1 per bid tally as well. In this case, the price easily shoot above retail. And the REAL kicker? EVERYONE ELSE who bid paid Swoopo for each bid, and in the end got nothing. NOTHING!

So in essence, if you were a participant on a handful of auctions and dumped in $20 for the 20 bids that you placed but won nothing, you just gave Swoopo $20 for nothing.

11 million euros in profit is simply the “idiot toll”. There are plenty of idiots in the world willing to participate in this and “donate” funds to Swoopo until they realize it is a sham. So guess what? The Swoopo people have a great scam going. Masquerade as an auction website and sucker a bunch of people until everyone wakes up and shuns you. Fine! Because in the end, the Swoopo people walk away with millions. Clever, clever. I just hope that people catch on quicker so they get put out of business before they really make way too much.

Chris Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Swoopo is a total gambling scheme. You will lose more money than you save in the end. Each auction can cost bidders hundreds or more in losses. If you do not win the auction you are out your money!

I would stick to something like http://www.CheapJerks.com where you can find great prices on everything without having to risk losing money. Even http://www.eBay.com is a better bet!

STAY AWAY FROM SWOOPO

Henry W Says:
November 24th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

I just visited at http://www.yellmann.com. Have anyone else been there? There is a registration contest on-going where you can win even £10,000 (if you happen to be the 200,000th registrant). I also bought some bids, but it seems to be very difficult to win anything.

cece Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

Well, I just discovered swoopo yesterday and saw a Samsung Netbook that I wanted and joined in without doing much research. I bought 30 bids at first ($20)… blew through those pretty quickly… then bought 75 more ($50)… used the bidbutler… this was a pretty highly sought after item.

BB is only way to go… I actually set it up twice (per their BB tips) to sus out who else was bidbutlering. It was frustrating to keep having the clock reset… and at first with some heavy bidbutlering clock went up to 15 minutes or so a couple of times… this is probably the part I like least about swoopo.

And just as I had purchased 75 more bids and gone back to the auction… I guess I outlasted everyone (I had a really high bidbutler number cus I really wanted the netbook and was determined to get it)… cus suddenly the clock did count down all the way, with mine being the high bid! And suddenly I won.

Total cost to me (The Samsung NC10 Netbook retails for $499):
$70 in bids
$104.85 final cost
$10.00 credit for first auction win
$10.00 shipping
= $184.95

So it took me about an hour and a half, but was worth it and kind of fun at the same time. I thought of it as going to the casino and had an upper limit of what I wanted to pay.

However, that said, I am not a gambler (whenever I win at the casino… I then leave!) so won’t be doing this much, but had been scouring the net all day looking for good netbook deals for a trip to London/Paris… and this definitely fit the bill.

I still have 90 or so bids, so may play around with a small ticket item that I really want.

Also… big note… this was a “beginner’s auction” which one can only win once… so I’m sure the comp will be stiffer with more experienced bidders with their many free bids… so be warned about that.

Yes, it’s true, the site does make them lots o’ money on some items… but it can also be a good way to get a great deal if you’re determined to win and spend some time thinking it through… keep in mind that the total of your bid buys and your upper limit in bidbutler should still equal a good deal!

jen Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

I just sign up for swoopo , found the sites after searching for a nintendo ds for christmas gift to my daughter. I checked out the site because it’s claiming someone just won a ds for $28 brand spanking new. After signing up I have to buy bid packs just to bid on these limited items for newbies like me….LOL I am not that crazy, with todays economy I am holding on to my money very tightly

Jaxster Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 10:20 am

It’s really funny how stupid people are. You can win stuff cheap if you quit trying to outbid everybody early in the game. So someone outbids you and there is still 2 hours left till it ends. You don’t keep bidding over and over wasting your bids. Some people I guess just like seeing there name as the highest bidder but all that does is waste their money when all they have to do is wait till the time gets down to almost zero then start to bid. You save a lot doing it this way. I watch this site all the time and people do win stuff really cheap. I sometimes let people keep throwing away all their bids till they run out and eventually your competing against less people and have a better chance in the final few seconds. I have seen people win digital cameras for 2 bucks but if they would of waited to bid until the end they would of only spent a few more dollars than that instead of throwing their money away throughout the auction time overbidding someone else just as stupid as himself. Do you get what I’m saying. PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS WHEN IT COMES TO BIDDING ON AUCTIONS!!

Mikz Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 10:36 am

I have no problem with anyone making money from a good idea. I do have a problem if it picks on the vunerable or stupid people who bid and even try to outbid each other when 10 hrs or more is still on the clock. I feel advice should be given when people buy bids and make them aware.

The biggest provable scam is the countdown clock when close to the end of the auction, you can bid last couple of seconds all through the auction,as I did, i was after a laptop and was willing to go up to half it’s price inc bids. It got to the time when, if you watch the play, bidders dwindle or come and go, then you have your die hards and bidbutlers, if you try and bid, last 3 secs in my case, the countdown will freeze and, whooops surprise surprise you lost the auction, I lost £250 on that occasion.
I has happend to me on 8 other occasions, when I complain, I am told it is internet lag and there is nothing they can do about it, but the thing is, bidbutlers, which they like you to use because they take your money in seconds, also in my case bidbutlers won the item simply because bidbutlers can place a bid last second but if you single bid you have to bid 4th second at latest or lose it.
I like to bid last seconds because it draws out the single bidders also waiting for last second bids, then you start to learn your competition.

There are probably 100s of single bidders losing auctions in this manner and just accept it.
If you want to complain send to NIGEL WHITEOAK who is the top man for uk. If you google him you will find his profile and address.

Good Luck

joe average Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

This site is a brilliant idea. I just read a bunch of comments and had to quit because all these people are whining about the same thing, how much money Swoopo is making. So freakin’ what? If an item auctioned retails for $500, smart people will bid until it gets to $500. But smart people will not bid more than a couple dollars per auction. If 500 people each bid $1 dollar, they’re only risking one stinking dollar on a $500 product. So, those same 500 people, could risk a second dollar, and the bid price could escalate to $1000. So what? Yeah, they make a buttload of money, but each person’s risk is still only $2. Or, could be only $1 each if 1000 people are bidding.

My point is, the risk that people take is still within their power. You don’t have to risk a lot of money to win, you have to be lucky enough to bid your dollar at the point where no one else cares to bid. It really depends on the traffic. If 10000 people are bidding on one item, the price can go to $10000 and people are still only each risking a measly $1 for what could be an item of really, any price. The plan is brilliant. The more traffic, the less per person risk, the higher the profit.

Brilliant idea, i wonder when they’ll regulate it – when they see the money coming in.

Oh, its not a good place to win anything, except by luck that you’ll risk your dollar at the right time. The price of the item is irrelevant, you don’t have to pay that amount when you win. Anyone could win by spending $1 at any time. Just like the lottery. Gasp!

joe average Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

no wait, after i read that i realized i went off track. you do pay the last price, that’s your buy price, in addition to the money you spend bidding. duh. so that just means the bidding slows significantly once it reaches the point that you could buy it on fleabay.

yeah, obviously the people who keep bidding to have their name on the screen as top bidder are throwing their money away. and yeah, if there are bid bots on an item, the person who invests the most is going to win because the bots will simply lead to the highest bidder.

it is a big money maker, but everyone has a chance to win something at minimal investment as long as they only bid once or twice on an item and luck out to be the last bidder.

Mikz Says:
November 27th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

Joe average “Ditto” Has a lot to say and, I agree with every word except the one or two dollers now and again in case I get lucky. I think you would be very LUCKY indeed to win. I have seen the same items go at vastly different prices, one item may have had only say 500 bids and the other with a couple of idiots with more money than sense, or vunerable people who dont fully understand society today-survive or die-in the world of business, manicly outbidding each other at what point do you place your two bids?.

As I was saying earlier the only problem I can see with swoopo is at the auction end…..At the closing stages of the auction “if you have sat up for 26hrs” you can start to sort serious bidders from the LUCK single bidders.

I shall just try to explain the senario of my last try at winning see if you think scam or just bad luck????

I found swoopo a couple of mounths ago, started watching how it all worked, as you do, I then felt confident enough to buy some bids, So off to find a bargain, I had a few bids here and there trying the LUCK bids but no good, I’m just not lucky. Anyway I started to place some serious bids on items I thought I had a chance at winning, first item I go for, lets say 300 free bids, I watched it closely ,only bidding when I thought it was right or near the time of ending, this is when you can use bid butler but if somebody with same frame of mind uses a butler then in seconds all your bids are gone, as I was saying I’m not lucky so I lost that one, but you start to learn, so my strategy was to do last second bids, by doing this you can get all the other last second bidders to show themselves, that way you can get an idea of the LUCK bidders waiting to pounce. I lost a few auctions at the post ( 9 altogether) but I did’nt fully grasp what was happening until I went for a very nice laptop $2500 worth, so I was very serious about getting it. The first one I saw sell went for $95, I thought I have to go for it as a present for someone (special). To start I bid every now and again (Bear in mind I am willing to go to $1000 inc bids) after spending say $50 I realise this is going to be a long one as it was way over the previous ones £95.
The other thing I failed to mention was if I win I can have all my bids back, valid 24hrs, so there was incentive to keep going. waffling on here abit, sorry. Lets cut it short, I spent $500 + I had sat alnight and day 26hrs, there was one bid butler, he had been with us on and off and 7 determined single bidders with the odd Luck bidder, so the time is looking close now, I do my last second bid and sure enough up pop 7 other bidders, so they are still there waiting for the bid butler to dwindle his funds while he fights it out with another single bidder, The clock counts down to 5 then 4 then it freeses a bit then it’s 2, bid quick and up come 7 other bidders (same 7) so now I only bid at 3 seconds so as not to waste bids, SO I CLICK ON THE 3 SEC MARKER IT FREEZES AS IT DID WITH THE PREVIOUS 9 AUCTIONS, AND A NEW SCREEN COMES UP WITH CONGRATULATIONS WHOEVER!!!. When I complained they said a few people have complained but there is nothing they can do, it is intrnet lag. (Bollocks) 3msec not 3 seconds. I feel that is where the scam lies. I also feel that a lot of items won are not all legitemate joe public winners. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE 7 OTHER SERIOUS SINGLE BIDDERS ??? AND THE BIDDERS IN THE OTHER AUCTIONS I LOST IN EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, DID THEY ALL SUFFER INTERNET LAG ASWELL, BIG BIG COINCEDANCE.

Darren Says:
November 29th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

I got sucked in before I read up on this Sweepo and lost £25. Is there anyone regulating this site and are there any true winners out there that can substantiate that if you win an auction you actually get anything ? I feel this is a very clever scam, being run by bots so that the only winners are Sweepo themselves, Can anyone coroborate ?

jimmy Says:
November 30th, 2008 at 9:00 am

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-ps3-160-gb-uncharted-drakes-fortune/123230.html

this guy got owned by the system.

Mikz Says:
November 30th, 2008 at 9:56 am

I don’t think it is a total scam, it prays on thick people who do not know how to form a stratergy and just bid and hope. But I think you can win if it was actually realtime as they state it is. you have what they call internet lag, this freeze ( up to 3secs) in the timing alows them to choose who wins ? and who knows who that maybe.!?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!!!

see my prev post.

nikki Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 9:09 am

interesting article and i have never heard of the website.

Jason Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 11:15 am

swoopo is a racket. there is no way mathematically speaking that they aren’t making a killing selling their wares at a dollar a bid. i watched a penny auction go up to $25+ on an item that retailed 500. 2500 bids @ $1 a piece = $2500, 5 TIMES THE PRICE of the item @ retail value

Amazee Says:
December 1st, 2008 at 8:13 pm

It’s JUST like playing slot machines.
It is “possible” to win, but it’s 98% more likely that you will just LOSE until you have no cash left.. There is no guarantee that you will get anything for the money you spend on the site. Maybe you don’t mind buying Christmas presents for the few people that do win, that’s what you can tell your own kids on Christmas day when they don’t have anything.

odobo Says:
December 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 pm

ok – i have looked at this site and it isn’t going to be some thing i partake in – but all these people saying that the winner paid more than the item is worth – please use some common sense:

Worth up to: $1,199.99 – this is the retail price or what the site says it can be bought for elsewhere

Placed bids (1339): $1,339.00 – this is the total of placed bids this means it could be 1339 different people who all bid once – yes unlikely but it isn’t the total of the eventual winners bids

FreeBids (43): $0.00 – 43 people bidded for free – (new people to the site, people with offer coupons etc)

Final price: $98.00 – final price the person paid plus what ever shipping

The site specifically says that fixed price auctions the selling price is what is paid the bid price is irelevant you just need to be the last person bidding – the placed bids to 1339 is essentially the point where everyone gave up except the winner and he might have bidded once – so the laptop or whatever cost him:

50p bid if he bid once
$98.00 for the item
and his shipping cost

it is essentially a gamble but stop assuming people are spending shed loads of money just to win an item – you see phases through an auction where people bid against each other and then disappear as they have reached the limit of what they wanted to spend – new people come in to the auction and it carries on.

as i said not something i will be doing but please stop whinging and moaning about it, we live in a world of free choice and essentially if you dont like it go to ebay. i can guarantee that some guy is raving about it right now cause he got a sony vaio for $98 and $5 worth of bids and to him – you wont convince him that swoopo is anything but great.

rant over 🙂

Roland Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 9:01 am

I think swoopo is a big scam. Don’t try it, you will lose money, I think spending .75 cents per bid you make is a robbery. Do not do it.
You are better off buying the stuff somewhere else.

doh they got me Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 1:25 pm

They must make millions! autions that go up by the penny. they make $75.00 for every $1.00 the item bids up WOWOWOWOWOWO. I would love to buy stock in this company. an item that sells for $100.00 the make $7,500 on the bids. They probable own all the merchandise and can sell a wii for $20 because the bidds paid $1500 for that item.WOWOWOWOWO.

I will not get suckered again only bought the small package.

John W Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 2:32 pm

I think Swoopo is an absolutely brilliant business model. They have invented a new internet cash cow. It’s good for them and generally good for the winner, i.e. 50″ TV for $50. Now I think it’s an internet version of raffling, however it adds an addiction that will continue to ring in the customers and the cash for a long time to come. This isn’t your average raffle, it’s a interactive raffle with a resettable timer.

JoePa Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 4:17 pm

It IS GAMBLING. It is banned in some states that do not allow casinos, like Florida. Stick to ebid.net, and ebay.com. Glad I am in Florida, and can’t join swoopo. Don’t get swooped by those con artists. Their existence will be short-lived once someone decides to write to their governor or congress.

Ted Says:
December 4th, 2008 at 6:13 pm

If they refunded your bid, then the site wouldn’t be profitable. Who would bid on something that costs more than it’s worth, anyway? An idiot.

I’m watching bidders, RIGHT NOW, bid $567 for $300 worth of “free” bids.

These people don’t deserve to use money.

Liam Says:
December 5th, 2008 at 4:43 am

Thanks for the review on swoopo, im not sure if the bid butler info is what i agree with but still the ticketola price is far better

Brad Says:
December 7th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Here is what I’ve discovered (Thanks in part (mostly, that is) to previous comments here):

1-Swoopo IS a gambling web site. If you don’t believe in gambling; don’t even consider it.

2-Forget about Bidbutler. Wow…what a bunch of crap. The Bidbutler concept is where I seriously start to question their ethics. They sell it as a tool to help the bidder but it’s simply a way for Swoopo to ensure many more bids (income for them)
3-Don’t even pay attention to auctions that have more than 20 or so second left
4-(POSSIBLY) don’t even consider auctions where you see that people are using a Bid butler. Stick to the ‘Nail bitters’. The jury is still out on this one but I’m thinking that the Bid butler greatly reduces EVERYBODY’s chances.
5- Bid only in the last ONE or TWO seconds.
6- Remember: This IS a gambling web site! By waiting till the last two seconds your simply gambling that others have given up or that their connection will lock or…whatever and you will be lucky enough to sneak in.
7- Most of all; be sensible. Don’t bid on something that is even close to retail…you’ve lost the bargain then. And use your head; calculate the number of bids + what you will be paying (.75 cents x the number of bids you’ve placed + the current cost of the item)

As many others have said; the ethics of this company are questionable but brilliant. They make a crap load of many even on products that sell for a fraction of what some bidders pay. If that doesn’t bother you, then jump in! Or fly to Vegas and pull the slot machine handle…same difference.

Brad Says:
December 7th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

***Just wanted to clarify.***

In my last paragraph I said “As many others have said; the ethics of this company are questionable but brilliant.”

Not to be confused that I think their ethics are brilliant. I think their ethics are questionable but their idea is brilliant.

stacey Says:
December 8th, 2008 at 9:57 am

What I think it totally unfair is the fact that the time on the clock can go back up to more than 9 minutes. They say they will increase the time by 15 or 20 seconds….not true. Watch one of these ‘auctions’ they are screwing people.

Brad Says:
December 8th, 2008 at 11:28 am

*** Update: After Playing Swoopo ***

As I said above; I think that the only real (very slight) possibility of winning is by playing the Nailbighters and waiting until that last 1 or 2 seconds to bid.

I purchased their small pack of bids (20 or so bids) and gave my theory a shot. I even went as far as trying to guess a time of day when fewer people would be on-line bidding. I based this on past bid winners and the assumption that there is a separate system for the United States (i.e. I didn’t have to account for bidders in Europe). I also considered what the same item had previously sold for and did not start bidding until the bid was near that number.

I concentrated on four Nailbighters and one of them went to somebody else who managed to click ‘Bid’ with less than one second ( I clicked at one second) and I ran out of bids before the other three sold.

As many others stated, there seems to be something VERY questionable going on with the so called “lag time”. In the last 10 seconds there was almost always a lag usually because of a bid that reset the clock (I think) but sometimes it would hang at 9 seconds and then re-engage with only 2 seconds (or something similar). No matter how many times I hit the bid with 1 second somebody else squeaked in and reset the time or in one case, somebody managed to click with less than one second and win the item. Was it a Swoopo trick or a legitimate bidder…who knows? With as much money as they make I can’t imagine them taking the item back for themselves but considering their questionable ethics; who knows?

My summary: I think that Swoopo would be fun to play (similar to gambling) occasionally but the “lag issue” really takes the fun out of it. It really seems like they are controlling the bids which makes it even more of a scam than going to Vegas…it makes it a TOTAL scam.

NO MORE SWOOPO FOR ME, thank you very much. 😉

Cass Says:
December 9th, 2008 at 8:52 am

I stumbled across this site at 7am. In a haze of tiredness and boredom I was fairly impressed with the deals and decided to give it a shot with £10 worth of bids.

It is a ripoff. It is a gambling website 100%. I don’t have problem with gambling websites…what I do have a problem with is gambling websites deceivingly disguised as legitimate auction websites and not governed by the laws that surround gambling in any given location.

1. Buying your bids. I’m not sure why it didn’t hit me but that’s down right ridiculous. But fair enough, they have to make money sometime. I’d still be up for giving it a go.

2. THE KILLER. The ever increasing time limit. ’20 seconds’ means nothing. Nothing at all. It could carry on going for days at ’20 seconds’. There is no ‘ebay’ skill of diving in at the last second, because by bidding you add another 15 seconds. It’s all geared around ending…never.

I feel like a chump. But not as much as the people I watched bidding against each other for hours. And don’t even get me started on the Bid Butler. Have you ever seen a bigger scam? It just wastes your money…especially when there are two of them. They throw in all your votes against each other in one go. Lob it up to 4 minutes having spent a ton of your money and call it day. JOKE.

Jefferson Says:
December 10th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

I’ve been watching two sales for the past 30 minutes with NO end in sight. It’ll get down to 3 seconds and suddenly jump up to 10 minutes. Who has this much time on their hands to keep “playing” this silly game. I swear, it’s just like a slot machine. You keep pulling that lever, hoping the NEXT pull is the winning one. They say in Vegas, the house always wins. Looks like Swoopo is an online Vegas.

Chris Says:
December 10th, 2008 at 5:47 pm

Swoopo is an AMAZING BUSINESS PLAN. I can’t believe how much money they’re making. It really is basically gambling, but not so directly that it’s able to still run in the U.S.

The most important thing is that you can bid on more bids. This is the key to the strategy. If you can get 500 bids for the cost of 30 bids, and win, then you’re going to get a good deal.

Also, most of those I saw today, even if the guy paid for everything, got a $500 PS3 for $350, that’s still a savings. It’s just that all the other people are out $40 buck a piece, and swoopo just made $1,200 off of them. That’s fine, you agree to it when you sign up. You buy the bids before you even start, so you know how much money you’re spending, and you actually CAN’T overspend like with MOBILE PHONE CARRIERS. They’re the real scam artists.

So swoopo is a great business. Don’t be mad just because you didn’t think of it first.

usp8baller Says:
December 13th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

There is a way to beat the system. Some one could make a site so that most users could find it and post their user names. Then we could all agree not to bid on the same item, so whoever posts first get to have fewer bidders till they get an item. then its the next users turn.

dont forget me if you make a site, i want a big screen tv for like $10.

Beckie Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 10:05 am

Okay, so here’s the thing. I think it’s a brilliant idea. Unless the BBB comes in and says swoopo’s just making a killing while cheating and posting fake bids so they don’t actually have to give any items out, then good for them. I really do wish I would’ve thought of this first. I don’t think it’s unethical if they’re doing what they say they’re doing. They’ve spelled in out in the FAQ’s and in their instructions. You know what you’re getting…. but all of you are playing the victim. Suck it up. This website won’t take money from you if you don’t give it any.

As for the time jumping up to 9 minutes, if you notice (or if you actually read the rules), if you use the automatic ‘BidButler’ and someone else does too, if it’s in the last 10 seconds of an item, they’ll duke it out. You can limit how many bids you’ll let the BidButler do for you, so there is an end in sight, but if a good chunk of people are using the BidButler and they’re all duking it out for a few seconds, the time’s gonna go up. Just check the bid history.

All I’m saying is that we Americans like to blame everyone else for what happens to us. Like I said before, you can’t lose many you don’t put in. If you feel like this is a ‘scam’, then walk away, but don’t bitch about it. In my opinion, it’s totally legit. Seriously, unless the BBB comes back and says Swoopo.com is a fraud, I’m taking it at face value.

Oh and I don’t work for the company, so don’t get your panties in a twist and start a whole thread about how I’m a company whore and am just hyping it up. I feel like a lot of the people here are just a bunch of ninnies that hate to watch other people find a profitable business because they themselves are huge failures at life.

Beckie Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 10:07 am

Oh, but I do love usp8baller’s idea. Genius…. now if only people would be honest enough to let that happen. 🙂

alex Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 10:28 pm

I actually won a lcd tv with a pack of 30 bids paid 7.20 dollars plus shipping and it was on the 3rd day of usung swopoo I got a 1,200 dollar tv for around 80 bucks.

T Says:
December 15th, 2008 at 11:48 pm

I rip off – my friend spent about $750 on swoopo without winning one single camera that he was looking to buy…he bid on about a dozen before going broke…should have just saved another $100 and pay full amount on it.

wambo Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:10 am

If you ask me, it looks similar to those pyramid or multi-level marketing scams that were going around a few years ago. Where a lot of people put money into it, but only one person profits. You don’t see much of them anymore. I don’t think this will last either.

DW Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 3:44 pm

Can anyone vouch for having actually won *and received* an item “won” on Swoopo?

I have serious suspicions the “auctions” are not legitimate, or that only a fraction of “winners” ever actually see their items. Please note I am not stating this as fact, I am offering it as opinion.

Billy Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 2:13 am

I found a similar auction site: http://www.cent-auction.com

tim Says:
December 17th, 2008 at 2:27 pm

sounds like another great tool for ebay sellers.

Mikz Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

Has anybody out there lost An item because you placed a bid on the 2 or 3 second count down, and your bid was not accepted. usually happens if you are against a bidbutler.

when you complain they say it is internet lag. has anybody come across 2 & 3 sec internet lags ?!!!

My complaint with swoopo is ongoing……. Other than the above, I think swoopo is fine,fair and if you treat it as a Gamble and be careful a great site. not a Scam just clever. Apart from the above……

Mikz Says:
December 19th, 2008 at 3:13 pm

Just like to add ..Ban Bidbutlers………But swoopo won’t because they are what boosts profits,BEWARE use with stealth!!!

Leon Says:
December 21st, 2008 at 1:56 am

Whatever the moral and ethical stand point, people build websites like swoopo to make money and profit. If bidders want to pay to bid then let them. Caveat empor.
The majority of people on here are shocked that they want to turn a profit. If you had the opportunity to do so, wouldn’t you?
This is capitalism in action.

Predrag Says:
December 23rd, 2008 at 9:25 am

I don’t know what kind of internet speed you people have but I have yet to see an average internet page open in less than 2-3 seconds. When you submit your bid over internet, your request has to go in, then the server has to accept it in order in which it was received, then it has to actually send it to the web application which will process your bid, add an entry in to the bid database and display results, which will be sent to you. It shouldn’t be difficult to imagine that there will be dozens of simultaneous requests in the last second or two. A lag of 2-3 seconds is actually quite fast and efficient (how much time does it take for g-mail to accept your log-in info and open your g-mail page?).

As for time going from 2 seconds to 2 minutes, READ THE FLIPPING MANUAL, FOLKS!!! When two or more people use bidbutler (and have plenty of money for bidding), bidbutlers automatically duke it out, randomly bidding during last 20 seconds (to avoid being automatically recognised as bidbutlers), which rapidly inreases the remaining time.

Folks, there is nothing fishy or fraudulent about this site. It is a spectacular business model that doesn’t require any fraud in order to make enormous amouts of money. Rules are very clearly stated out (and most whiners here haven’t read them), the mathematics of the game are simple and straightforward. It is a game of chance, which is clear to anyone with a pulse. If you like your chances and think you can beat the odds, you’re welcome to try it.

Again, there is no scam, or fraud. No more than with sites like FreeiPod.com and such (sign up for five offers, refer five people, have them all sign up for offers and you get free iPod).

tintino Says:
December 25th, 2008 at 6:39 am

Despite what some people think, Swoopoo is a gambling site.

You are placing a $1 bet.
You are betting that YOU are the only ONE person out of 50000 that wants to buy a $1200 TV for $100.

Obviously, this is a losing bet.

You are a retard if you go to Swoopo looking for a bargain.
You can’t afford Swoopo.

And, since most people do not realize this simple fact, i DO believe that the government should intervene and shut swoopo.com down.
That’s what a government is responsible for: To protect the stupid people. That’s what we pay taxes for…

If we weren’t protecting the stupid people we’d be legalizing drugs and save 100000 lifes lost in drug related shootings and $5 billion/year spent on fighting the “war on drugs” every year.

SHUT SWOOPO DOWN !

Mikz Says:
December 25th, 2008 at 9:35 am

Predrag……….your talking like a pratt!!! something wrong with your computer if you are getting lags of 2-3 secs. mines immediate in millisecs. Swoopo is claimed by swoopo bosses to be a real time auction,and you can bid right up until the last second and the clock is reset to 15 secs. Read the press releases. If you bid, your bid is accepted last second same as all the other 20-30 bidders, UNTIL the final bidding when only you and the other are playing it out,AT THIS TIME IF YOU ARE AGAINST A BIDBUTLER AND YOU PLACE LAST SECOND BID IT IS REFUSED,explain this if last second bids are accepted all other times???

Im not stupid I know how it works. I lost 7 auctions in exactly the same way,but I just put it down to hard luck until I genuinley went for an item, and decided to bid on the 3 sec marker, as soon as it was down to me and bid butler, it happend again and I lost another auction but, there is no way of contacting other bidders.

JorgeUSA Says:
December 25th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Just lost $22.50 or so – stupid me ..
If you are not completely stupid, you most likely end up in a situation like mine ..
= so you figured it’s just a stupid game – but how am I now going to spend my 24 remaining bids (30 bids for $22.5)??
– after a while you figure the game is just to stupid and bet it all on something – who cares – the money is gone anyway:-) – I really am a dumm ass!
But then, the whole process of figuring out how it really works – how it’s programmed , was kind of fun regardless 🙂

georg – 48 – Mechanical Engineer ???

Greenlee Says:
December 25th, 2008 at 10:12 pm

WHAT A SCAM1!!

I thought I would give it at try and purchased one of the bid paks watched and waited till things looked good and won 50 free bids (this cost me 11 of my original bids. Then things got hinky…I was bidding on a laptop that had the nailbitter icon on it (meaning no bid butlers can be used…yet at the last second I was outbid by a bid butler!! I would have won the item but I guess because I was bidding on the US site against people in other countries bidding on completely different items they were allowed to use the bid butler so my bids got wasted. I’ve emailed Swoopo support 17 times (appantly the only way to reach them…they offer no phone#) but like all scammers and cons they don’t reply. I’ve tried everything to find an actual location and phone# for them but no luck. I’m actually considering doing something I’ve never done before…asking my brother-in-law who works in the fraud dept of the FBI to take a look into it for me. Maybe they will respond to him!

I think they belong in Jail!!

n8moses Says:
December 26th, 2008 at 10:26 am

For those of you that wish you came up with this unique auction concept, how would you like to MAKE MONEY referring people to a similar auction site that has a variety of auctions to choose from? I work with the top guy in North America and have talked to the president personally. For more info you can email me at n8moses@aol.com.

bob Says:
December 26th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

A very expensive GAME for those who don’t know any better.

Kenny Says:
December 27th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

I regret to say I did buy the smallet bidpack you could for swoopo. I would just like to say that the bidbutler is a ridiculous scam. If there are 2 bidbutlers set up to bid in the same price range at the same time (which happens multiple times each auction), they will instantly throw out all of their bids back and forth until the auction price exceeds the bidutler’s limit or until all of one of the bidbutler’s bids are used. So basically, swoopo gets multiple dollars isntantly! I have seen two bidbutlers instantly waste 15 bids each! That’s completely wasted money for the both of those people because a bidbutler is controlled by the swoopo site and are designed to never beat each other. This, at the very least, should be illegal because that really is “cheating” at that point. Not to mention this system will dramatically increase the auction price of the item, making it a two-fold benefit for swoopo and a two-fold loss for consumers.

Charles Says:
December 28th, 2008 at 2:49 pm

While the law varies from State to State, in general in the USA only States legally can run lotteries; so to the extent SWOOPO fits this model…

– to participate you have to pay

– whether you win depends on chance

– winning means getting something of value (money or other prize)

it is potentially a “lottery,” and criminal.

SWOOPO is a particularly greedy type of lottery, because unlike a corner store numbers game (where the more people play, the bigger the pot split among the winners), in SWOOPO no matter how many participate, there’s still only one prize. That makes SWOOPO potentially a sort of raffle, which generally cannot legally be run for profit. http://rafflefaq.com/can-a-for-profit-business-or-individual-run-a-raffle/

I’m not saying there’s no room for debate about whether SWOOPO is illegal, but there’s not much room. Consider the ways SWOOPO is different from a raffle (and maybe different enough to avoid the rules that apply to raffles):

– SWOOPO is disguised as an “auction,” so instead of buying a ticket, you buy a “bid.” But to win, participants need to do more than *just* buy a ticket (the way a true raffle works); they need also to:

— 1) time when they make their bids, and

— 2) choose how many bids to make (by themselves, or using an automated “bid butler”).

But does that make SWOOPO a game of skill, and not an illegal game of chance? Without doing more research, I’m skeptical, and in some States buying a ticket to play a game of skill can be illegal.

– While a raffle can sell an infinite number of tickets for a single prize, that’s only theoretically true for SWOOPO, where each bid advances the auction price by 15 cents. After enough bids, the auction price will exceed the prize’s true value, and participants will eventually cease bidding. That may also take SWOOPO out of the narrowest definition of a raffle, but probably not enough to make it legit.

– SWOOPO claims to lose money on a large percentage (I believe 70%) of its “auctions.” That’s good for the winning bidder, who may get a bargain, but no so different from real raffles (which might also raise less money than its prize is worth). And even when a SWOOPO winner gets a bargain, SWOOPO can still profit big by taking in many times the item’s value. Check out the example on Wikipedia:
“an item retailing for $200 may be sold at a 65% discount for $70, saving the winner $130. In the process of the price reaching $70 there will have been 465 bids placed, costing bidders a sum of $348.75. With $70 from the winner and $348.75 from bidders, Swoopo received $418.75; bidders, in total, paid $218.75 more than retail for the item.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swoopo
SWOOPO only launched in the USA recently — in September 2008 — so whether State attorney generals or others start asking these srts of questions remains to be seen.

– Charles

Tam Says:
December 28th, 2008 at 5:07 pm

It look like Swopoo sells a Ps3 with 2000 usd for 500 people but just one of them can get it.

somebodyelse Says:
December 29th, 2008 at 2:37 pm

the biggest winner for swoopo is there fixed price auctions, like the mobile phone for £10.00.
they recieve bids as normal, the auction price could go into the thousands and it still sells to the winner for £10.00.
the money made from this type of auction is incredible, i believe there needs to be some regulating of this kind of site as it may not technically be gambling, but it is as addictive.

BEST Invention EVER! Says:
December 30th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

This is the best money making deal I have seen in a long time! I am watching an auction now that is a “penny” action. The bid is at $150 for a MACBOOK that retails at $1300. So far there are 15000 bids. Each bid cost $0.75. This means that so far SWOOPO has brought in $11,250 on a $1300 machine. The last MACBOOK sold for $280. (28000 bids x .75 = $21,000) I can’t believe I didn’t think of this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike Says:
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:42 am

Swoopo is an amazingly clever ripoff, smoothly done and nicely executed. Most of the losers don’t even realize how badly they’ve been clipped. It’s pretty slick how they make you pay to *lose* an auction. Yes, you’re paying for the privilege of NOT getting the item you’re bidding on. Think about it- it’s brilliant. And they make money from ALL of the losing bidders, not just you. What a wonderful scam!

Mike
http:quicktrivia.com

Chris Says:
January 3rd, 2009 at 5:20 am

I just did a one month analysis of an Apple Macbook on Swoopo. I found that Swoopo is profiting about 200% of the value of items delivered. This was only a small field for comparison – based solely on 1 month (December) of auctions for the same brand/model laptop. My findings were that on one item, in 49 auctions, Swoopo pocketed more than $127,000.

There were some interesting finds, such that they only come out ahead on roughly 50% of all auctions. However, those auctions they profit on include several that earned over 20x the wholesale value of the actual computer. On said Macbooks, the bids on the auction only need to reach $12.83 for them to make one penny. Everything beyond that is pure profit. The average value I found was $51.90. This meant that they grossed and average $3894.15 from all the bids placed (@.75 each) plus the $51.90 average ending price. That brings the average gross to $3946.05, and once you take out the cost of the item at Retail Value ($1299) they netted about $2647.08.

Further example, one auction sold for $0.92. This combined with the profit from bids brought the gross to $69.92. Factor in the cost of the laptop, and Swoopo LOST $1228.92. However, this is completely offset by the auctions such as the one ended on 12.01.08. This auction finished at 248.03, which means they stood to gross over 18602.25 (@.75 each)from bidding alone. Then add in the final value of the computer, 248.03, and you have a gross of 18850.28. Factor in the Retail value of the computer, and they netted a $17,551.28 profit.

I think it is pretty clear they are not losing money, however there is a chance to win a laptop at an extremely low value. The lowest I found was the winner of the $0.92 auction. When it was all said and done, shipping included, he had a 1299 dollar laptop for about $26.14. Just don’t be like user Deafdlg and actually bid so high that the cost of bids are 200 more than the actual value of the computer.

If you would like to see more of my findings, and a complete table showing said findings, please view the pdf I published. Not all values are perfect, I already noticed an error in one field after I published the file, however most of them are spot on.

http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/2184751_j4kfy/Swoopo.pdf%5DSwoopo.pdf

John Says:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:48 am

Whoever came up with this idea is brilliant. I can imagine they make $5000-10000 on items worth less than $1000, and if they sell 300/day they’re making millions every week. Genius.

Of course, I’m questioning the legality of it, but there are some stupid people out there.

Shabobby Says:
January 4th, 2009 at 7:37 pm

Ok, I’ve been watching this site for a few days now and I’m starting to understand the fundamentals. There IS strategy involved in bidding. I just watched this auction for an hour now to study how bidders act, and this happened.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sharp-aquos-lc42d65u-42-inch-1080p-lcd-h/140763.html
I don’t know if “Testbutler” is a bot or a Swoopo employee, but he placed 1 bid on a 42 inch LCD. ONE BID. He came out of nowhere and took the whole auction.
So he spent 1 bid on it ($0.75), it had a fixed price of $119, and shipping on it was $69.90. That’s $189.65 all together compared to $1199.99 retail.

I don’t know how he did it, I guess he was watching the auction for a long time and felt that moment was the time to strike.

Jordan Win Swoopo Brighton Says:
January 5th, 2009 at 11:06 pm

I have won over 8 swoopo auctions in the last 2 months. I have really gotten into the whole strategy of winning. It is a different type of shopping auction and it is FUN! I won my last auction on new years day, a Wii game for $2.85 (retails at 49.95) – i used 2 bids!

I have written an e-book at http://www.winswoopo.com to help others get the most out of Swoopo. So many people are paying too much, I want to help you win big and spend little!!!

Happy bidding.
Jordan

Jared Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 8:41 am

I think it is in some grey area next to unethical and illegal. I wanted to launch something like this around a decade ago but it is illegal here. They consider it to be a raffle, where raffles can only be held for charities.

kevin Says:
January 9th, 2009 at 8:25 am

There is a sucker born every minute. And apparently there are not shortage of suckers on the internet. This site is just yet another tax on the poor like lottery tickets.

Brilliant idea I say brilliant.

Robin Says:
January 10th, 2009 at 12:58 pm

ok, seriously. I am watching an auction on Swoopo that is for a Casio watch worth MSRP 79.95 The current bidding war between two member is at $170.00

Are they seriously trying to make me believe that someone is paying DOUBLE the price of a watch they can get on sale at Penny’s for 50 bucks!

Something TIS rotten in Denmark!

Kevin Says:
January 11th, 2009 at 6:21 pm

It warns you right in the top of every Page, “Entertainment Shopping”,
Now figure that Vegas gambling is considered “Entertainment” and its not hard to see that SOME people will be STUPID enough to “Piss” their money away. I bet there are ZERO guarantees that safeguard the honest bidder against “Shills”…I’m waiting to hear about this site going down in flames or being chased off-shore to the Cayman Islands or something. I LIKE shopping, but the competition is supposed to between the sellers, not so much the buyers…unless you think its alright to pay to play in some sort of Carny Midway “Price is Right” reality show.

More the fool, they! PT Barnum was more than correct.

mal Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 7:46 am

How many people have lost out on an auction because your bid was not accepted,and when you complain they say it is down to internet lag.

I now have an email stating that bidders can experience a lag of 2 or 3 seconds, surely then all the bosses at swoopo have conned the public into believing that they can bid right up until the last second when in reality you could bid (as I did) on the 3 second mark and still lose unless you are using a BB. I am being conned and so are thousands of others whos bids are not accepted because of this suspect Lag.

I just do not believe that if this was pointed out to the regulators they would not be allowsd to trade in this manner. The site is NOT fair to all.

Mike Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:38 pm

I see Swoopo sort of as the Sam’s Club of auction sites. Yes, it’s “pay-to-play,” but if you play it right, you can get some great deals. And as far as buying bids, I don’t agree with the bit of buying them ahead of time, but you figure the cost into your total cost. BidButler is also kind’ve unfair, but it is made available to everyone, and becomes part of the “Swoopo Strategy” if you will.
You are all also talking about ending up paying more than retail. That happens on ebay too. People buy handfulls of peanuts and cotton balls for $100s. At least with Swoopo you get guaranteed product quality and not something from someone’s basement…

Jordan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:40 pm

Swoopo is a rip….I have high hopes for a new site I found though.
www_biddia_com

Jordan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:41 pm

Swoopo appears to have fake bidders as well.

Jordan Says:
January 12th, 2009 at 4:41 pm

I should have put the one I think will be better.
http://www.biddia.com

YEYON Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 8:56 am

Thank for the info.

Anthony Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 8:30 pm

Most people here seem to misunderstand the concept.

Yes, you do pay for bids up front. That’s right.

Let’s say you already have your bids, and you see an ipod you want. It has 1 minute left, and $60 total bid so far.

You use your one dollar bid. If you’re the last one to bid, you get that item. For your one dollar. The official bid price may have been $60, but you really got it for $1.

The rest of the money you spent on the bid pack is only wasted if you’re never going to bid on anything else. They don’t disappear. I’m pretty sure you can use them for the next auction you want.

Anthony Says:
January 13th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

ah, my mistake. There are some bids that work that way, but most of them on that site do not

Onelove Says:
January 14th, 2009 at 11:40 pm

Well put, its so nice to be able to search the web for a company before you invest in it, to give yousome advice. Good Job, not only have you looked into it & informed us of your opinon on how its works, but it was well said. This is not the kind of business I want to get into, I was just looking for some items a little bit cheaper, but this is definatley not my idea. Thank you from saving from “my” mistake because others may do weel with this. Onelove

Alan Laas Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 10:41 am

I just stumbled on to a swoopo-like page http://www.bidonetwo.com has any of you been there or know something about it?

Chuck Says:
January 15th, 2009 at 8:34 pm

people get upset because they think they can get a tv for 10 bucks, but that never happens. seriously, all you need is common sense and some outside analysis. i found a good site for that:

http://www.swoopomanual.com

if you just don’t bid like an idiot and use the data other people put on the web you won’t end up getting screwed

janey Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 12:18 pm

ok, i guys. i hate to bust some bubbles. but i just won a sony tv that retails for $1999. when swoopo shows the final bid cost of the TV, which in my case approx $2900. i didnt pay $2900 for the Tv. yes, with all the bids placed at increments .15 they made a killing. but i got a great deal. the TV’s are at a fixed price so no matter how high the bid price goes whoever is the last bidder pays the fixed price plus their bids. in my case was $119. i spent $108 in bids. previously spent bids where i won nothing (my learning curve) $100. so my final cost on a $1999 tv. $327. so when you see the final bid price they are showing you how high the bidding went. but if you actually click on the item it will show you how many bids was placed by winner and how much they cost plus the cost of the item and it shows you the total savings. i thought it was a scam until i won. i thought the only ones that were winning were the ones using bid butlers. i won without using the bid butler and placing single bids. to win you have to watch and be smart about bidding. if there is 15 people and 3 bid butlers going, dont bid. let them exhuast all the bids. you also have to be patient. the TV i won went on for 2.5 days or longer..my friend won a $900 watch and paid $69 for it. personally i like the fixed auctions. or the penny auctions you get the better deals on these items. as much as i would like a PS3 i dont dare bid on one. i think it would be better just to drive to walmart and buy it.
yes some people pay more for what the item is worth. but that just boils down to stupid bidding. they got cought up in it didnt pay attention and got so far into that they HAD to win even at a loss, at least they walked away with something.
i dont know how long swoopo is going to keep this part up. But what they are doing now is, lets take my TV for example. the guy that was bidding against me using bid butler, lets say he spent the most bids out of all the losers. swoopo is giving the next runner up all their bids back. so at least one bidder as not at a total loss. so for me i have to spend another $1500 before i am in the hole. i am certain if i spend another $1500 i will win something else.

mal Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

WHAT SWOOPO DO IS, TO EMAIL YOU TO OFFER A TEMPTING OFFER, SUCH AS HAVE ALL YOUR BIDS BACK ON ANY AUCTION YOU WIN TODAY.

HOW MANY PEOPLE IT IS SENT TO, I DON,T KNOW BUT, YOU CAN IMAGINE PEOPLE
BIDDING KNOWING THAT THEY WOULD GET ALL BIDS BACK, SO THIS STARTS A BIDDING WAR, YOU GO SO FAR AS TO GET TO THE POINT OF NO RETURN AND YOU HAVE TO WIN IT OR YOU WILL HAVE LOST ALL YOUR MONEY, SO BETTER TO KEEP BIDDING AND HAVE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING, BUT IT TAKES 26HRS-2HRS OVER THE DAY, THEN YOU LOSE IT BECAUSE BID NOT ACCEPTED ON 3 SECS TO GO. THEY CALL IT. IN——————T——-E———RN——E—-T—–L——-AG.

RIP OFF SITE IN MANY WAYS……..

AZMike aka Mike Feddersen Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 2:42 pm

Thanks for the information, I was just registering for swoopo (or is it doopya?) when that little voice in my head said, “Don’t be so gullible Mike! Go do a google search.”

Saved by your article and the comments. Thanks a bunch.

AZMike aka Mike Feddersen

Oh, btw isn’t there another outfit called Doopla or Duplah similar to this?

Eraz Says:
January 22nd, 2009 at 7:51 am

OMG…….i am a programmer and know of many fake auction sites.These are just bots they use to bit and play with their customers.One of the site owner asked me to develop this bot for his site so i know very well some of them are fake too not all.

Thanks

Swoopo Strategy Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 2:47 am

I have not been through all the comments because they are just too many..I just want to add my 2p worth.

Regardless of how much money Swoopo make per auction which is quite a substantila amount on some…quite frankly that should have nothing to do with us. Do we go round working out how much money our grocery shops are making before we buy our groceries from them? I thought not!

The fact remains that Swoopo can give the lucky winner a substantial amount of saving on the RRP, whether you take Swoopo’s RRP value or any other. However I do agree that The losing bidders do lose out massively.

Thats where you need to understand the website thoroughly before you start parting with your hard earnt cash. Some people still don;t have a basic understanding of how the site operates, what different auctions they have, and more importantly, this is not Ebay, you cant just start bidding and expect to win, you need to adopt some sort of a game plan and stick to it, you have to bid wisely and be patient.

For any new people looking to use Swoopo, my advice would be to paper bid first, i.e. first study the site and then without placing real bids predict and auction you think is a good one and you could win comfortably and then follow the auction through and see whether you prediction was correct or not.

Hope that helps!

mal Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 4:48 am

The site is fine up until the time you are in a bidding war with the last few.

If you are playing against single bidders it is fine and fair, but if a bidbutler is bidding aswell then you have problems,and you will find that if you try to bid last 2seconds your bid will not be registered along with all other single bidders anr the bidbutler wins.

when you complain it is put down to internet lag??? so all the other single bidders are losers because of internet lag.

With this excuse of internet lag anyone can be chosen to win with the perfect cover. I have been right to the wire on 7 auctions in the same 24 hr period and lost all 7 auctions in exactly the same way, and so did the other single bidders who were playing at the same time.

Thousands of people are being cheated by this problem making it totaly unfair to all bidders except bidbutlers…………………………………………………………………I believe people are being covertly cheated using this method.

People do win, but how many do not get that chance because they prefer to bid in single bids and not BBs.

Heath Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 4:31 pm

A friend’s stepdad said it sounds more like a raffle than an auction. I agree.

adam Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 3:41 pm

If anyones interested then go and
check out my own free 32 page report on my swoop strategy blog.

Ty Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 1:36 am

We should report this site to the authorities, a good DA would have fun prosicuting these people and putting htem in prission. They love to take down companies like this becasue of the media attention it gets. So lets all forward this info to your loca DA and watch them burn!

atty Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 7:20 am

What as far as I can see has been missed by most of the comments here is that there are a core of Swoopo users who we can term PowerSellers (i.e. they may be re-selling their won products on ebay) who are prepared to stake sums way above the average punters with pre set “Bid Butler” bids.

Yesterday 29/01/09 users adfero and MadViking each won a couple of cameras, MadViking spent, if he/she is in UK, £535.40 on bids to get these wins. A quick google reveals not MadVikings first winnings http://www.google.com/search?q=swoopo+MadViking&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

if you check http://auktionenwahn.wordpress.com/statistiken/ you will see in the conclusion there that in the period these statistics were gathered, 545 cameras from swoopo went to 336 people, and from these just 27 winners got 154 of cameras

here is a provisional list of other “Power” users found by me and other people all of whom I think show up in google searches, you’ll notice they hardly ever do anything other than “Bid Butler” bids

Corburn, MadViking, adfero, Czesi, Vroos, 2l8m1, Skyway7777, Norden47, Mike8523, Lumix999, CaCO3, Springmist, schnups07, Achlph (6), Big100 (6), Biggibig (6), Corsanico (6), Dartfan180 (6), Erikbloodaxe (6), F4646 (7), Fellcroft (7), Flash Fire (10), Garnier (9), Heysuz (6), HH0812 (7), holzfaeller (6), Imhavingthis (6), Komander01 (7), Madviking (8), Moocky21030 (12), PitBull 01 (6), Rocket400 (6), Schlumpf6 (7), Jeanne (6), Taylererni (11), Teufel2010 (7), Thoma221267 (6), Toertchen (7), Volodja (7), wurmi2 (7), Xopex (6), Medienhexe, Mediadisplay, Jehola, 2000bis2099, audt, Nakose, Kiam2008, Vlaush, Onkelheli, Darabber, Bluemchen15, zibel72, Rzarda, Vamacho2007, heitsch123, Sterntaler26, rumpel79, deLuxe10, Theduell, Ty8011, 1975stefan, Anbundy12, Katze1960, Schlumpf01, Omamachma, lyle, Bieter1225, Pflegestufe3, Helgolando, Bossxxl usw

a couple deserve special mention, this user repeatedly changes name and or has multiple accounts – variously Omamackma, OBAMA,
Omamachma, ElSc48 as can be seen by comparing swoopo’s record of a winning here http://www.swoopo.de/auktion/canon-eos-450d-schwarz-objektiv-18-55mm/119497.html with google’s cache example http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:4bQk7CO69wsJ:www.swoopo.de/auktion/canon-eos-450d-schwarz-objektiv-18-55mm/119497.html+Omamachma+swoopo

this user nathan1994 has been seen to use unreal enormous numbers of Free Bids

Clearly the average swoopo user is not aware that they are betting/bidding in many swoopo auctions against a group of determined deep-pocketed professionals. The Swoopo website provides no way to look up the history of users as of course ebay does, though one assumes swoopo can access this information.

It clearly states in Swoopo’s terms and conditions here http://www.swoopo.com/terms.html that “Swoopo’s products and services are offered exclusively to private users and not to commercial or partly-commercial resellers.” but clearly they are doing nothing to make this come true after all they are making more money from the amateur punters as a result of the presence of these pros.

Of course some might speculate that these “Power” users are in reality the “house” (Swoopo) bidding up prices (and buying some goods back in). Its possible these “Power” users may not be turning a profit as individuals since its very hard to estimate their spending on auctions they didn’t win and if this was/is the case one would assume its an “inside” job.

Since swoopo has been running longer in Germany more research into Swoopo activity is recorded, there is a particular issue in Germany of whether German “Power” users are declaring their profits for tax – check here http://forum.chip.de/schnaeppchen/powerseller-swoopo-1092020.html

For anybody who still fancies their chances on Swoopo I strongly suggest you google the people you are bidding against, especially “Bid Butler” users

yours
atty

PS
as pointed out re a laptop instance are some cases where particular auctions are conducted with different products showing on their us/uk/es/de/at sites e.g. http://www.swoopo.com/auktion/141855.html and http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auktion/141855.html so one is bidding against other users but not for the same thing/value product

Andrew Ross Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 11:53 am

For me the, only time when any sort of strategy can work on Swoopo is on Normal auctions.

Penny Auctions and Fixed price auctions are like carnival game. Whether you win or not depends on pure luck.

For more details you can check out my website.

anon Says:
February 1st, 2009 at 10:17 pm

i just spent money on a package
and started clicking away on the bid button
thinking that each bid will remove a bid from my account that i can use
but it was the opposite.
i was buying bids at a dollar while i had a package.
is there any way i can get my money back for the package i did not use ?

btw i did not win the item i was bidding on
everytime i would bid at the last 5 secs someone else would bid on it
and the timer would raise up to another 15 secs !
it seemed impossible to win. youd just have to wait till someone gave up
or lost all their bids but by that time you wasted a ton of money on bids and time
I think that site is pure fail.
i feel more confident on ebay and thats where i will stay.
i am deleting my account there and will not return !

fail site is fail.

Joseph Says:
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:54 pm

I wish that they’d even give back just half the amount spent on failed bids; or perhaps employ a system where you accrue points if you have a failed bid and then use those points to purchase more bids. Otherwise, it’s definitely a crazy system they have going on there…

taken Says:
February 2nd, 2009 at 6:04 pm

Well the trick is to win one of the auctions for the free bid vouchers. Occasionally they had auctions for bid vouchers that were 100% free. So no matter how much the final price came out to the only thing you had to pay for was the bids, not the final price. But I’ve never won an auction and I bought about $50 in bids. So I’m never doing it again.

:epmard Says:
February 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 pm

You just can’t go nuts on the site bidding on everything. Those little .75 cent bids add up. I like the site and the idea. Can’t be mad at the owners of Swoopo, it’s ingenious. If I can get a 42′ plasma tv for only $65 bucks, I’d be even more for it. i did notice when I was looking at an auction all of a sudden the remaining time went from like :10 to 35:00. I have to keep watching for a while. Seems interesting though.

Rick Says:
February 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 pm

I didn’t take the time to read all the comments about this auction site so I’m not sure if this has been mentioned yet. There is one other “issue” that sets the alarms off in my head… The “BidButler”… with the BidButler..you set parameters for specific bids and ..walk away.. The Butler places bids for you in your absence… nice idea… unless you are the one bidding against a BidButler and the BidButler has been instructed to bid by one of the owners of the website!!!

socalmike Says:
February 5th, 2009 at 8:00 am

A fool and his/her money are soon parted !

So Cal Mike,
http://www.ChaseTheChuckwagon.com – Video Gamig Auctions w/out the fees.

Crirus Says:
February 8th, 2009 at 10:18 am

Well, it’s not scam, basically you are not cheated to pay, unless you have no idea of rules. YOu just pay for whoever is winner to get the product.

Swoopo put that product at no value, the increase value means noting for something around $1000 when the final price was barely raised to $50.

The money for all this to work come from everyone trying to win.

Is it moral… well each country have a lotto system no moral than this. At least Swoopo let you have some “strategies” in your bidding.

Good luck, I will build a clone of this thing tomorrow 🙂

John Pastry Says:
February 12th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

I have seen another bidder, Maldav bidding as far as it takes to win, even if he/she has spent more than the value of the item. If I see that name I stay well clear

Adam Casey Says:
February 16th, 2009 at 6:42 am

@ John Pastry

Have you noticed if that ‘Maldav’ has won any free bids in the past? He might have a stack of free bids.

greguva Says:
February 16th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

Stay away from Swoopo!! I bid on a Canon camera a few weeks ago on Swoopo. As it was getting late, I created a BidButler (a device to place bids automatically for you up to a specified number of bids and a specified price). I authorized 200 bids, at 1 cent ber bid. My BidButler promptly bid all of the bids that I authorized, PLUS ANOTHER 20 BIDS! Not only that, but the bid price on the camera went up only about $1.80 – since the BidButler bid 220 times for me, the bid price should have gone up at least by $4.40 (my 220 bids plus the bids from the person(s) against whom I was ostensibly bidding). Not realizing what had happened, I authorized another 100 bids. This time, it used up all of 100 bids almost instantaneously, but the bid price went up only 1 cent.

When I reported what had happened to Swoopo customer service (a misnomer if ever there was one), they basically said that everything went just peachy and it was too bad that I didn’t win.

I don’t know if there is a deliberate attempt to defraud customers, or if their bidding algorithm is just seriously flawed, but I would not spend your hard-earned money on Swoopo.

Confused Says:
February 17th, 2009 at 8:41 pm

Ok so I am truly confused.

I won an auction on swoopo. I won it for $4.50 and my shipping was $4.90.

However, when I confirmed my win I was charged $37 for bids placed? I only made like 5 bids on it. That seems rigged to me. (No, I have not received the item yet, I’ll let you know if I do.)

Now my funny story. I decided “Hey, I got a win let’s go waste the other bids and never deal with this site again.”

I just watched the biggest scam with bots ever. A character Hfwbw1 was using bidbutler. The characters rikarli and acrimidart (don’t remember them exactly) were the auction savers.

Here is how it worked. Hfwbw1’s bidbutler would go off at around 5-10 seconds. However, if the timer reached 1 second, rikarli and acrimidart would both bid to save the auction. I watched this go on for about 2 minutes and then jumped in knowing it was a scam simply because I wanted to get rid of my last 10 bids.

So, what happens? Hfwbw1 would bid with bidbutler then I would bid immediately after him, if the bot messed up and missed his bid (maybe it’s on a timer) the other two bots would save him at 1 second by bidding and adding time to the auction.

AS SOON AS my 10 bids were used up, the bidbutler immediately won the auction.

The site is a scam, I have no idea how I actually won an auction. Don’t waste your money or time.

Wondering too Says:
February 20th, 2009 at 1:31 am

i was also wondering how anybody can win a bid for a 42 inch HDTV and only pay between 50-100 bucks?? i have seen on there ended auctions HDTV’s gone for 20 bucks i mean comon now its just not possible.i tried it out bought 30 bids and tried bidding on items guess what yes always got outbid and have not won anything yet,i must have done something wrong or just not lucky at all.

debra Says:
February 20th, 2009 at 8:40 pm

I don’t understand what everybody is complaining about.If you think about it ebay is not really any better,swoopo makes money off of the bidders and in the process buyers sometimes get a good deal,on the other hand ebay makes money off of the sellers which in my opinion is not fair,both companies are making money.but I can’t tell you how much money I have spent listing my items on ebay and guess what the items were mine,not ebay’s.so if you think about it swoopo really is no different.I signed up for swoopo but haven’t bought any bids yet.so,I am not sure if the merchandise is really cheap as they say,but I do know ebay scams too.maybe if someone gets a good deal on swoopo by spending their bids wisely,they could resell it on ebay,lol,but like someone said earlier how do we know swoopo doesn’t have members from the company bidding.has anyone ever really won on swoopo,that is the real question.

swoopo team Says:
February 21st, 2009 at 1:56 pm

swoopo is a gamblers site.

cheater site as took me some some time to understand it.

its not a auction site

swoopo employee Says:
February 21st, 2009 at 2:01 pm

I can not work there any more, I quit, because I cannot sleep at night as so many people are losing money to make millions worth of profit for swoopo.

Fullcircle347 Says:
February 22nd, 2009 at 10:33 pm

Ok, so here’s my take on the situation… What if:

Swoopo sets up ghost accounts having access to unlimited bids at their disposal and not actually costing them a thing.

Program the bid butler at alternating intervals so that it seems that there are several unique bidders in the auction.

Then they allow them to keep bidding until all real bidders either run out of money or patience.

They have then won their own item as well as collected all the bids people spent on the auction, so they don’t actually have to send the item to anyone, just re-list it and do it all over again and again.

Haywood Swoopo Says:
February 23rd, 2009 at 3:29 pm

** I Work for Swoopo ** This site is legit and you can save lots. Just be smart when bidding.

Benjamin Says:
February 24th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Thanks, I almost fell for this, then I decided that a google search was in order — “That which is too good to be true . . . ” and all that.

Glad to have stumbled across this article.

Anonymous Says:
February 25th, 2009 at 10:58 am

I’d like to state something that every single person in this thread have missed.

The person who wrote this review have stated that his problem with this website is that he never got his bids returned. Selfish, ain’t it? It is.

So you expect to gamble on an item and expect to be given back your bids when lost? Childish. Seriously. First off, grow up. Second, it’s a money making game. But winners DO WIN and losers LOSE. Get the idea yet?

Swoopo’s idea is to feed off of Bid buyers. And who would thought that the entire world would go after underpriced quality items? So far, I have only seen Swoopo.

Here’s out Swoopo works:
They got bidders to sign up. But in order to bid, they must buy these bids for about “$0.68” each. This is a scam? Hardly. They auction off their prices starting at $0.00. So if they did not do this, how else would they have the money to pay for what they auctioned?

In the end, you just got to realize that everybody is paying for the game to be hosted. Have you ever went to real auction? According to what I hear from here, I believe not. True, in a real auction, you would not lose your bids if you lost. But who’s paying for the game? The losers? No. The winner. But in Swoopo, EVERYBODY PAYS for the GAME.

Get the picture yet? If not, then you obviously are not ready for the world of critical thinking.

However, the term SCAM is still at large with this company. There are so many variables that can be controlled by it.

What you should remember: This is a game, are you willing to play it? it will only cost you $0.68 per bid. If you win, you get a great product that you obviously did not pay full for. But everyone in the GAME helped pay for it. So, it’s a win-win for both the WINNER and SWOOPO.

Now, quit forcing others to believe what whackjobs you believe in. Let their mind flow and figure out whether they should play this gambling game or not.

Confused Says:
February 25th, 2009 at 4:33 pm

Ok, so I just received my item.

What’s funny? Swoopo just went on amazon.com bought it and shipped it to me.

Recount:

$37 for bids
$4.50 for item
$4.90 for shipping

Absolutely no savings. The item is only worth $39.99

PS – to anonymous above me, try reading some replies.

There are fake accounts bidding up the items (as proven by more people than just this blog). For example: the guy who received an email from swoopo saying the previous bidder couldn’t pay for the item? Yeah they could buy $500 in bids, but not pay the $25 for the item. Grow up Swoopo. So that’s why people complain. So before running off a stupid and very ill-informed post, try reading. Thanks.

Tyler Says:
February 25th, 2009 at 7:10 pm

This article is badly written, and some of the facts are a little too lose. I have been grazing through this site for 4 days now. I have read all the information given through swoopos site. By taking my time and taking a walk in the company’s shoes, I have realized that it is a win win situation. 1. It cost $.75 to purchase each bid, not $1 dollar, and you have the option of buying smaller bid packs like, 50, or 100, rather then 500. 2. Swoopo makes it’s money because of the massive amount of people biding on an item at one time. If the winning bidder put down 28 bids at $.75 each on a Toshiba laptop which is priced at $1,499 dollars, but only ended up paying $89 bucks for the thing. That comes out to be $110 dollars spent. That is a savings of $1,399 dollars. Take that into consideration and then ask how does the company make its money if people are practically stealing items. Lets say 87 people are bidding on the same laptop you just won. And lets say the average bidder bid 27 times on that item at $.75 a bid. That comes out to $1,761.75 dollars. Take that and subtract what i just stole from them, and they still come out on top by about 300 dollars. Thats how they make money, its not a scam, its a deal if you got the guts to auction on swoopo.

Confused Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 12:47 am

hardly believe* not doubt

Confused Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 8:43 am

Once again Tyler fails to realize (just like many others) why Swoopo is a scam.

It’s a scam because they use fake accounts to get the auctions up. Rarely do I think a human wins, otherwise everyone would be playing.

People get ticked and quit the site, but what does Swoopo care? They got their money out of you.

Go watch the auctions and you see the same fake accounts bidding them up. One guy at this point must have spent $1,000s on bids and he never wins. That makes no sense economically.

Fake accounts are what make the site a scam. You’ve been reading Tyler? I hardly doubt that or you would have realize that.

Tyler Says:
February 26th, 2009 at 1:21 pm

I have to say that I was strongly considering buying a 50 bid pack on this swoopo site. I was thinking why not pay 110 bucks for a Xbox 360. I thought I could win easily, but after reading many of the comments posted I decided not to.

Out of the 25 some comments I read only about 1 or 2 people won on this site. The rest of you said that you got ripped off and said that it was a scam. I dont doubt that you can win a fixed bid auction, but I do doubt that people can win a regular auction. Espically against bid butlers. (Sounds to good to be true)

If what this Confused guy says is true about the site being rigged. Then thank you for saving me 50 bucks. 🙂

Anonymous Says:
February 27th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

@Confused: I seriously like you to re-read my post. Besides the fact that you seriously need more proof before you try to claim Swoopo a scam/gimmick website.

By the way, I have not picked a side as to whether Swoopo is a truthful company or not. Confused, I have to say that you have turned yourself crazy with this issue. You should pick up your belongings and leave the internet for the rest of your life. It’s for the better.

You can’t just go around saying, “They said that…” and “they said this…” Seriously, before you try to bring down someone, especially a company, you need real proof. What kind of ‘real proof’ i want? I’d like a year’s worth of study. That’s what I want and that’s what the law wants if you actually want to sue and win.

I did not read every comments in this thread, because let’s see…over 90% of the posts here were complaints about not getting their bids back from a losing bid and suspicions of the sort. If your mind was as clear as mine, you’d realize by now that this entire thread is dedicated to people who suspect Swoopo of scamming.

And I have to point this out. You won your item, Swoopo delivered it to you through Amazon.com. In more basic terms, Swoopo did not lie, did not cheat, or did not scam at all. In your case, Swoopo is your seller and not Amazon. Why? Because you got your product through dealing with Swoopo.

You are not satisfied with Swoopo for having not told you about Amazon’s deal? That’s really your own matter. Anyways, I’m not here to defend Swoopo. I’m just here to stop this idiotic thread about it being scammed. Did you even realize that almost every post in this thread is trying pick up the smallest mistakes Swoopo make and turn it into some sort of “scam evidence”?

Now, here’s where i point out every mistake you made personally…
“It’s a scam because they use fake accounts to get the auctions up. Rarely do I think a human wins, otherwise everyone would be playing.”
1. You won.
2. You rarely think?
3. Where’s your research?
4. You talked to a bunch of skeptical internet folks on this thread and call yourself a genius with this Swoopo Scam?

“What’s funny? Swoopo just went on amazon.com bought it and shipped it to me.”
1. Where’s the evidence and the proof? (Personally, I don’t even want to bother with this. If this is how Swoopo does business, it is still legal but somewhat unethical. However, consider it a service of Swoopo.)
2. What did you buy?
3. Win another item, then I would really believe you.

It all comes back to…every single person in this thread who suspects Swoopo is like…whining about a loss or talking about how they can lose the gamble and cry. Seriously.

The internet is more of an adult world than the outside of your home. Trust me, if you are going to sue Swoopo, you will lose. Because you don’t even know what you are saying. But I dare you, if you truly believe that Swoopo is an unethical company(Pretty much the only bad thing about it.) then you should attempt a sue and try to win.

It’s a dare. If you don’t have the balls to sue Swoopo, then I’m sorry but you have nothing worth discussing. Your suspicions will soon kill Swoopo if you keep their customers away with your own stupidity.

But remember this, it may not be stupidity and you may even be right. But that’s up to you to prove whether what you say is true or not. How would you obtain a valid proof? Record a year’s worth of data from this company and the world will side with you, that is, if you are correct.

Now, quit your whining and start working if you want to destroy Swoopo. Otherwise, go back to living a life of hard work and paying for high priced quality items.

As for others, you should only try Swoopo at your own expense. Read this entire thread if you must, but I warn you, every single post is talk of how skeptical Swoopo’s business is. The decision to play this game of gambling, however, is up to you.

Personally, I’m interested in what Confused will bring up after his year’s worth of information. But I already know that he won’t bother because he talks like that type of guy. Too lazy to find out the truth on his own and only relies on the information of ONLY THOSE WHO AGREES WITH HIM.

Up to you guys, audience of this thread and users of the internet. I bid you all, good luck.

Lucas Says:
February 28th, 2009 at 5:17 am

Well I was about to try Swoopo out. But I wanted to do a little research first and I came across this site. THANK YOU!!! For posting this and saving me from being scammed.

Confused Says:
February 28th, 2009 at 8:20 am

@ Anonymous

I decided not to reply to a long winded post in detail. It’s not worth my time.

Here are two key points for you to understand (please try):

1) Swoopo’s site claims that it has 45,000 auctions ended. We’ll say that out of those winners, they each won twice. So roughly 22,500 winners. Funny, where are all these winners and their praise for swoopo? That’s right there aren’t any. People who won on ebay when it first came out, graced it with praise and that’s why the site took off. There are not that many winners on swoopo, obviously.

All you see are people complaining about the site, and winners, like myself, complaining about their win.

– In my case Swoopo charged me for bids placed (I got double charged) does customer service care? No.

2. What’s funny? Swoopo just went on amazon.com bought it and shipped it to me.”
1. Where’s the evidence and the proof? (Personally, I don’t even want to bother with this. If this is how Swoopo does business, it is still legal but somewhat unethical. However, consider it a service of Swoopo.)

-Sorry, but I just have to inform you of your stupidity. WHY DO YOU THINK I HAVE PROOF. AMAZON.COM puts packaging information in all their boxes. Hence, the shipping label saying shipped from AMAZON.COM and the packing information confirmed it. (Think through that next time.)

3. You whine and cry that I need to do research. WHERE IS YOUR RESEARCH that this site is so legit and doesn’t use fake accounts.
-There are countless stories of people watching a bid butler place 100s of bids on an item only worth $40. This does not make sense economically, and swoopo ignores it.

The site was started in Germany and has been around for roughly 3 years. There are complaints all over the internet about it even from it’s original starting date. People are getting screwed. Yes, I didn’t do my research when I bought bids and I wish I had it would have saved me money.

***As for research try reading my post where I explain the bidbutlers and other accoutns keeping an item going.

You speak before you think, research, or do anything. Don’t waste my time with a reply. Don’t deceive people into thinking the site is legit.

Do you work for swoopo? I see no other reason for you trying to defend it with such vigor.

Anonymous Says:
February 28th, 2009 at 1:10 pm

SIMPLE SOLUTION: IF YOU DONT LIKE TO GAMBLE DONT GO TO SITES LIKE THIS.

Kevin Says:
March 3rd, 2009 at 2:18 pm

I dont know if swoopo is a scam or just a very very very clever and sort of unethical way for the company to make a buck. All i can say is that i just finished watching a few penny auctions on the main page, and it doesnt seem like a very good operation. I was watching a Tv auction for at least 10 minutes and everytime it would get down to about 6 seconds left someone would bid and the time would go back up. I was keeping track of the bidders and the same few must have bid at least ten times each in that ten minute period. Basically the auction seemed deadlocked and it wasnt going to end until someone rad out of bids. then out of no where the auction shot back up to 28 minutes left! that made the efforts of the previous bidders seem useless. Granted it was a penny auction and the price was only going up one cent with each bid, but the price went up a pretty substantial amount (for a penny auction at least) over the time i was watching. The whole system almost makes bidding seem futile, even the penny auctions which, although have a low increase, they seemingly go on forever.

Are there good deals to be had on swoopo? maybe, but im not going to bother to waste time or money looking for them.

Swoopo Says:
March 4th, 2009 at 3:45 pm

It is a scam because;
a) 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!

MajorEcon Says:
March 8th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

So, Swoopo may be a well designed gimmick, but it is not a scam. Bidders are told the cost of bids, and in fact must buy them before bidding. They already know how much each bid costs. It is not luck because you are competing against another bidder. Even the bid butler function is a fair inclusion because all competitors are given the chance to utilize it, and should be aware of it’s effects on their bidding costs. Swoopo bills itself as entertainment shopping. It is in the headline at the top of the page. It may be a creative gimmick but is not a scam. A scam is defined as; to victimize: deprive of by deceit. Swoopo does not deprive of by deciept. All parties are informed of the costs and should be aware that swoopo is a pay to play competition. It is up to the consumer to be aware of their costs (which should be easy since bids are prepaid) and to spend and bid accordingly. Swoopo offers great deals for individual bidders who bid intelligently. Of course they make great profits. I am repeatedly confused by people who demonize profitable ventures. Is it such a crime to turn a profit? It has been done for centuries and is the basis for free flowing commerce. Someone who takes a product, be it their time or an item are entitled to charge whatever price people are willing to pay. If the price for a product is truly unfair, and buyers are aware of all pertinent information, they will not purchase it. If buyers are willing to repeatedly pay a price for a product or service the price must be fair. If a price for a service or product is truly unfair, an informed consumer will not purchase it. Of course, IF swoopo truly bids on its own items it would most certainly fall under the definition of a scam- they would be willingly depriving bidders using deceit. As it stands, it seems that swoopo is providing a valuable and innovative service to its customers. They should be commended for adding value (entertainment) to the inevitable markup of retail products.

Geramy Says:
March 13th, 2009 at 9:05 am

You have to admit though. These Swoopo guys know how to make money.

bruce Says:
March 13th, 2009 at 4:45 pm

I just discovered that swoopo site today. And I am wondering how to trust that site? Imagine that I created a website like swoopo and ask to one of my friends to increase the bid for me. So I earn money and when I have enough money, I tell him to stop biding. Or if I don’t want to sell the item, I tell him to bid until the end. I will be completely the winner because since the beginning I don’t want to sell the product to my friend.
It is really difficult to prove that I have a link with the bidder who is my friend.

dan Says:
March 13th, 2009 at 5:19 pm

i’ll believe it when someone can prove they actually received something from this site. i’m sure as soon as one blog picks up on it, all the other blogs will follow.

Robert Says:
March 15th, 2009 at 10:34 am

Stick with the best Ebay……

joel Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 4:33 am

Thanks for the review! I just saw it on google ads and figured it was too good to be true.

LaLaLand Says:
March 16th, 2009 at 8:04 pm

The best way to take advantage of this pay-per-bid craze is to find sites that are just starting up. With less competition you can actually get a deal in the beginning. Unlike Swoopo you do not compete against the whole world.

Michael Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 12:20 pm

I just want to say THANK YOU. I was thinking about register in that site. now I’m not.

Doubter Says:
March 17th, 2009 at 6:47 pm

Power users or Swoopo company shills ?

In a January 29th, 2009 at 7:20 am post Atty pointed out some Swoopo “Power Users” who appeared suspicious. I for one would expect a frequent user of Swoopo to have a basic understanding of the cost of bidding on Swoopo. One of the “power users” singled out to watch out for is ty8011 Yesterday I watched ty8011 bid and win a Nikon D90 camera kit – http://www.swoopo.com/auction/nikon-d90-12-3-mp-dslr-camera-with-18-10/160335.html

During this auction Ty8011 used 2265 regular bids and 326 Free bids to create a winning bid of 114.77. This auction resulted in approximately $ 8,600 in revenue for Swoopo. The cost of Ty8011’s bids was $1698.75 plus the cost of 114.77 totals $1,813.52. If one values the additional 326 free bids at $0.75 (the avoided cost of those bids) this increases the amount to $2,058.02.

Today Ty8011 is bidding again on a Canon D50 camera in auction http://www.swoopo.com/auction/canon-eos-50d-15-1mp-digital-slr-camera-/160067.html. The price has presently been drien up to at $208.42 and climbing. This auction has so far generated approximately $15,200 in revenue for Swoopo.

A quick cross check of Amazon’s prices (not the cheapest) for these two cameras yielded $1,149 for the Nikon D90 kit and $1,130 for the Canon 50D.

So, you have to ask yourself why an experienced power user who bids frequently of Swoopo routinely spends almost twice the amount in bids instead of simply purchasing the identical product form one of many reputable online suppliers.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it is probably a swoopo shill. Can anyone spell “class-action-lawsuit’ on behalf of all swoopo bidders everywhere ?

Morgan Says:
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 am

Unreal how upset people can get over a site they DON’T USE. I wouldn’t use it. I am not a gambler either. But neither is compulsory, no one can force me to be an idiot. The fact that gambling is illegal (unless the gov’t does it here in the US) is no reason to wish for more regulation in other areas.

Here’s a great way to provide ‘oversight’. Don’t use the site. Filing a lawsuit? Go for it– put it in the public record for posterity that you’re a complete moron.

i know a former bidder Says:
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:28 am

i actually knew a former bidder, whent to college with me, he said he was in the bidding for a PS3 at only 100 dollars, but placed his 30th bet. I told him he was stupid. years later i caught up with him. Funny story, he now lives with his mom

idk Says:
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:41 am

and i know a bidder is lying cause he spelled went wrong so id doubt he even went to college

choyak yakatak Says:
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:27 pm

* * O M F G * * I just calculated, I see a Toshiba 42″ 1080p going now, I got one 3 months ago for $800. The auction goes up by 1 penny, so every dollar it goes up, Swoopo gets SEVENTY FIVE DOLLARS!!!!

Every ten dollars it goes up SEVEN HUNDRED and FIFTY DOLLARS. I conjecture the starting bid was $100, and it is at $148.55

So far, Swoopo made THREE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE DOLLARS and twenty five cents off of this. OMFG OMFG OMFG If I thought of this and then I would be a TRILLIONAIRE by now.

If the auction started at ZERO, then Swoopo got 11141.25, they could buy FOURTEEN of these TVs and swoopo them!!!

Jao Says:
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:37 pm

LOL wow you guys are all trashing this company. If your smart enough to stay away from it then stay away. Let the stupid people that cant figure it out for themselves go for it. This is in no way illegal or even unethical. They are directly stating their terms and conditions and you are free to participate through no deception on their part.

Yal Says:
March 23rd, 2009 at 7:10 am

Brilliant concept. Its all spelt out for you on the website, its not even confusing or misleading for someone with half a brain. Its like a sight built by nerds so that they can get money from jocks and others who didn’t pay attention in math class. Is there anyway I can get in on this? Can I buy some company stock or something?? As long as the populist sentiment is muted and this doesn’t end up on CNN or something, this thing could be huge and very profitable. The owners must be laughing their heads off sipping Sangria’s on million dollars yachts in the French Riviera.

Jimbob Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 4:54 pm

LOL at ppl who think they’re getting good deals
LOL at ppl who look at this and think its a good idea
LOL at ppl who don’t understand whats going on
LOL at ppl who think this is ethical

Congats to Swoop-o! I just watched a guy buy a $349.99 dollar laptop and the auction ended at $506.40 (not including the 355 bids @ $0.75 each totaling $266.25)

Swoop-o is practically printing money. Nothing like getting dumb ppl to ship you cash. I love it.

usman Says:
March 25th, 2009 at 9:34 pm

I registered for this site today and won a treo pro phone for 47 dollars. I only placed 2 bids. Its a clever gimmick.

roddaut Says:
March 27th, 2009 at 2:23 pm

Sites like this are designed to profit from people’s greed. Who wouldn’t want an ipod touch for pennies on the dollar? However, the math makes the sellers into winners and the bidders into losers. And win/lose systems always fail in the end.

Lopaka79 Says:
March 27th, 2009 at 10:56 pm

It isn’t true gambling since the bidder with the deeper pockets can just keep bidding way over retail to insure a win. IE keep placing bids on a $270 I-pod that ends at winning bid of $1,000(crazy I know) would insure a win. Since you’d have to be insane to compete on a auction for an I-pod that’s already at $1,000.

This is a silly thing to get trapped into. If no one regulates Swoopo. I’m pretty sure there are very little (real)items for sale and that most winners aren’t (real) people(its swoopo bidding on their own virtual items.) I can almost guarantee someone who is smart enough to get people to pay 7x an items retail price should also be smart enough to rig the game. Keeping real winners to a minimum.

So stop being stupid people… You know if its too good to be true than probably is. This is like a step above those spam emails from the president of Nigeria saying he wants to give you money!

15000cm Says:
March 28th, 2009 at 12:54 pm

Hey,
there is risk,..but i’ve won three items,…a laptop, nintendo ds, and flashdrive,…then turned around and sold them on ebay… it does take some great patience and understanding to use the site.. but it is legit, you can see what i won and where i sold it right on ebay. Hope this helps

Auktionen Says:
March 29th, 2009 at 12:51 am

Coole Webseite Swoopo : )

johnny Says:
March 29th, 2009 at 6:17 pm

What theses websites don’t tell you is that they have bots that auto bid for them. Most users on several items are real people bidding. Keeping you using your bids. The admin can set up a bot with a million bids and keep bidding until his bot wins the product. Once the product is won, he doesnt even have to send out a product and everyone who used there bids up are out hundreds of dollars. THESE SITES ARE FRAUDS, STAY AWAY. Granted some people win products but majority get screwed in the long run. Its no different then spending hundreds on a coin machine in vegas that are timed to go off at certain times. If you want to piss away your money, Try EBAY. Atleast if you dont win you dont have to spend a dime.

Jason Says:
March 31st, 2009 at 11:39 am

I don’t see any issue with this or other sites like Swoopo like http://Bidfight.com

People clearly know how the sites work, and as long as they are actual trusted business then let them operate!

Tom Says:
April 2nd, 2009 at 7:55 am

The best scam of all time! The site owners never have to buy or ship a product! All the site owners have to do is be the last bidder on any item, and they can set that up very easily with their bid butler bots! All the idiots who bid on the item, already paid them! How can you ever prove that the winning bidder was not one of the site owner’s bots? I dare you to try! With no regulation, this is the best scam ever! Best of all, they will sell you the whole scam, a clone website, software and all, for $2000.00 I love it! I wish I had the money to buy in! Oh yeah, I lost it all on the last scam I tried! —Pisspoor in Florida!

deitzberg Says:
April 2nd, 2009 at 6:54 pm

I watched a few auctions and the persons bid bultler didnt put in the bid at the same amount of time left every time if at all. It would get down to three seconds and the butler would bid but at other times it was placing bids for that person at 12 or 18 secs left. This is just a site for people to sit at home and get the thrill of gambling. I dont really see why people get so worked up about gambling. If you can think above the level of a 3rd grader you can see that your chance of winning is low so why waste money. I highly doubt that some one is actually dumb enough to spend more on a item in bids then what the item is worth. If that is the case than clearly they have people working for them driving up the price. The people who made this site really understand the American way of life. We want everything for nothing and instant results. They are letting us try to obtain the dream while making everyone look like a dumb ass.

Dealmaker Says:
April 4th, 2009 at 10:52 am

Has anybody checked out Worm Deals Auctions? They are similar to Swoopo, but they have 2 winners for every auction and the second winner only has to pay $1 for his or her win. Anybody want to see if they are for real? They’re at http://www.wormdeals.com/auction

fwoah Says:
April 5th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

Wow, that a really clever idea. The creators have to be credited with that much at least.

jd Says:
April 6th, 2009 at 1:06 pm

The purpose of my comment is to provide a deeper awareness for those who may not fully understand what Swoopo is offering. If this post provides you with a deeper understanding of the risk you will be taking (or have taken), I’ve accomplished my purpose. Here is a broader way to view Swoopo (In my own opinion of course.)

Swoopo has created it’s own market and has created the rules in order to influence that market so it can make money. Basically, it’s goal is to SUPPLY enough auctions to match the pace of DEMAND in order to convince it’s prospects (you and I) that the reward is greater than the risk. Swoopo APPEALS TO THE GAMBLER AND ALSO TO THE UNSUSPECTING. It is to the unsuspecting that I write this post.

Swoopo’s business model involves INFLUENCING both sides of the market – controlling the supply and inflating the demand side. Ever notice that the number of auctions generally remain the same in each category? The supply is very consistent. Ever wonder why Swoopo doesn’t just use a dollar for dollar bid system? or why they make the rule that the clock will reset with simultaneous bids? Why are there so many penny auctions? Why are most all auctions “International” and not just the US? These are their rules so they can nearly guarantee their making a profit. Let me explain.

In the Swoopo “economy”, the price of the product doesn’t really determine when the product sells. All the low price does is entice unsuspecting bidders to play the game. It is a tool to PROLONG demand for that auction. The product actually sells when the demand for an auction lets up enough so the clock runs out. In other words, the risk one takes in the Swoopo economy is that the demand will never let up enough for you to win before you run out of money (and/or the nerve) to keep bidding. To help me explain this concept, let me take this concept to each extreme.

At one extreme, suppose Swoopo floods it’s site with 1,000 identical computers and there is just one bidder that is interested (or who knows about it). That bidder would walk away with 1,000 computers costing $10. Swoopo wouldn’t survive. This is obvious. What may not be so obvious is the other extreme (and what most people may not understand).

Taking it to the other extreme, if Swoopo only allowed one computer at auction, and there is a CONSTANT demand for that computer, the auction would NEVER END until the price reached the retail price!!! At this point, new demand would cease and the winning bid would come down to those who are heavily committed to the auction because of the money they have vested in it. After a history of these kinds of transactions, it would be obvious, even to a monkey, that there is no benefit to playing Swoopo. You could just go buy the computer from a reputable retailer with less head ache and risk. Swoopo wouldn’t survive in this type of extreme market either.

Let’s now look at Swoopo’s “economy” based on these two extremes. Swoopo must stay in the middle of these two extremes in order for it to entice customers AND make a profit! They have created their own system that is heavily influence through it’s playing rules and in the SUPPLY of auctions. The rules they have made are to maximize GENERAL demand – to slow the auction down so wave after wave of customers run across the auction and feed a perpetual bidding war. These bidding wars heat up and cool off – they ebb and flow racking up several thousands of bids. On the supply side, (if their business is honest) Swoopo will allow just enough product into the market so there are winners.

Swoopo’s rules slow down the auction process to keep demand flowing and people bidding. One rule is the .01 cent and .15 price increments. These small increments are merely a confusion to unsuspecting people to think it is a good deal so they will play that auction. It takes a long, long, long, time to move the price to it’s retail price a penny at a time. Resetting the bid clock also prolongs the bidding war and allows wave after wave of new demand to prop up these bidding wars. International auctions are yet another way to even out the demand.

In Swoopo’s economy, Swoopo controls the entire supply side. This is very dangerous because it gives them the ability to manipulate auctions at will – no checks, no balances. I’m not saying they do rig their auctions, I’m just saying that there is no one to notice should they choose to. Swoopo places all of the auctions! They give account to no one but themselves.

Take notice that they average about 200 auctions at a time. Also, compare the 200 auctions to the 5 countries bidding on them! Do these odds really make sense? My point is that this not only a gamble, but a big one at that. The odds of winning a legitimate auction, as Swoopo has structured it, are very, very slim. Watch any auction that is in it’s last seconds. Watch how many people are bidding in those last moments. Follow the bidding war for a short while. How many new names do you see join the bidding process? How many times does it ebb and flow when Bid Butlers but heads? Most importantly, notice how the auctions are ending. Do the auctions end because the demand dries up (I haven’t seen one yet) or are you watching auctions with ten active bidders, half new to the scene, which abruptly ends? Remember, there are only three ways to win: No one is bidding, lag prevents bids from registering, or foul play on Swoopo’s part. All I am saying is just watch several for yourself and apply your logic after you see how most all of these auctions end.

I hope my thoughts have helped you see that Swoopo is a gamble. If you are a gambler and accept this risk…go for it. If your stomach churns then forget Swoopo exists.

Biller Says:
April 7th, 2009 at 9:16 am

how cool would it be if everyone on there just like worked together to get stuff for mad cheap and backed off on the bids and let someone actually win the auction for next to nothing?

swoopoo Says:
April 9th, 2009 at 9:58 pm

you lot don’t half complain. what you got to realise it’s a buisness and all retailers and buisness are doing this to you every time you buy something your paying 70% more than what it cost to be made. I say stop complaining and get bidding, i find that it’s only the losers that complain and it will be only a matter of time before Ebay begins to force people to pay to bid. you can be 2 people in life a slave or a con artist and if your a slave and you loose tuff sht. at least you had a bit of fun.

Diane Says:
April 10th, 2009 at 3:11 am

I purchased a pack of 30 bids on Swoopo. I used “Bid Butler” to bid on about 10 items, but I did not win any of the items. Then I tried to place bids manually at the last second on several other items but other bidders kept placing dozens of bids on the same item (at $.75 per bid). I’m not willing to pay a ton of money and then lose the bid. Anyway, based on my experience, both using “Bid Butler” and trying to place my own bids at the last second… I’ve found the chance of winning any bid almost impossible. Therefore, I wasted my money. I will not use Swoopo again.

Tequila Guy Says:
April 13th, 2009 at 4:54 pm

@jd, @atty

Thanks for such an indepth analysis! You both have done an amazing job at giving both practical and conceptual overview of the risks involved and business model.

I had registered at Swoopo but after reading their faqs and watching the auctions…figured out that more analysis is required 🙂

I incidentally used to work at ebay till very rescently and the moment I saw these auctions at swoopo, I immidiately wanted to see how they are insuring fairness to all bidders. As there are no sellers here except Swoopo itself, one obvious way could be to publish the history of buyers so that the bidder has some idea whom he/she is bidding against. I wanted to see how many item a perticular person has won…etc. You never know that the person you are bidding against is a “Power” buyer whose main occupation might be spending 400-500 pounds daily on Swoopo, and then reselling those items elsewhere, or maybe he is a compulsive gambler! There should be some way of knowing how many items he/she has won, maybe a * against the name, like eBay has for Power Sellers. Swoopo does not provide this information! That surely smells like a rat!

As Swoopo is the seller of items as well as the monitor/admin for the bidding process, they have full control on how the auction plays out. Its in their intrest that more bids are placed. I am not saying that they are rigging the bidding process, but I am just saying that its in their intrest that bidding goes on for a long time.

Swoopo like any other business, is a profit making organisation. Its aim is to earn money and improve its balance sheet. Like all other legitimate businesses, government has checks and controls in pace so that a company does not make profit by unfair means nor does it report a profit that does not exist.
Be it a big financial giant which invests money in share market all over the world or a gambling company which has casinos in Vegas. All are governed by strict regulations. A company’s balance sheet is audited by qualified auditors to make sure that correct business practices have been followed and correct profit/loss has been reported. State Gambling Agencies are there to make sure that even playing ground is provided to everyone and of course that rolle machines are fair 😉

I feel as Swoopo is also a profit making business, there should be laws in place to give assurance to a normal bidder like me that govt has made sure that there is nothing wrong going on at Swoopo’s end. And in case something does go wrong in future, the laws make sure that people responsibe will be prosecuted.

Until that happens, I would rather play poker than waste my money on a system that has no laws governing it.

Grant Says:
April 13th, 2009 at 10:49 pm

Swoopo like at bird in flight catching its’ prey. Lets’ just call this business its real name. Swoopup! That is what they really do. Thier trucks have mega vacums sucking up cash so fast they must have at least five of these mega trucks constantly moving across the globe. The gold rush has started again with few winners and many suckers. This is a new twist on the quick buck, the easy deal. It really suprises me how the shipping costs are so low, don’t you think? But if you fall for this, do not worry, I once got a award in bowling for my score. Oh yea, that score was a zero, the award was for the great effort I showed.

jani Says:
April 15th, 2009 at 12:59 pm

Hey 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. Real items are won and shipped daily and you can actually get customer service to listen to you and help you.

In the name of transparency and disclosure, yes, I am affiliated with the site, but not one of the owners.

Thanks,

Jani

Swoopo is a scam Says:
April 15th, 2009 at 2:46 pm

I lost $50 trying to bid for something. I did not know that bidding costs money! Gosh, now i feel stupid. Swoopo is a scam, and their company a bunch of scammers. Really frustrated having lost $50, and their customer support did not help me resolve the situation either.

Dan Says:
April 16th, 2009 at 2:49 pm

This is definitely a scam, albeit in the favor for both sides. I’ve been watching a couple of auctions and contrary to what the site’s rules indicate, I HAVE seen the amount of time left jump by more than their “maximum” of 20 seconds. I was watching a digital camera which bounced around the 5-15 second timeframe as more bids were submitted. When I looked at it again (and granted, I had opened this item in a dedicated window), the timer was at 14 minutes!! So their rule of “When you bid, we also reset the counter back up to a maximum of 20 seconds” seems to be cumulative. Yes, a max of 20 seconds for EACH bid that is submitted. This was today on April 16th, and the auction indicated it would last until May 19th!! I’ll have to start tracking how long items stay open for bidding for at the above rate, they may go on for over a month!

itchin4adeal Says:
April 17th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Why would anybody in their right mind go to swoopo.com? If they have over 50,000 users, what are your chances of using few bids to win the item. I hit the other sites that aren’t so big yet. You can actually win twice in the same auction at Worm Deals Auctions. They have a pretty decent site at http://www.wormdeals.com/auction. Plus you get 5 free bids just for registering.

Logical Man Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 4:41 am

It is a pure robbery. This is illegal and should be banned and owners taken to jail. I calculated they earn 5 – 6 times more then what product is worth while legitimate bidders get nothing. How do we know that they don’t have their own people bidding against each of us or even worst a computer program working all they long against each of us, increasing amount of bids i.e. their profit. The worst case scenario is we get nothing and they end up with our money and product we were bidding for, or maybe that product never existed at all.
This is a scam.

Kyle Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 12:01 pm

Ok, so for you people who clearly dont know how the website works, let me fill you in. Yes, you pay to buy bids. However, numerous people place bids on these products. Im looking at an example right now. Philips 42PFL7403D/27 42″ 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV is estimated to be worth $1299.99. The item was sold for $38.28. The winning bidder places 1249 bids, resulting in $936.75 spent on bids. The total number of bids was clearly 3828. This means, the bidder spent $975.03 saving $324 .96. The company made $2871. If you look at this, the company made a profit and bidder saved money. Ill give a second example. An Acer AS8730-6918 18.4-Inch Laptop is being sold. estimated retail $899.99. The winning bidder made 474 bids, costing $355.50. They won the auction for $158.71. The bidder spent %414.21, saving $485.78. The total bids were 15871. This comes out to $1904.52. So again, company makes a profit and bidder saves money. This basically comes down to making sure when u want to bid on something, ur willing to go the distance to win it at a cheaper price, or else, yes, it is a waste of money. So as long you aren’t dumb about your bid investments, you’ll love the site.

Penguin Says:
April 21st, 2009 at 7:46 pm

was just at the site and realized the con. these guys are nothing short of brilliant take the penny auction i just saw a

Samsung LN40B650 40-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV going for $57.45

but the auction is still going at 20 sec for the last 3 hrs. and probally will for 2 days more so these genius’s already made $4308.75 (plus the $57.45) on a $1,300 t.v.

at this point the could give it away. the only good thing is if u win (and only bid a couple of times) then you could actually get the deal of a lifetime

Susie Says:
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:55 am

I tried Swoopo after spending some time learning how it worked and figuring that some people were making a ridiculous amount of bids and not really getting a bargain. I had a go, set my self a bid butler, and won a Wii Sport for £12.90. Add £4 p&p and the cost of my bids, and I paid a grand total of £37. Pure beginners luck, I reckon, so I haven’t tried again, but I’ve got two very impressed kids that their mum could pull off such a stunt. My theory is that they let a random number of people win on their first auction then hope you’ll come back for more. Not me. Like someone already said, caveat emptor.

JakeinAZ Says:
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:35 am

Hows this for an example… They sell 1oz gold bars on there as well. I saw one in the “recently sold” box that went for $187.96. Keep in mind that this was also a penny auction. So, $187.96 is equal to 18,796 bids at $0.75 a piece. Thats $14,097 in bid revenue, plus the winner paid the $187.96, for a total of $14,284.96. They have the 1oz bar of gold valued at $1035.55, which would leave a margin of $13,294.41 on that one auction alone!!!! Thats unbelievable to me. But hey, if people are dumb enough to throw their money away without reading ALL of the fine print, then thats their own fault.

ERC GOETSCH Says:
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:33 pm

good for swoopo, they’re making the cash and capitalizing on people’s sheer stupidity. you are all just mad because you didnt think of this hugeee profit making opportunity yourself. shame on all you haters

antiswoopo Says:
April 25th, 2009 at 12:09 am

Swoopo came from Germany, they are obviously trying to make back all that reparation money from the war. Once a nazi always a nazi.

anoosh Says:
April 26th, 2009 at 8:05 am

I wont even read anyones comments because im sure its “i got $20 of bids and jumped into an auction and won nothing. If it were that easy wouldnt everyone be doing it? The truth of the matter is, if you actually USE your brain, do some calculations, check variables such as time of day, number of bidders and so on, the chances of you winning are much higher. There are tons of losers in all the auctions–Try to be smarter than the competition and USE YOUR BRAIN!

Wild Style Tech. Says:
April 26th, 2009 at 8:21 am

Hey I just wanted to comment I don’t know if anyone is still reading these but I just wanted to point out some profit that swoopo just made on a $37.50 digital keychain.

On some of their products that I added up they ont make to much profit but I was “WOWED!!” by the profit that they made from this little item.

Okay for one the guy who won the auction also paid way too much for it because he used bidbutler do not use bidbutler unless you want to pay way more then the actual item cost I been watching a few items winning using this and they paid more then the price then the actual item.

He paid $60.30 for the $37.50 worth item.

Look here.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction.html?cm_re=Homepage-_-Grid-_-1%2f3%2fPicture&aid=170609

Now let me show you how much swoopo made for this auction. I am counting on total bid by this user and the others that wont get their bid purchase back.

Each bid cost $0.75 at this time for a $0.15 increment of the bid
(non refundable) even if you dont win the item.

Okay heres where the math comes in.

The item ended at $22.80
Now each bid makes $0.15
So 22.80 divided by 0.15
Is 152 that means that there were 152 total bids including the winners.
So now 152 bids total at $0.75 each is $114.00

So swoopo sold a $37.50 worth item for a $114.00 a $76.50 profit!

“THAT IS AN OUTRAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Over a measley little keychain? that probably only cost them maybe $10 or less if they bought in bulk..

Again some items dont make them too much profit and some they lose but this one took the cake for me..

Well all I can say is use swoopo at your own risk! Why didnt I come up with this idea? I would have made millions!

I’m going to try swoopo once and put $20 on it and see if I can manipulate the system with this idea that I have that I am not sharing because then everyone will use it then I wont be able to win the auctions.

Just do a little research of the site and you might get the same idea I have..

I am only going to play once and if I do win then I will share my secret with you guys if it works but not until I win because I dont want you to beat me to it.

So stay tuned! And I will reveal the answer regardless if I win or not because I’m only going to waste $20 and after my money runs out then I quit I’m not going to get addicted.

And if I don’t win you might have better luck with my method especially if you are a swoopo bidder already and know swoopo for some time then this trick will probably be in your best favor!

I have not been a member of swoopo yet so I dont know if this trick will work for me..

And no! this trick is no illegal or bad in anyway it just might be able to get you the item just for less then a few bids instead of 100’s

So stay tuned!

Ravenwolfe Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

You guys complain too much, you know, you have to be smart about it.. I got a Ipod for a whopping 37.50 on there once, and you know how.. because I didn’t bid until the last 20 seconds, and when i bid, another guy bid, and i bid again.. i had 32 bids that I could use, I used a total of 5 bids.. which cost me 5 dollars.. seeing it’s a bid per dollar, and then it raised the price in total to 37.50.. I paid 15 dollars shipping and handling.. so.. here’s what I ended up with..

price: 37.50.. s&h, 15.00, price per bid, 1 dollar x’s 5… so i paid 57.50 total for a 120 gig ipod that normally runs 224.00 at walmart… yet it’s a gimmick?? you just have to be smarter than the system, you don’t bid in the first hours, you save your bid till the end my friends.

Corinthos Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm

I did it to post a review in my college newspaper. Anyways I did come out with an unlocked blackberry curve for 140 bucks. Not horrible. I would not use it for any items for like tvs or game systems or other tech devices. Still have about 15 bids left so probably will just try those on something and never go to the site again.

klepsch Says:
April 28th, 2009 at 2:36 pm

Swoopo came up with a great idea to make a lot of profit even if short lived. It basically comes down to common sense… if you're dumb enough to pay more than the msrp after the final price and bidding, then you deserve it. There's no need complaining about it or saying it's unethical, just don't waste your time/money on the site. It's ridiculous how people expect to be able to get something for nothing and Swoopo targets these people. IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. You can't protect people from their own stupidity. Whether you want to call it a scam or not, Swoopo is doing nothing wrong. They simply found an ingenious way to make a lot of money and I wish I thought of it.

ElDopa2000 Says:
April 30th, 2009 at 12:37 pm

Hey Wild Style Tech, did you attempt your “work-around” yet? I’m curious to try one myself, but I (A) have very little auction experience of any sort and (2) am morally against gambling of all sorts and this site’s “MO” is essentially a lottery-/raffle-type deal…. Anyway could you update us with any (non?) results? Thanks!

Jimmy19 Says:
May 4th, 2009 at 6:40 am

Hi.
I have been examining some of the penny auctions sites for the last couple of weeks. And came across quite a different one called biddingmart. They are not launched yet, but what they are offering is quite different then others.
1. When you register now, you will get 10 free bid (they call it pre-launch) offer.
2. They are UK based (not like swoopo)
3. When you win, you get all the bids you used to win that auction back to your account!!! So actually you only pay for the actual auction price.
4. They also state 90% of their products are collectable from London same day the auction is finalised. So, you don’t even need to wait for delivery.

Has anyone heard about these people?

Just search “biddingmart” on google.

Jason Says:
May 4th, 2009 at 9:31 pm

The best way to win is by going to the swoopo clone sites, they have the same stuff but not all the other bidders, personally I like Bidzooks, they don’t use autobidding.

John Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 7:17 am

I’ve used Swoopo in the past but there are so many using it now it is SO hard to win, bidding against people from other countries as well. I found another one that is launching soon called doobids. I’d be surprised if anyone knows about it because I have not seen them advertising anywhere yet. They are getting around Facebook as a fan page but they seem a bit different from the others though because they have put extra features on it making the whole process of bidding slightly more transparent, doesn’t look as much like a scam! Theres a security certificate as well which is really important for secure transactions. UK company registered and VAT registered. Might be worth a punt for those that care.

Martin Guttridge-Hewitt Says:
May 11th, 2009 at 10:48 am

URGENT ASSISTANCE NEEDED: Article research on Online Auction Sites

I am looking for assistance with an article I am writing for a well known UK regionalised magazine. The piece is looking at online auctions such as Madbid and Swoopo.

I am looking for anyone who has used such sites and has anything they want to say on them. Such websites have been given both positive and negative criticism, so if you have something good or bad to say, then I want to hear it.

Thanks for your consideration of this request.

Sincerely,
Martin

K Says:
May 11th, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Interesting. I just saw this site (it was advertised on the side bar thing in facebook) and was almost taken in by it. Decided to google it though because i didn’t trust it being that cheap.

John Smith Says:
May 12th, 2009 at 5:04 pm

It would seem as all internet endeavors that scripts could be written to act as bidders and thus ensure that the items are not given away and peoples bid money would go to swoop. Same reason I don’t use real money to gamble (poker or whatever electronic game) on the internet.

Zac Says:
May 14th, 2009 at 10:56 am

People complain about this stuff so much, yet send them to vegas with $10,000 and they will blow it in less time then they ever would using swoopo

OnlyThingIs Says:
May 14th, 2009 at 1:00 pm

One of my coworkers work just won an Asus EEPC, a Blackberry Curve and (?) something else I forget and spent less than a hundred dollars – total! The example where someone paid more than retail is not the norm, at least from what I’ve seen, by a longshot. I saw a guy win a 42″ TV in a penny auction for 98 cents. The site makes money, the losers subsidize the buyer but each person is out a few bucks usually, at most.

smarter than this Says:
May 15th, 2009 at 7:14 pm

lol are you kidding me! this site will be shut down in a month,,save your money!!!!

Drake Says:
May 15th, 2009 at 11:59 pm

It’s amazing to come here and see just how many people have petty squabbles over a company that had a genius idea that you didn’t come up with… Also, you show how little you know about auctioning when you jump in with the ridiculous math like one person made 175 bids.
It’s called perceptive timing, Bid when it’s right. If you know what your doing you can get away with paying for your bid only. 75 cents, and then the sale price. Don’t be jealous because I got a big screen TV for less than 2oo dollars. Deuces!

Nail Swoopo Says:
May 16th, 2009 at 5:14 am

Okay, I heard about Swoopo a month ago. I am a scientist – wanted to check how this works. I got into this by buying two 50 bids.
My Final Conclusion is : Its SCAM / CHEATING. We can NAIL them down. All of us have been only complaining all the time. If there are some Legal Attorneys out there, they may find some thing to Sue them forever and CLOSE this SHOP.

Here is why they are cheating and here is how it is very easy to write such a Program: The World is shrinking to BOXED world – a WORLD restricted to PC. When the PC World is shown on a BIG screen it becomes a VIRTUAL world.

Swoopo’s Algorithm is based on – some thing like Creating a Virtual Hotel and how to convince the customer/user/us/human that the Virtual Hotel is a REAL Hotel. On Average a human will believe if he can see around couple of other humans. If the program can create few HUMANBOTS, the HUMAN is trapped psychologically. This is exactly what they are doing in Swoopo.

They have ONLY THREE types of HUMANBOTS – SingleBid robots, BidButler Robots and Fresh Bidder robot. The advantage of Virtual World is :
a) It can Replicated according to the Programmer’s Whims and Fancies.
b) Every thing is an Object in the Virtual World.
c) Every Object Parameter can be altered to our benefit.

So, SingleBid robots, BidButler robots and Fresh Bidder can be controlled, created, altered at will by SWOOPO’s Technical Head – the Algorithm Fella.

With these HumanBots SWOOPO creates a live environment for a HUMAN/us. Creates a sense of Competition, Fight and frustration – Basically its Simulating the Real World where the HUMAN gets trapped to his/her emotional aspects and SUCKED/EXTRACT our BUCKs.

If you see the rules are simple:
a) First timer should WIN.
b) Second timer should Loose. (Introduce Humanbots and frustrate the User – which 95% psychologically, instigates the HUMAN to buy and get addicted).
c) and we can go on – after all its just replicating the objects, changing the parameters randomly and the past of the HUMAN BIDDER.

The Simple Way to nail them down is: Ask for the Records where we have LOST our BIDDING and go and check for the LEGALITY/REALITY of ALL the BIDDERs in that BID.

I have made a PPT of all the users in my BIDDING. I bet they are NOT REAL and are HUMANBOTS.

That could be one reason why their Servers are in Germany NOT in US. They can TWEAK every thing and any thing. However some information may not be changed, I suppose.

IT’s NOT GOOD to EXPLOIT (in what ever form). We can create a Fair and Really Entertaining Shopping which Swoopo Claims but, at the least, they are NOT CLEAN. PERIOD.

If needed we can Nail them down – an Attorney can help us get back some compensation for our Frustration and Exploitation.

Thank you

JT Says:
May 16th, 2009 at 9:20 am

I think you guys are misunderstanding the term scam ( a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation ). Swoopo is NOT a scam, unless you can PROVE they are doing something illegal. And you guys sitting here bashing them and making up ways they could be cheating is wrong. hello, aren’t we the land of innocent until proven guilty? Do you really want to start denying others that right? I’d be willing to support someone who required Swoopo to prove they aren’t having bots artificially inflate the bids if that same person will make ebay prove that the people who sell on ebay don’t go in and artificially inflate the bids on their items.

I’m not saying bidding on Swoopo is a good idea, I’m saying “buyer beware”. They tell you how this works. They basically spell out that you have a good chance of losing your money. If they have 10 people bidding on an item only one of them can win then 9 people are out of their money. It’s up to you to CHOOSE to take those odds, they aren’t hiding anything. The only thing I wasn’t able to see on the site, that I would have liked to, is the complete list of bidders.

You can look at it like this, on Black Friday (The Friday after Thanksgiving and the biggest shopping day of the year) Target has a doorbuster a limited supply of Wiis for $50. They don’t tell you how many but they do say it’s a limited supply and each store has at least 20. You and 150 others spend all night sleeping on the ground in hopes of being one of the ones to get the Wii. They run out after 21 consoles. You CHOSE to take that chance, expend that energy and ‘waste’ that time. It’s not Target’s fault they made the terms very clear. Swoop does the same. The choice is yours. So if you lose all of your money, that’s on you not on them. Likewise, if you walk away with a great deal, it’s up to you.

Most of the people here are shouting for a legitimate, legal business to be shut down because they don’t think other adults are smart enough to read the rules. Again, that’s just wrong.

Mark Says:
May 18th, 2009 at 6:22 am

Just wanted to thank you for this article. I was shopping online for a new Digital SLR camera and came across SWOOPO. Of course some of the prices caught my eye, but believing in the “too Good to be true” theory, I searched for info first. EXTREMELY helpful thanks again!

Mark
Girard, Ohio

Ahmed Says:
May 19th, 2009 at 9:32 am

What makes this any different than a lottery? If you lose the lottery, you don’t get any thing back. Same concept here. It’s a good idea for people who like risk and gambling. I would personally never use this service.

Tony Says:
May 20th, 2009 at 9:21 am

Should we report to Consumer Affairs.

Mike Says:
May 20th, 2009 at 5:47 pm

I’m glad I’m not dumb enough to fall for their scam, but you can see how they expertly stoke their user’s addiction….it’s wickedly clever.

I think my favorite bit is where they have auctions FOR BIDS. That’s just evil genius material, no two ways about it — they’ve actually got people paying real money for chances to win…chances to win. Somewhere there is a man watching those auctions and giggling madly to himself whilst stroking a white persian cat.

Whiners Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 12:14 pm

I am amazed at the whining about the site being a scam. I mean – do you people even know what a “scam” is? Good Lord.

It’s *not* a scam but a very, very good business plan. The ONLY thing scam-like on the site is the use of bots – presuming they still, or ever, used them. I would think there is no need now that their user base is the largest for a site of that type but their *does* remain the possibility that they are used. Again, if they TOLD you that bots were being used in order to cut their losses on some items, that would negate that part of the operation as being less-than-legit. However, since there is no *proof* they are being used, it’s all a moot point.

JT nails it – it’s about CHOICE. If you CHOOSE to bid there, you may get nothing and the site is perfectly up front about that. Nobody is making you bid there. Bid smart and you MAY get a deal.

NAIL SWOOPO makes some valid points about the psychology of it all and the use of bots but, sadly, he’s obviously kinda nuts, too, so that detracts from his message. 🙁

In short, if you think you’re gonna go in there and just willy-nilly throw around some 20 or so bids on a few auctions and walk away with a plasma TV for $8, you’ve got another thing coming. And you deserve to lose your money. Repeatedly.

And, no. I am NOT associated with Swoopo but I AM all for a good business plan – and they’ve got a doozy.

So, as the Governator would say – “STOP WHINING!”

vlen Says:
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:39 pm

Well…all I can say is this, in terms it is a scam, in other terms it isn’t a scam, what I think, is this, if people are so stupid into falling into this auction stupidity, they lose hundreds and hundreds of dollars, why? cause they are very stubborn and blind. Now, most people say its all about strategy, and thats a big one there, and also, not forgetting to mentioin to have a brain in the nogging? People, if you honestly want to go buy lets say…the 5D Mark II, which I wish was there, hopefully it will, lol, be auctioned from 2,799, and a guy bought it for 800 dollars, only bidding a few times, making him actually earning it very well, including shipping would be lets say 825 bucks, that guy is a smart player, You see, this site has gotten HUGE loads of money because of this, it is true, its unfair that you have to pay for a bid, if you actually bought the pack of the bid, you lose money either way, but if you use it right, then you got what you wanted, Its sheer luck and faith, timing, strategy, like actually waiting for people to give up and lose their energy? making them give up and tired from bidding then you hold up 10 cards for bidding, *holds it* SUCCESS! And I use one and I win, it depends on the time of day.

Seriously its an opinion matter, ITS AN OPINION, its not a FACT, yet, so people, don’t make other people do what you think, let them be stubborn and spend their money, you warned them. Ciao

-Vlen

Michael Says:
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:49 pm

Wow. Everyone’s smashing on these guys. I just found the site, and was like no way. So I googled about it, and found this. It was just too good to be true, and it was. But.. I mean come on, people. This idea is GENIUS. Swoopo is making a TON of money for practically nothing. I admire this, even though it is kinda a scam. It’s a really amazing how they’re able to make so much money off of people thinking, “IM SAVING $______!! WHOOO!” . . . Stupid people will always be stupid, I suppose.

Anne Says:
May 24th, 2009 at 8:18 am

I am doing research before committing to the site. In reading every comment I read – keep in mind, I’m not spending all day reading up. Every comment I read says stay out! Here is my question just out of morbid curiousity.

Why does everyone place so amny bids on an auction. Isn’t there a better way to determine the possible outcome and place your bid in that range, thus eliminating the need to place so much $ on any bid? I’m sure there’s something I’m missing.

Bob Says:
May 24th, 2009 at 10:05 am

I’m so glad I read about that catch. I was wondering why it was so cheap.

Netrider Says:
May 25th, 2009 at 10:02 pm

I won a PS3 160G for an end price of $16.43 plus shipping. When I factor in the amount I paid for the bids plus the cost of the console and shipping, I paid a whopping 33 bucks total for the $500 item. I lost the other bids but whatever I got a brand new PS3 cheap as heck (It actually was brand new to my amazement and works perfectly)! I have bought a few other small bid pkgs but have lost evertime since winning the PS3. I would compare this site to playing a slot machine, it seems to take alot of luck to win something.

Anthony Says:
May 26th, 2009 at 5:10 am

I can understand why most people think of it as lottery since it’s like the happiness of one is traded for the price of others. It’s just very clever.
Those who have placed a large bid will become more and more inclined to winning otherwise feel the bitterness of throwing away what they have started. But judging from the BBC’s interview regarding Swoopo’s methods. I have to say that it’s indeed revolutionary.

I only wish that they would make it more of a win win situation to bidders like for instance limit the amount of bidders or give other opportunities for the placed bids to be used again at a limited time. It’s just painful to see what you have been patiently working for get wasted at an instant when the auction ends.

Mac Hammer Says:
May 26th, 2009 at 8:48 am

I realize this story was posted a long time ago, but Swoopo keeps hooking new suckers and I just discovered some new math that will boggle your mind. Let me introduce you to Swoopo’s new concept: the Penny Auction!

Now, you buy your bids for $.75. Swoopo puts a nice item up for bid, like a Canon EOS Rebel worth about $850 on discount camera sites. The bidding starts at a penny! Each time you bid, the price increases by…a penny. The camera auction displays that the camera recently went for $162.45. Now, do the math on that deal.

$162.45=16,245 actual bids.
16,245 x $.75=$12,183.75 that Swoopo just “earned” in placed bids.

On top of that! The “winner” now gets the privilege of paying $162.45 for the camera!

So total income from a $850 camera is:

$12,183.77 + $162.45 = $12,345.20!!!!!!!!

A read of Google searched articles on Swoopo indicates that when winners receive their camera, it shipped directly from Amazon.com.

How is this for a business model? We put a picture of a camera on our website. We don’t even own the camera. Then, we get people to bid for the opportunity to buy the camera for an extreme discount. Once we have a winner (it can take days, by the way) we simply take some of the $12,345.20 and go to Amazon and order it to be drop-shipped to our winner. Amazon can charge us whatever the hell they want for shipping and handling and the camera. Why should we care? We have freshly grown money that just popped out of our butts. They can take what they want and we still win.

The upside is HUGE for Swoopo. Let’s do the math on the DOWN side. For arguments sake, let’s say that 10 people actively bid on the item, placing equal bids during the course of the auction. That wouldn’t happen, but the math is easy and still illustrates the point. So, 16,245 bids are placed by all 10 of us. That means that each person places 1,624 bids (the winner places the remaining 5 bids to win the auction)

That means that each of the LOSERS paid $.75 for each bid that didn’t win them the camera, or: $1,218. The camera costs $850 at your local Target. Obviously, more than 10 people bid/auction, but even if 100 of us are bidding, the losers still pay the same collective amount to Swoopo. Absolutely brilliant!

I see that Swoopo feeds off several human drives. First, the competitive nature that drives us to win. Second, the last-minute emotion of refusing to lose the auction. Third, the desire to “get a great deal”.

The only great deal is for Swoopo. They just raped you and because you didn’t use up all of the bids you bought, you are going to start all over again tomorrow. But this time, you are going to win!

Best of luck to you.

Mac Hammer

Go back and read the first comments at the top of this page Says:
May 27th, 2009 at 5:12 pm

# Is this for real? – G35Driver Says:
February 3rd, 2009 at 11:37 am

[…] Originally Posted by mark5 http://www.swoopo.com/ They have PS3 starting at really low prices. .75 a bid, is this a scam? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. https://www.technologizer.com/2008/09/17/…igned-gimmick/ […]

SCAM

¬_¬ < Like you said…if it seems to good to be true..it usually is.)

Joe Says:
May 28th, 2009 at 12:04 am

I wouldn’t call it a scam, it is gambling (which is bad) and a brilliant business model. I just went there and there was an 13″ Macbook which is $1,229 typically and the auction was $27.43 (a penny auction). That started at $0 and every bid cost the bidders one dollar. They just sold that $1,229 laptop for $2,743 to all those bidders,that is such a huge profit.

Amy Says:
May 30th, 2009 at 10:40 pm

So I am a believer in luck. I say that a Wii had recently been purchased for 14 dollars so I said I want one. I realized that I would have to buy bets so I bought a pack for like 22 dollar. Well what do you know I ran out of bids with seconds left on the clock so I had to buy more….the time mysteriously shot up to over an hour seconds after I had bought the new pack of bids. I will admit I am a sucker. The business isnt illegal but don’t expect to win. If you live in a state that doesn’t have legal gambling and you get an itch to gamble just jump on the SWoopo website and slowly empty your bank account one bid at a time. You may want to put 75 cents in a piggy bank every 15minutes and you can buy the item you are interested in in no time. Good Luck

Matt Says:
June 2nd, 2009 at 9:10 pm

Holly Carp 🙂 !!!!!!!

I just went to the site and found this auction in which someone paid about $110 to bid for something worth at most $89. Total cost to the poor bsatard who purchased it: $160!!!
http://www.swoopo.com/auction.html?cm_re=Homepage-_-Grid-_-1%2f4%2fPicture&aid=183229

What a smart scam!!!

billy bo bob Says:
June 3rd, 2009 at 10:39 pm

why not wait til the last few seconds and bid lol

ZoetMB Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 9:01 am

I don’t understand why people are so upset with Swoopo. If you don’t like it, don’t bid. I think it’s a brilliant business model because Swoopo gets to make a ton of money on each item, even if they’re paying list price, but the winner generally gets the item way below market value. So it’s a win-win (except for the losers). (Not that I’ve won anything yet.)

But you can only lose big-time on Swoopo if you’re an idiot. And there are plenty of idiots on Swoopo. For example, it makes absolutely no sense to bid until an auction is down to the last seconds (unless you’re testing to see if there are any active bid butlers running). Bidding before the last seconds only causes the price to increase and the time to increase, leaving time for other people to match your bid. Yet you see people doing this all the time. There’s also no point bidding manually when there are bid butlers running, unless you think your next bid is outside the range of the bid butler, because the bid butler is going to up your bid anyway. But you also see people doing this.

But I don’t blame Swoopo because people are too dumb to read and realize exactly how Swoopo works.

I analyzed the last 12 auctions for large-screen TVs. The winners paid (including the product price and the price of bids) an average of 23% of list price (not including shipping). So the winners generally make out very well, except for the idiots who get so caught up in bidding or who don’t want to lose their bid investment, that they overbid. The median price (including bids + product, not including shipping) was $301.27. The median list price was $1550.

Mac Hammer Says:
June 4th, 2009 at 9:14 am

To ZoetMB,

Everything you wrote is accurate. However, interviews with Swoopo representatives available in a base Google search reveal that the company knows it is losing money on large-screen TV’s. See my example of how much that earned selling a Canon EOS Rebel camera for one where the losers are getting raped.

Watching an individual auction, you will see that there are a lot of losers. Your note assumes that if you bid, you can win. There is absolutely no guarantee of this, and all losing bids are tossed down the toilet of life.

I refuse to bid because I know what I’d do if I lost. I’d try another auction on the same item, trying to chase the money I’d lost. I don’t gamble in Vegas because I know in gambling, this is a huge problem and how people lose their life savings. However, if I’m just trying to buy a camera, I’m going to try again because I spent all that money and didn’t get to buy the camera. So, try watching for the same names in successive auctions on the same item. You’ll see them. These people are tossing the dice yet again and still have no guarantee that they are going to win the camera. These people could easily lose 10 auctions before they actually win the right to buy for a great price. It already cost them more than it was worth, but at least they can show their spouse the $10,000 camera they just bought.

Are they stupid? Absolutely. Did it happen? Absolutely. Even if you count cards in Blackjack, there is still no guarantee that the next card isn’t going to bust you. Improving your odds will never defeat the house in the long run.

Paul Says:
June 6th, 2009 at 3:00 pm

Think about this – Swoopo bids on their own items with bids they manufacture for free, thus driving up the prices on the items. Say there is a group of people (10) that use 15 bids. Swoopo makes $150 bucks and outbid them, thus winning the items and reentering it onto the market. Who has actually won anything on there? Think about it.

Mike Says:
June 9th, 2009 at 6:00 pm

I Just won a Sony 47″ LCD T.V. for $21.34 Plus $69.99 Shipping Plus a total of 3 Bids at $0.75 each. $92.17 total. It arrived on my door step last Wednesday. I listed it on craigs list that night and sold it for $875.00 last Thursday. I made over $750.00 PROFIT. I guess I got really scammed!!

That was just my first time on the Swoopo site.

DooBie Says:
June 11th, 2009 at 1:34 pm

Swoopo is basically a Well-Designed Gimmick (rip-off). There are better places to spend your money.

Roger Says:
June 12th, 2009 at 11:55 am

It is like stocks, like a lottery, like a raffle, like an auction. You can do some research and not do silly things like bid at more than x amount of seconds. Play for fun and just goof around. Don’t play to win. Don’t bid so heavily into one item that you will feel bad if you don’t win. If you really need something or want something go out and buy it from ebay or at retail. If you want to goof around and are bored and possibly win something on random I think it is good. A dollar per bid is a bit high.

LOL Says:
June 13th, 2009 at 4:35 pm

LOL some people just aren’t very smart about the way they go about auctioning:

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/300-bids-voucher/184969.html

This is an example of the “less intelligent” Swoopo users.
This person paid 325.95 for 300 bids valued at 225. Way to go tomtom2302!!!

The picture of the auction item is exactly how I imagine him reacting once realizing he won 🙂

Goose Says:
June 15th, 2009 at 3:40 pm

I think Swoopo is too hard to win on because people that have bid a lot on an item aren’t willing to lose because they have already put so much money into it. When http://www.GottaNabit.com launches it will be a waaaaaay better place to win items at cheap prices. At least 40-80% off every item and you dont pay per bid.

jason Says:
June 16th, 2009 at 10:20 am

swoopo is in fact a gambling site. the whole thing is the same as lottery. i don’t think that it’s is legal in the usa.

andyg Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 12:40 am

It’s gambling, not an auction. You might as well play Kino. At least you know the staggering odds. I’m shocked no Gov’t agency (in one of the 5 countries they do business) has not gone after them.

Emily Says:
June 17th, 2009 at 7:03 am

Wow – what can I say and this is where I spin the wheel – fantastic idea – good for them, I too was drawn to Swoopo prob won’t use it not because its a scam but I don’t gamble and in essence that is what this is – a gamble, plain and simple. They are probably raking it in – well done them – but I am an eBay hater they are real money grabbers

web marketing expert Says:
June 19th, 2009 at 11:28 pm

I’d have to say it is a pretty clever marketing gimmick, but likely to be a losing deal for the majority of bidders.

Sort of like Vegas. 😉

Ice Says:
June 20th, 2009 at 11:12 pm

I just can say they did create a money making monster.
For example I was watching this auction for a laptop $0.01 bid
I stop watching when it was $159.28 for a laptop value more or less of $2,287.00

Now here is the beauty for them making money:

Each bid cost the user $0.75 Cents and we have 15928 bids

15928 X 0.75 = 11946

$159.28 Price for winner
$11,946.00 Money made by the bids
$12,105.28 Total

I also saw a thumdrive 16GB sold for $4.28 = $321.00 dollars in bids
The sad part is after this company makes all that money they still charge shipping to the winner 🙁

Bill P Says:
June 22nd, 2009 at 4:56 pm

Looks like they’re up to something new, underquoting an items value.

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/20-bids-voucher/190179.html

An auction for a 20 bid coupon valued at $10. Isn’t 20 bids at 75 cents ea $15?

Tracy Says:
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:36 pm

Boy am I glad I read your info before I signed up! Thank you for all the great information. Tracy

KatAttack Says:
June 26th, 2009 at 1:40 am

My reaction to Swoopo was the same as just about everybody else’s but, when you get down to thinking about, Swoopo runs itself a lot like a live auction. In a live auction, its the Auctioneer who sets the next highest. Also, like a live auction (and unlike ebay), an item isn’t sold until the auctioneer has made certain that the last bid has been shouted. In fact, the only real difference between Swoopo and a live auction is that you do have to pay for each bid. But I find it hard to really come down on them for that. Yeah, the profit potential is huge, but running a website is EXPENSIVE and without those bid-credits, I doubt this one would stay afloat. Also, with the price of each item going up so slowly they probably aren’t breaking even on products that aren’t very expensive or popular.

michael Says:
June 30th, 2009 at 10:45 am

I wanted a blu ray labtop and was searching on google when I came across swoopo. They were advertising that someone won acer aspire 8930 for 170 pounds. With Ebay bidding technique in mind, I stupidly registered, read the help section and bought 25 bids. After bidding for a while I realised that I was losing but was overtaken by the quest to keep trying. To keep a long story short, I ended up wasting 700 pounds in total with their bidbutler wasting 250 pounds. I spent 24 hours continuosly glued to my computer just to track the auction and yet with 700 pounds I could not win an item which was finally won by someone else for 114 pounds.

Actually, that same acer is currently being sold for 650 pounds on ebay and I realised how stupid I had been. I reported them to paypal but they could not do anything. I complained to the company and they posted the information on their Help section as a reply. This happened last month (May 2009). I have already unsubscribed from Swoopo with a loss of 700 pounds.

Please avoid this site. They are advertising on UK television at the moment and I am sure many people will fall prey to it.

Brian Says:
July 1st, 2009 at 3:30 pm

I think the business model is ingenious. However, I would not participate for a good number of reasons.

Being that the Business itself is making money off the bids, I would feel there would be less likelihood for any internal monitoring system from preventing a self-outbidding scheme from taking place.

Lets look at it this way.

Swoopo puts up a hot item… lets say a 50″ Plasma TV. Bidding opens up at $1.00 with a half hour bidding time.

It gets a few bids and by the time it reaches a 5-Minute marker it is still priced rather low at lets say $27.00.

Now is where the “Fun” begins. With time breaking 5-Minute marker, the bidders watching the auctions are getting more tempted to closely watch the item to try to “pick” their moment, hoping no one else is going to bid.

By the time it breaks 1 Minute remainder time on auction, the 50″ Plasma is up to $50.00. If it was a $0.01 auction item, each bid was increasing the auction price by $0.01 / increasing seconds on item by 1-4 seconds (from what I witness watching an auction today). Each bid transaction comes at a cost of $0.60. For the item to have reached a price of $50.00, there would have been4,900 bids @ $0.60 a bid for a total item sale value of $2,940.00 for that 50″ Plasma. ($49.00 / $0.01 x $0.60 = $2,940.00) I doubt they paid retail value for that 50″ Plasma, so the percentage of Markup on the item sold even at $50.00 would be well over 100%.

That’s just the icing on the cake.

Now lets say Joe Blow was banking on getting himself a cheap Plasma and this looked like too sweet a deal to pass up. Joes been bidding since the minute marker and made a grand total of 30 bids (30 bids @ $0.60 = $18.00). Lets be honest, $18.00 isn’t that much money really, but if Joe doesn’t win the bid, he spent $18.00 on absolutely nothing. Compound that by the thousands and you really got a huge rip off scheme going.

And I am hardly finished. What Joe Blow doesn’t realize, along with the hundreds of other participating bidders, is that Swoopo stacked the decks! They’ve got auto-auction bidders who will continually outbid you on every item till the final tick of the clock. “10 seconds, 8 seconds, 5 second! What, Outbid by JohnnySpot2 yet again!!!… I’ll win this TV YET!”

As I said earlier, who is monitoring these auctions to ensure that this is not happening and how is someone to know they auctions are legit? Who is to say that Swoopo hasn’t set into place an auto-bidding program behind their website for every available auction, or that they aren’t hiring people on the side to bid on the items themselves, and paying them a percentage of the bottom line $$$ markups they are making off of items. Who is tracking the items sold to ensure there are actually items being delivered to “customers” as you might think of them.

I highly doubt there is any monitoring of a site in this nature, and I am willing to bet that there is a indecipherable user agreement the length of a full series of encyclopedias covering Swoopo’s A$$ for the legality of the business they are conducting.

If that penny auction 50″ Plasma went up to $200.00 on the final sale, Swoopo brought in an astronomical $11,940.00 for a set that would have retailed $1000.00 – $2000.00 in stores today.

If Swoopo is engaging in self bidding on auctions, and they do not actually let a real bidder/customer win an auction, that $11,940.00 would be ALL PROFIT, since in fact no item was sold or delivered to a “customer”/bidder. I don’t care how they may be doing it, but I would be very skeptical on the ethics of this business and would lean towards the angle that this may in fact be the very thing they are doing.

Someone ought to have the business investigated for fraud.

Good deal or not for an individual purchase, this is capitalistic mentality at it’s dirtiest.

Hey… SWOOPO… CUT ME IN!!! I’ll bid on your auctions for you all day for a measly 1% of your profits from the auctions I partake in, and laugh my A$$ off all the way to the bank just like you are doing.

Rambunction Says:
July 7th, 2009 at 9:46 am

If you want to win at Swoopo, you should check out Swoopo Spider (http://swoopo.rambunction.com). Swoopo Spider collects and analyzes the data you need to win.

Jan Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm

Watch out for Swoopo’s recent changes:
As today announced, Swoopo just started to test a “buy it now” feature on its German and Austrian website, take a look at their today published press handout:
http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.presseportal.de%2Fpm%2F76174%2F1436618%2Fentertainment_shopping_ag&sl=de&tl=en&history_state0=
Users can apply the TOTAL costs of their previous bids towards the purchase of an item, which means that, if you have spent 100 bids and the auction is still running, you are able to purchase the item for its announced price (which is usually much above the market price) less the costs of your bids spent so far (50 €; 100 bids x 0,50 € per bid).
I wondered myself why they have changed their business model and implemented this feature … because, as it seems, Swoopo has become more attractive from the user’s perspective on the one hand and Swoopo lowers its own margin on the other hand. It obviously doesn’t fit to Swoopo’s former strategy…
Besides the fact that people have started to bid as mad, because they practically cannot lose money for bidding anymore as long as they are willing to pay the price announced by Swoopo, there is an evil aspect coming along this feature:
Just take a look at both the German website http://www.swoopo.de and the US website http://www.swoopo.com and you will see that all users bid on the same auctions. Well, this fact is not really new … but if you take into account that Swoopo shows the “buy it now” feature (blue shopping cart item) to its German and Austrian users only, the racing conditions are pretty unfair. While Germans and Austrians cannot lose anymore (as long as they are willing to pay the price announced by Swoopo), US users and users from all the other countries are taken for a ride. They simply don’t know that this feature is exclusive to Germans and Austrians, and, moreover, they don’t know that they practically cannot win anymore.
Swoopo pretends them real bargains but conceals that lots of German and Austrian users will have activated their bid butlers loaded with tons of bids – they practically have an infinite amount of “freebids”.
Don’t you think that this is a REALLY EVIL SCAM???
In my opinion, all users from other Swoopo countries except Germany and Austria should immediately stop bidding, as Swoopo takes them for a ride.

MeansLoser Says:
July 8th, 2009 at 11:10 pm

Swoo Po roughly means “Sure Lose” in Chinese if you reverse the Chinese characters that sound like Po Swoo.

There you have it, openly telling you the secret.

swoopthis Says:
July 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm

it is a brilliant idea but will have a short coming as the losers will never come back. i think its smart marketing on swoopo but its really unfair to the person thats not fully understanding of how the system works…which would be MOST people!

Drake Says:
July 17th, 2009 at 3:07 pm

Thanks for the info! I was wondering.

hank h. Says:
July 27th, 2009 at 11:01 am

These sites are very easy to take advantage of while they are young and there are few bidders. The newest one that I’ve found (and been able to profit from) is bidfire,

Crome Says:
July 31st, 2009 at 5:17 pm

I didn’t see anybody mention the “swoop it now” feature, which allows you to purchase the item that you bid on at any time. You pay the “worth up to price” minus the sum of all the bids you made in the auction. I feel that that feature makes the whole thing legit, because now it’s up to you whether you want to gamble (and potentially end up empty-handed) or simply use the auction as a way to potentially get a discount. If you’re not willing to pay the full price for an item, you probably shouldn’t be using Swoopo (unless you’re a gambler).

Tommy Says:
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm

Thanks for your info man!
But well on this kind of websites one bid costs like $0.50, $0.60 and sometimes even $1 per click. I prefer to bid like for 15 or even for 10 cents 🙂

There is a website where 1 bid cost as low as $0.10 per click: http://www.for10cents.com

Allan Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 3:29 pm

This is a devilishly clever way to make money, but essentially SO heartless. It makes me think of the fim ‘They Shoot Horses Don’t They’. Those who have made many, many bids on a product may well feel compelled to keep bidding to the bitter end. Meanwhile, others will come in near the closing stages and they stand to make a bigger saving at that point and so the cost of the item keeps rising. I really pity the poor sucker who has been getting hooked into more and more bids like a gambler playing double or quits. Ultimately there will be winners, but spare a thought for those who have sweated their guts out, ruined their eyes and wasted hours at a pc screen rather than enjoying their lives, just to be made bitter and twisted by losing…

Tim Spence Says:
August 4th, 2009 at 11:39 pm

It’s just a gambling website, but unlike vegas… has rules designed to confuse the suckers… er players.

Surprised the us site hasn’t been taken down by the feds.

James Says:
August 5th, 2009 at 6:13 am

This is like the auctions of the old days. When someone bids, the timer kicks up, allowing for more bids. That’s why they can take the chance for selling supposedly so cheap.

carole maidy Says:
August 11th, 2009 at 8:11 pm

PLEASE READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

THIS SITUATION IS FAR FROM BEING OVER, KEEP WATCH ON T.V & NEWSPAPER

YES, I am one of those suckers that got swept up with SWOOPO.COM. I did the swoop it now feature for a computer and went to my paypal to make payment for it ( paypal is one of supposedly several means of payment) my paypal just took me around and around in a circle, I have emailed swoopo twice with no response, and have contacted paypal customer service, they said my payment was not accepted by SWOOPO.COM and paypal had an amount of $928.45 and I have a statement from them they e-mailed me and it was $857.69 but they still haven’t accepted the payment.

B Cimperman Says:
August 13th, 2009 at 7:06 am

I dont see how you could think that this is in any way different than playing the stock market. You pay your broker for each stock purchase with the hopes of the stock going up in price. Sometimes you are lucky and other times you lose your butt. Life is a crap shoot and it’s up to the individual how he or she wants to play the game.

Thomas Andrews Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 8:51 am

Hi,

Your article does show the flaws of penny auction websites. However, a new auction company called http://www.bidyell.com feels it has mitigated some of the main flaws of the penny auction.

Check out our website at http://www.bidyell.com, our speed and knockout auctions, we think, combat the problems of penny auctions.

Tell us what you think.

Thomas Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 9:39 am

Sites like Swoopo are more for fun than for people actually looking for a bargain. I suggest you look around at the other auction sites similar to Swoopo. Hasteno.com is a new one that I’ve been playing on and I’ve actually won a couple things. Playstation 3 games going for $.08 (2 bids!) and a Nintendo Wii going for $2.16 is ridiculous. Before you completely discount the idea, you should check them out.

Penny auction Says:
August 17th, 2009 at 10:19 am

Has anyone bought anything from http://www.gozila.co.uk penny auction?

Whats the deal, is it like ebay?

Thanks

Timothy Holt Says:
August 18th, 2009 at 5:05 am

This is what is called an Irish Auction (as opposed to an English or Dutch Auction) where the second highest (and ll the others) bidder loses what he has bid. Another example is two people trying to get into a parking spot – that one who backs down first, loses his time, but doesn’t get the spot.

What is most objectional, is the the additional 20 seconds added as the end time approaches zero, allowing others (unlike at EBay) to counter your bid. This creates a very slippery ball that is only possible to catch if all the other bidders fall asleep.

Great business model, but ultimately stacked in favour of those running the auction.

Sue Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 10:49 am

I like http://www.bidtunnel.com its free for everyone and more like ebay was a long time ago.

Sue
http://www.thepixellink.com
http://realonlinetraffic.com

Marius Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 9:22 pm

Math is simple. I just ran into few minutes ago. I browse from Canada
A bid price is: 0.65 $CAD
Electronics expensive items are at: 0.02 $CAD / bid.
So for a dollar there are 50 bids.
50 bids x 0.65c = 32.5 $
These bastards are making 35 time more than you see the final price.
This is evil rather than clever.

Someone Says:
August 27th, 2009 at 9:52 pm

That a pyramidal strategy. At the end of the road the buyers (buyer) ends up paying an item 4-6 more than it’s value.
Money taken from bidders for each ended bid is ~30 times more.
(2c / bid x 65c/bid = 32.5 times)
If item is sold at 1/4 to 1/5 of actual retail price, their profit
is around 4-6 times. From where these money came. From all buyers,
and some day as any pyramidal scam will collapse, but as the history repeats itself some smart asses ends up having billions, stolen from all of us.
I am stunned how something like this can be legal?

Dan Says:
September 1st, 2009 at 1:52 pm

check out a better auction site: http://www.bidsorbit.com/

BidsOrbit.com

TomJ Says:
September 8th, 2009 at 9:08 am

Swoopo has alot of products but i go to http://muulu.com there alot better 50 cents per bid, and discounts for when you buy a bid pack. I like the way the site looks too.

MIKE Says:
September 13th, 2009 at 5:20 pm

I just ran across this site today and quickly removed it from my favorites….It’s a SCAM right from the beginning….You know the old saying “You don’t get nothing for nothing”….Too bad people fall for these SCAMS….

Chris C. aka sakaimi Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 12:53 am

Swoopo.com is legit and we have won off the site before but that was back when it started.. now swoopo has become a money hungry power house. i was stalking a mac with just 30 bids to my name ok and this guy wins it out from under me with a total of 483 bids. well that’s happend about 4 other times this week. ok well for that this auction ended at about $177.78 great price it sounds now consider that computer cost’s $1749.00 ok now do some math. 177.78/0.06 gives you the total number of bids which equals out at 2963 now take 2963 and multiply it by 0.60 wich is the price of the bids and now we have a total of $1777.80 plus the $177.78 that was paid by the buyer so now swoopo made a profit of $206.58. Not much but still take into consideration the one before it sold for $482.46 now that time swoopo made a $3558.06 profit. and that is for a 6 cent auction most auctions of the site are 12 cent auctions. now it’s true if you can win with a small number of bids you made a great deal even at those price’s but most people who win these auctions now do so with hundreds of bids then they take the computers and sell them for retail value on sites like ebay or in local stores. I can not find a mac like i need for less than $1000 even from apple themselves and they do not offer financing. so with a budget just under $500 swoopo looked and still is my best bet the likeliness it will pay off slim but who knows. still the owners of this site must feel like some really smart cookies they spend a lot but rake in so much more. sorry this looks like more of a review but this is the only place i saw to post it and coincidentally the auction i was watching i lost because my computer froze just about 15 minutes ago. spent over 5 hours watching it to win and lost because of swoopo’s bid Butler feature.

someone Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 1:53 am

wormdeals/wormdeals auctions

This site is a deal a day site that promises but doesn’t deliver?

Here’s my experience;
I ordered a WII “new in factory sealed box” according to the website for $201 and paid with paypal. After several unanswered emails and phone calls to the only info I had at the time, I did a little goggle research and found more info at these sites,

http://www.dealsucker.com/reviews/WormDeals-Deal-of-the-Day_277/

http://digg.com/business_finance/Scam_Penny_Auction_Sites_Bots_Shill_Bidders_and_Theives

it seems I’m not the only one who has had this experience with the “Worm”. So I did a little more digging and found an address, company name and owner’s name as well as a lot of “public info” about him. Since I was going to be in the area I decided to stop by his “place of business” which happens to be his home and find out what the delay was. So after I did that I posted the info so others could get their refunds too.
Here’s what I posted;

Hi, thanks for the refund, wish i didn`t have to do it that way, but
since you didn`t call back, I can only guess you NEVER had them to
begin with…
So should I start posting scam? I see you were removed from DODtracker
for the same issues. Are you beginning to see I was the wrong person
to scam. Monday, since I have the time, and money, Ill be contacting
the Ill. district court, the BBB, the building code dept to see if you
have the proper permits to operate a business at home, the county
attorney`s fraud division, the fire chief to see if you`ve been
inspected as a business for proper safety equipment, IRS, local news
stations… the list goes on and on. See all the info I found about
you and Janine, was public info, the price you paid for the house,
schools you went to, neighbors names and numbers, (do they know what
kind of neighbor they have?), and I have it all saved, bookmarked, and
ready to send off. Oh and I posted most of it in every place I found
you or your various companies, AEM, Family Computing, the website
design business Janine has, but if your site is an example, I can`t
see you guys making much money.
I`m sorry it has to be this way but when you go to scam someone, be
prepared to pay the price, I was the wrong person to scam.
Here’s his info for those that got scammed:
I have the following info on you;
AEM SOLUTIONS INC
9224 S TRIPP AVE
Oak Lawn, Illinois 60453
as well as this; $195,000 for your house on
March 12, 2001 Janine M Kuchay/Missey and Bryan T Missey.
this is the info you`ll need to get a refund.I too bought a WII with the same NORESPONSE from calls and emails. I just happened to be in the Oak Lawn area and after researching found the above info on this SCAM. I showed up AT HIS HOUSE and the refund was posted to paypal in 30 minates. All the above info was found on the internet legally and PUBLIC INFO. OH YEA isn`t it ODD that KDIDDY is in Oak Lawn???

Do you see any threats in this?
Well today I get these in my email;

Bryan Missey
9:29 PM (4 hours ago)

Keep it up, Bryon. When you start intimidating people who have nothing to do with wormdeals, you are beginning to walk a fine line. Time to step back. You got your refund and you don’t know where you are headed. Don’t threaten me again.

My response;

Brent, forwarding this to you so you have both sides

Bryan Missey, I don’t intimidate, I inform.

Just so we understand each other, here’s what I sent you, and what I’ve posted anywhere I’ve found YOUR name, YOUR various companies names, and anywhere someone has mentioned how they, like I, got no response from you in regards to orders they placed with you. It’s all PUBLIC INFO. Where in this do I threaten you? A better term would be that I threaten to EXPOSE you for the fraud/scam that you tried to pull. PROVE ME WRONG. If I was the only one that had this experience, then you’d have a point, but as I found out just by Google-ing your name, your various sites I was but one of MANY that dealing with you became a joke.

As I’ve said and posted before, YOUR lack of communication forced me to come to your LISTED place of business. And as I was 5 miles away swapping trailers, taking a little personal time to eat or shop is allowed by my company. I chose to stop and see what the delay was in my order.

Bryan Missey
9:39 PM (4 hours ago)

By the way, I notified your company about your arrival and what you are trying to do to intimidate me. I’m sure they would like to be involved. I’ll call them on Tuesday as a followup.

My responses was;

Be my guest, the number is 888-***_**** my dispatcher is Brent.
I’ve got nothing to hide but it appears you do, as far as intimidation, no, You didn’t return calls or emails, so I HAD to come to your “place of business” to find out what the delay and problem was. As far as my searching and finding PUBLIC information about you, I’m am alerting the public like those on dealsucker.com how to get the refund or any contact you. seems your reputation there and on a digg feed just confirms what I have experienced in my dealings with you. If you’d have just sent me the WII as I ordered it, and followed up by returning my calls and emails, none of this would have happened. But after researching you as I mentioned, well the public has a right to know about what kind of operation you run and how to get ahold of you. As all the various numbers you’ve listed on your various sites to “contact you” belong to other companies that have never heard of you, one can only assertain YOU have somthing to hide.

ps I’ve also forwarded a copy to my boss, so he can see how I’m dealing with you.

Also got this on facebook from him;

Wormdeals Auctions sent you a message on Facebook…
Re: Really?

“I didn’t scam you, Bryon. I refunded you on a Sunday when I could not contact my drop shipper until Monday. When you show up at someone’s house, it’s a little intimidating. And then with the creepy online querying you have done about my family, it’s even creepier. Please don’t keep it up. Let it go.”

That’s the story,

revbryon Says:
September 16th, 2009 at 11:39 am

Wormdeals and worm deals auctions and possibly Delta Liquidation Auctions are owned by this guy Bryan Missey.
This site is a deal a day site that promises but doesn’t deliver?

Here’s my experience; I ordered a WII “new in factory sealed box” according to the website for $201 and paid with paypal. After several unanswered emails and phone calls to the only info I had at the time, I did a little goggle research and found more info at these sites,

http://www.dealsucker.com/reviews/WormDeals-Deal-of-the-Day_277/

http://digg.com/business_finance/Scam_Penny_Auction_Sites_Bots_Shill_Bidders_and_Theives

Hi, thanks for the refund, wish i didn`t have to do it that way, but since you didn`t call back, I can only guess you NEVER had them to begin with… So should I start posting scam? I see you were removed from DODtracker for the same issues. Are you beginning to see I was the wrong person to scam. Monday, since I have the time, and money, Ill be contacting the Ill. district court, the BBB, the building code dept to see if you have the proper permits to operate a business at home, the county attorney`s fraud division, the fire chief to see if you`ve been inspected as a business for proper safety equipment, IRS, local news stations… the list goes on and on. See all the info I found about you and Janine, was public info, the price you paid for the house, schools you went to, neighbors names and numbers, (do they know what kind of neighbor they have?), and I have it all saved, bookmarked, and ready to send off. Oh and I posted most of it in every place I found you or your various companies, AEM, Family Computing, the website design business Janine has, but if your site is an example, I can`t see you guys making much money. I`m sorry it has to be this way but when you go to scam someone, be prepared to pay the price, I was the wrong person to scam. Here’s his info for those that got scammed: I have the following info on you; AEM SOLUTIONS INC 9224 S TRIPP AVE Oak Lawn, Illinois 60453 as well as this; $195,000 for your house on March 12, 2001 Janine M Kuchay/Missey and Bryan T Missey. this is the info you`ll need to get a refund.I too bought a WII with the same NORESPONSE from calls and emails. I just happened to be in the Oak Lawn area and after researching found the above info on this SCAM. I showed up AT HIS HOUSE and the refund was posted to paypal in 30 minates. All the above info was found on the internet legally and PUBLIC INFO. OH YEA isn`t it ODD that KDIDDY is in Oak Lawn???

Do you see any threats in this? Well today I get these in my email;

Bryan Missey 9:29 PM (4 hours ago)

My response;

Brent, forwarding this to you so you have both sides

Bryan Missey, I don’t intimidate, I inform.

Bryan Missey 9:39 PM (4 hours ago)

By the way, I notified your company about your arrival and what you are trying to do to intimidate me. I’m sure they would like to be involved. I’ll call them on Tuesday as a followup.

My responses was;

Be my guest, the number is 888-***_**** my dispatcher is Brent. I’ve got nothing to hide but it appears you do, as far as intimidation, no, You didn’t return calls or emails, so I HAD to come to your “place of business” to find out what the delay and problem was. As far as my searching and finding PUBLIC information about you, I’m am alerting the public like those on dealsucker.com how to get the refund or any contact you. seems your reputation there and on a digg feed just confirms what I have experienced in my dealings with you. If you’d have just sent me the WII as I ordered it, and followed up by returning my calls and emails, none of this would have happened. But after researching you as I mentioned, well the public has a right to know about what kind of operation you run and how to get ahold of you. As all the various numbers you’ve listed on your various sites to “contact you” belong to other companies that have never heard of you, one can only assertain YOU have somthing to hide.

ps I’ve also forwarded a copy to my boss, so he can see how I’m dealing with you.

Also got this on facebook from him;

Wormdeals Auctions sent you a message on Facebook… Re: Really?

That’s the story.

More from Missey..
Bryan Missey
to me
I won’t contact a lowly dispatcher. You didn’t have to stop by. You could have waited and let Paypal handle the resolution. That’s what it is for. No, you do intimidate and I will keep track of everything you try to do to me personally online. Personally is the key. Talk to your attorney and you’ll see where you step over the line. Finding public info online is fine because it is public, but once you start forcing it into other people’s faces, it’s intimidation. Read a law book.

my reply
As long as I am posting my “real”experience with your company it is all my opinion free speech allows for that, reread your law book.
and Brent did you know you were lowly?

Him to me
I am posting my “real” experience with your company. My wife felt threatened by you. My kids felt threatened by you. They were watching in the window and they saw you threaten me. Given your obsessiveness with using questionable tactics by posting my information on various websites AND going to a job board that has nothing to do with your experience and posting your material, I have no other choice but to file a report about your tactics of intimidation.

You continue to intimidate me, my wife, and my kids with your pettiness. You got your refund. That is all that I can do. If you are that demented that you can spend all this time doing what you are doing at intimidating me and anyone around me, I will seek the proper counseling to end this. My attorney will continue to track your posts online and we will seek a restraining order against you. The job posting was your mistake, my friend. It was unrelated and it became personal and illegal when you scared my wife and kids with your actions on Sunday.

(the lies from him have begain I’ve had no contact with his wife or kids I would never do that.)

me to him
I was nothing but polite at your house, no harsh words were exchanged, and i gave you the benefit of the doubt and was willing to wait for your call as we discussed that’s why i gave you my card. I have had no contact with your wife or kids. Do what you feel you need to but don’t get caught in a lie, I have only posted the truth as it happened. As for your “job site” as I had no other way to get a hold of you I posted the same info as a cover letter I’ve been posting. Again these posting are my real life experiences with you, which under the 1st amendment is protected. I feel my point has been made so I’ll stop email contact with you now, but as for posting my opinion and experience. any time I come across your sites name I’ll let the public know. Again thanks for the refund, sorry our business relationship was soured by your lack of communication skills. All you had to do was return my calls or emails, but as with any business I go to the source if I have a question.

thanks, Bryon

(notice I said I was going to stop emailing him, he kept it up so I just responded)

him to me
Please stop the emails and intimidation of me and my family. They were clearly intimidated by your tone and actions on Sunday. When you sat on the street outside my house for 10 minutes just staring at my house, they saw it and my son even cried. My neighbors even saw you sitting there for that long.

Garnering public information is one thing, but forcing that public information out there into the public eye could make for something bad especially if a nutjob showed up at my house and did something untoward to my wife and kids because you posted my name and address, my wife’s name, house cost, etc on a certain website. You better hope that doesn’t happen.

And I hope I don’t receive another email from a job posting website administrator again showing that you are abusing their service. I know how much you are digging and it is bordering on obsessive and demented. You received your refund.

(more lies) i was there for 5 minutes and looking at my laptop, my company has the GPS tracks of my truck to prove it, and what about his veiled threat “you better hope that doesn’t happen”.

me to him
Please stop you emails, Our business is concluded, as for your concerns about others, I can’t help you, maybe you should be a better communicator with your customers and provide correct and accurate contact info.
Again we are done Stop your emails.

(that’s it)

He did contact my boss, my boss told me they didn’t care to be involved they had better things to do. No trouble for me.

The guy is a douche and I feel never expected a customer to show up to question where their order is, panicked, refunded me within 10 minutes. Now has to lie about my actions at his “place of business” his house,
I never saw his family when I was there, yes I sat in my truck for 5 minutes checking paypal, never contacted through email or by person any of his family, made no verbal or physical threats while there or by email as you can see, found all this other info while just trying to get good contact info on the company/guy,
I did use a site where he was looking for employees for a home health aide company he “owns”?? (that’s scary) (where the site forwards resumes to him) what info I first found on him, and yes I’ve posted the prior posting at slickdeals.com, fatwallet.com, dealsucker.com, blogger.com/baby cheapskate, and a couple of others I can’t think of, where people had trouble with refunds or phony products (bose in ear headphones) that this asshat was selling.

Are my actions too much, maybe, I did no more then 20/20, Dateline, Fox news, or any reporter protecting the public from these possible scam websites. The public has a right to know when there are people like this, hide behind the anonymity of the internet, lying, sack of human waste, praying on honest people out there.
Thank you for your support

El Williams Says:
September 22nd, 2009 at 1:14 am

Run! Run away as fast as possible. Swoopo is the worst auction site in the history of the internet. Unless you are the owner of this site, your chances of winning an auction are next to impossible and lucky at best. Stick to Ebay. At least on Ebay when you put forth your best offer and lose, it wasn’t because the computer gave the rest of the world 20 seconds to reconsider their offer. Also, paying to have the computer screw you adds insult to injury! Stick to Ebay. If you lose there, at least you haven’t paid for the lucky winner’s product and the website owner’s profit.

James Says:
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:30 pm

While I agree with a lot of the claims that the site can make HUGE profits on the backs of others, people must realize that someone who pays MORE that what an item is worth is just an idiot with no sense of self-control.
I recently tumbled along the site and agree that is is really nothing more than a lottery of luck.. but one can still get lucky and get a great deal. I have seen more cases where the winner walked away with and amazing deal and yet the site made a ton of money. I also see lost of items where the site lost money. I think that someone who thinks about joining this type of site needs to research on how it works and be well aware of the risks and also be able to control their impulses and set budgets and the like. I did that and walked away with a great deal. Only paid 1.20 for an 80$ item, 13 $ total including shipping and takes, and for the number of bids I purchased and still well ahead in terms of profit.
Of course the site hope it will the the impulsive gambles .. they are there to make money. People need to use their brains, and take accountability for their actions and decisions, rather than being impulsive and then blaming the system they are using simply because they did not take the time to understand the risks.

josh rosenthal Says:
October 7th, 2009 at 7:30 pm

If anyone is still following this, I would like to ad that IF you are in the market for one of the items that is up for bids on Swoopo AND you have enough to pay retail, than this is a great deal because if you end up losing the auction, you have the opportunity to apply the amount of money you spent on bids in that auction towards the retail price. So, if you are bidding on a camera that’s $800 and you lose but you spent $400 in bids, then you can choose to buy the camera for $400 ($800 retail – $400 placed bids). Obviously, if you cannot afford the item you are bidding on and are trying to get a tremendous deal, then you are paying for the chance of winning something you normally couldn’t afford.

Tim Says:
October 13th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

I have found many more websites that do the same thing: ex
http://www.prestigebids.com
http://www.bidntime.com
http://www.bidito.com
Here is a big list of them
http://www.pennyauctiontraffic.com/

Swoopo is a scam Says:
October 13th, 2009 at 5:32 pm

This is definitely illegal is the participants in the auction are not all
human.

You just have to google for the users in swoopo to see if it’s a human or a spider program. I noticed that most spider programs are bought from this site below and leaves all the human bidders high and dry.

Site below has some of the “users” that are actually spider software programs designed to out-bid any human user!

Bloody Cheats!

http://penny.rambunction.com/home/users_all

Sumit Mehta Says:
October 17th, 2009 at 5:18 am

Hi,

I have analyzed the swoopo scam in detail and totally agree with your findings- except that my conclusion is that the whole thing is not an auction but a lottery. There are some key differences between a lottery and an auction: the major one being the absence of element of luck in the latter. When you bid in an auction, as long as your bid is the highest you are SURE you will win it. But in a lottery, its all chance.

Looking at swoopos business model, it is clear that its much more a lottery than an auction website. The winner is not the highest bidder but the last bidder, and thats smth you can never control, and involves a pretty big element of luck.

Overlooking the fact that the site’s business model is ethically wrong, my point is that it should be classified as a lottery and not as a retailer/ auction website. Lotteries have their own regulators etc (they need to have far more disclaimers and information) and I dont see why Swoopo shouldnt be under that tight regulation too.

Apart from that, there is the matter of their misleading ad claims: as you rightly mentioned, you are not spending 30% of the price, after taking into account your bids you are spending far far more.

Greg Kennedy Says:
October 19th, 2009 at 6:08 am

This semes to me like a variation on the “Dollar Auction”, which was put forth by Martin Shubik around 1971. You can read the specifics on the Wiki page – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction – but the gist of it is that while the winner takes the item, _every_ player has to pay in their bids as well.

juruman Says:
October 21st, 2009 at 8:37 am

You forgot to mention that you can also bid on free bids. so technically you could just buy 20 bids and start bidding on a bunch of free bids, bringing your total bid price way down.

auctionshopper Says:
October 24th, 2009 at 2:42 pm

The people who slam on Swoopo for being scamming scum and then say they wish they’d thought of it slay me. Yeah, that’s something to shoot for, being a dishonest d0uch3b@g.

I’m surprised no one mentioned the shipping policy. As stated in their own terms: “An invoice containing the auction price and shipping costs will be sent to the user by Swoopo once delivery has been arranged.” So you don’t even know what the shipping costs will be until after you “win” the item and agree to have it delivered. Bet they really nail you on that, too.

auctionshopper Says:
October 24th, 2009 at 2:43 pm

The people who slam on Swoopo for being scamming scum and then say they wish they’d thought of it slay me. Yeah, that’s something to shoot for, being a dishonest d*******g.

josh rosenthal Says:
October 24th, 2009 at 6:49 pm

auctionshopper Says:
October 24th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
The people who slam on Swoopo for being scamming scum and then say they wish they’d thought of it slay me. Yeah, that’s something to shoot for, being a dishonest d0uch3b@g.

IN RESPONSE: THE SHIPPING IS LIST AT THE BOTTOM OF ALL AUCTIONS. THE PRICES APPEAR TO NOT BE INFLATED AT ALL. I DO NOT THINK THEY “NAIL YOU ON THAT TOO”.

rhonda clark Says:
October 27th, 2009 at 1:42 pm

i had been trying to bid on a laptop on this web site.they have you buy bids from them and they must have bots bidding as well because when you get close the bots pop uo bids and you wind up losing alot of money and not even winning a thing.it is in fact a rip off and they should be ashamed of what they are doing. i am contacting the democrat gazette and the BBB. the way i figure they must have bots winning these bids is for one if you look they say somebody(yea sure thing) won an kitchenaid brand new commercial mixer for around 10.00. there is no way they could afford to sell an expensive top of the line for such a price.they are using kitchenaid to trap people and get them interested,acting like all of these people are winning these things and in the end they are stealing peoples money and keeping the merchandise.i am very angry. when i sent an email to ask them about loosing money just by bidding on an item it took over 2 weeks for a reply and the guy who wrote me back was playing dumb…i am very pissed and plan on taking this further.they deserve it.anybody can email me if you like i dont care who sees my email. im not the one ripping people off. rhondaroo65@hotmail.com

MG Says:
October 31st, 2009 at 11:46 am

SWOOPO IS NO DEAL!

After spending $75.00 to make bids, I realized too late that Swoopo likely should be regulated like a casino or lottery. Its not a scam, however, swoopo’s algorithem appears to continue to loop even after a reasonable person would believe the actual time counter would begin incrementing down. When one reads something like “the 10 second counter will start once $999.00 is reached” and, in fact, all that did was start a new counter with a different algorithem. – Ugh! I am sure someone eventually wins but like momma said, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Also, Swoopo is a major time and money suck.

In addition, and maybe its a coincidence, however, after registering at swoopo, I have yet to receive their invite email; however, my previously sanitary email adress/inbox has been flooded with spam.

I wish there was a way to pay them back for the fun I paid to have.

roadmax Says:
November 1st, 2009 at 8:25 pm

Did anyone ever watch the “Recently Sold For” price? It always seems to be just a little less than the current price. It continuously goes up as the the auction goes up. I love this new trend in America. Screw people as much as you can as fast as you can until the courts make you stop. Does any of the money actually get returned when the company finally does get shut down? We’re being taken advantage of.

great2bme2 Says:
November 12th, 2009 at 6:20 pm

There’s a lot of these sites, such as Swoopo, popping up a lot now. Most, if not all, don’t comply with federal gaming laws but are so under the radar that it takes years for prosecutors to catch up to them and make a case.

One of copycat sites, 500DollarBid (http://bit.ly/500dollarscam), theoretically evaded prosecution by totally changing their format to comply with gaming laws. In fact, it was more of an MLM in appearance – plus they focused on a voucher system instead of physical product. It looks like the site content is changing frequently, so I’m still not sure if it’s even still in the same class as Swoopo, but it’s origins are the same. If it is working for them, perhaps others will follow suit.

We’ll see… for now, it sounds too good to be true still.

Richard Nuemayer Says:
November 15th, 2009 at 9:55 am

There is a new game in town, makes swoopo look like a pile of crap, has a very interesting bid system that isn’t a rip like swoopo engineered theirs, and lots of other lame gimmicks. It’s called eMaja and it’s pretty nice, and not so mickey mouse as swoopo, has a pretty fresh approach, and a novel bidding system. http://www.emaja.com

sophu Says:
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:49 pm

Hey Guyz,

Ive tried it and lost the money. One important thing is this is online and what truth lies behind the screen is not visible. I am very skeptical about if anyone in real is winning actually ?

The site owners can always program accounts of their own and participate in the Auctions and raise the bids until they are satisfied with the profit they make or program it a way that their fake accounts who are bidding can always win, ultimately capturing all the money of the players/ bidders and loot the money in a smart way.

I have a true feeling that this could be true, cuz in some of the locked auctions no new bidder can join afresh and big, but sure i did notice that some new bidders joined in the middle and won the bid, where as I was keeping a track of who all are bidding, added the new users were bidding in a automated way. there is a lot of chance and possibility to do some filthy programming, be smart and loot peoples money.

I was to win an auction the time rolled over and the last secs passed by a sec or 2 or more and then it shows 3 bidded at once in the end… which is not possible in fair means.

dont waste your money being greedy for little discount you get but ultimately you end up loosing your money.

richard keystone Says:
November 24th, 2009 at 7:39 am

I like swoopo because I have won there quite frequent. Indeed, I had help by bidfight .net . This is an online tool that analyses your opponents. There are quit some more of such tools, but I would like to draw the attention only to it because it is for free!

Lloyd_2U Says:
November 26th, 2009 at 10:53 am

I have just seen Swoopo in acton.

After looking at the way it works made my knees tremble.

(1) Firstly they buy all the things to sell on there site selling around 240 items a day.

(2) As people bid the time goes up by 15 seconds even up and over 5 minutes or more, So really the Auction could go on all day never ending.
That’s bad.

(3) So if your lucky to bid and win any item for less than £15 = £375+ your £15 makes a profit of £390 for Swoopo.

What can I say.

(4) Now you think your clever.
So you buy 50 bids worth £25 at Auction for £14.50 as that’s the price I see at the moment on the 26/11/09 at 18.11 hours.
that’s £370 profit for Swoopo

(5) When you came to bid on the next item you use up 12 bids = £3.00p that’s another £300 profit for Swoopo plus the sell price it it sells for £3, but that is not likely to happen as nothing sells for less than £5.
You do the maths.

OK that’s It from me I’m going to post this on face book

MrBrat2u Says:
December 11th, 2009 at 11:59 am

I have filed 5 disputes with Paypal because Swoopo will not ship the items I won and paid for right away using Paypal. And not only will Swoopo not respond to my emails, they will have not responded to the Paypal disputes after 2 weeks! I have suggested that Swoopo be banded as a PayPal vender becuase Swoopo is not shipping orders or responding to customer emails. I do get the Swoopo emailed newsletter so I know my email address works however I am not going buy/bid on anything else at swoopo having zero confidence that they are even shipping the items people win on their auction site!

Wondering Says:
December 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

Has anyone actylayy used this site, won a bid and received the item ?

Wondering Says:
December 16th, 2009 at 12:05 pm

kevin Says:
December 18th, 2009 at 1:15 am

Sites like this are bad for society, 99 percent of users are losers? Is it their fault yes. But this is just a form of gambling and online gambing is illegal in the United States. I’ve already forwarded info regarding these sites to the California Attorny Generals office and believe once investigated these sites will be shut down hard core just like the ponzi scheme sites that were abundant several years back.

This site is a tax on the poor just like the lottery.

Cash Counter Says:
December 18th, 2009 at 1:46 am

While I agree with the sentiment that a state’s Attorney General’s office “should” pursue such sites, the reality is that AG offices are overwhelmed with much ‘bigger fish’ — usually ones that have popular press or that focus on a local / state community.

Education programs and blog comments also are not going to deter those that are determined to gamble or try in their best faith to get something for little to nothing. It’s a common American affliction that we don’t take personal responsibility for our actions or our government’s actions. (that’s a whole different soap box).

I propose we open discussion on what would it really take to shut down such a site that some have deemed to be limited in ethics or morality, let alone legality.

Perhaps counter-advertising, opinion blogs that target the keywords such a site uses, campaigns to senators and representatives, Facebook Anti-Fan page, … what???
.
.
.
>>> What would you do to (legally) shut down such a site?

Peter Says:
December 31st, 2009 at 2:44 pm

As with all new services, educating consumers and arming them with appropriate expectations is key. Much of the criticism penny auctions receive stems from the fact that few people win and everyone expects to get a great deal without much effort. Noone can fault the auction sites for channeling these human needs. It’s called business. It is up to consumers to educate themselves by doing their homework, such as checking out review sites like http://www.pennyauctionguide.com. It’s just like everything in life: luck favors the prepared.

Parker Says:
January 8th, 2010 at 4:54 pm

I`ve used Swoopo.co.uk ans won there twice, yes this is gambling 🙂 You just should have the right expectations, if you look for regular shopping, don`t waste your time, go to store… Penny auctions are for fun and for lucky bargains. Recently found http://www.bidfella.com and decided to give them a try, at least bids are much cheaper and auctions not so overcrowded. Not lucky so far, but I`ll keep trying 🙂

K.J. Kay Says:
January 12th, 2010 at 5:44 am

you are wrong in saying the bids are $1 they are only 60 cents. also you dont lose the money that you used to bid on the item but you can chose to buy the item that you already bided on. say you spent $60 in bids and the item was $200 then you could buy the item for $140 so technically you dont lose anything your just trying to get the item at an amazing low cost. this is site is awesome whoever came up with it is a genius.

MrBrat2u Says:
January 12th, 2010 at 7:50 am

Bidding on and even winning items on Swoopo is losing if the item you win are not shipped as 4 items I have won over 6 weeks ago has not been received by me. And Swoopo has extremely incompetent customer support as they will not respond to emails, support tickets, or even PayPal dispute claims in a timely manner if at all. Swoopo is probably too busy counting the money they are ripping off of people to care about customer support!

I was able to recover the auction amounts plus S&H but only after filling (and waiting and waiting) for PayPal to resolve disputes over not shipped item (that Swoopo never responded). However I have lost the total bids I used to win these items in the amount of $36.00! The only sign of life from Swoopo during the PayPal dispute was they blocked my account without notice from buying bids (like I would if Swoopo won’t ship if I won). And I know my email works as I still receive their worthless enewsletters!

Bidders Beware!

whatever Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 8:27 am

omg…get over it the number of bids at the end of the auction is the total amount of bids from all users and NOT just the winner. the winner actually saved money and the amount you guys are referring to when saying the final price is how much in total the bids amounted to from different users

Is Swoopo a scam? Says:
February 9th, 2010 at 9:13 pm

Is swoopo a scam? It may not outright be one but it certainly has deceptive elements like a scam.

Cash Counting Machine Says:
March 1st, 2010 at 4:22 pm

A business model like this is like a cash counting machine that constantly feeds itself – perpetually.

In fact, one could automate almost the entire process so that it would be very easy to make recurring income.

Sweet idea!! 🙂

jim Says:
March 2nd, 2010 at 7:57 am

It’s Amazing!!! Why would all you people care what Swoopo does or how much they make or don’t make. DON’T USE THE SITE AND GET ON WITH YOUR LIVES

Bob Says:
March 18th, 2010 at 3:09 pm

This site is not gambling. A saw a previous “example” that thereby poker is not gambling if swoopo isn’t gambling. This is wrong because for every single hand ever played there are exact odds of winning or losing. However, there is no way to determine the odds for a swoopo auction because there are too many variables.

CHARLES Says:
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:48 pm

HI! I CAME TO YOU TO GET SOME HELP.
I AM MR CHARLES KASSALO. I BEEN SCAMMED BY (WWW.SWOOPO.CO.UK).
THIS SITE IS AN AUCTION SITE WHERE YOU BID IN SPECIFIED ITEMS,YOU WILL NEVER WIN.
I BID ON THE 18-03-2010 ONE ITEM(NO:296251).WAS 300 BIDS AT £150 REAL COST SWOOPO UK SAY THAT ON THEY SITE.
I WAS EXCITED ABOUT,I TELL MY SELF IF I WIN THIS I COULD USE TO BID ON ONE OF THEY LAPTOP.
I START WITH £60 PAY VIA PAYPAL CONNECT TO MY BANK ACCOUNT.AFTER FEW MINUTE MY £60 WAS RUNNING OUT,I TOP UP AGAIN £35.THE AUCTION BIDING WAS STRESS FULL AND SCARE TO LOOSE MY MONEY AND THE BIDING.
WHEN I REALIZE WHAT IS GO ON , I WAS AT £190 SPEND FROM MY ACCOUNT.IN THAT,ALL MY BODY AND MY MIND WAS FROZEN DEAD .I REALIZE I LOST EVERYTHING AND I REALIZE I BEEN SCAM AND CONED BY SWOOPO.UK!
WHY I USE SCAM AND CON WORD,BECAUSE BEFORE START BIDING,THE INFORMATION SWOOPO GIVE ME ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE ITEM SAY! THIS VOUCHER USE TO BE SOLD AT £3 OR £7 ! OR WHAT THIS SCAM AUCTION DON’T TELL US,TO REACH THIS AMOUNT HOW MUCH YOU MUST SPEND?
BECAUSE I REALIZE THE SYSTEM SHOW I SPEND £190 TO REACH £19.79 AUCTION PRICE .TELL ME IF THIS ARE NOT SCAM OR CON?
I CONTACT THEM A READY ABOUT REFUND MY MONEY,THE CUSTOMER SERVICES DON’T GIVE MONKEY.
NOW ,I AM WRITHING TO YOU TO HELP ME AND HELP ALL OTHER INNOCENT GOOD CITIZEN WHO ARE VICTIM OF THIS MUST BIG CON AND SCAM ONLINE AUCTION SITE IN (UK).
THANK YOU.

Teek Says:
April 24th, 2010 at 5:53 am

I don’t think id ever participate in this whether it be real or not. It’s like flushing money down the drain. Its kind of sad that people are sitting there waiting till it gets to :01 till they bid, just to add 10 seconds to the timer, and they have to wait 10 more seconds to get it, but then someone else does what they just did!

Thinking as sinister as i could, this is what swoopo could be doing. With the mindset that they will NOT sell ANY item below cost, lets say we have ItemA which retails in the store for 1000. It costs them 120 to ship, 80 to pay employees/services for that auction, and then they need to make 100 to be profitable. So in order for ItemA to sell and bring swoopo profit, it must make a MINIMUM of 1000+120+80+100 = 1300. So for this example swoopo will not sell ItemA if the auction does not bring in 1300.

So how to ensure that? With bot bids.

Realplayer1 logs in to the site, who JUST SO HAPPENS to be the ONLY player logged in at the moment, and sees a ItemA is about to go for 0.01, so RealPlayer1 bids, and the timer is increased and RealPlayer1 waits.

Bot sees that Realplayer1 bid, and that nobody else had bid, so the selling price for ItemA is actually going to be 1.01 (for this example, bids are 1.00). So the bot sees that the 1.00 bid + 0.01 sale price is not greater than 1300, so the bot randomly bids during the time the auction is still live.

In essence, the bot will ALWAYS be the last bidder, until ItemA has netted at least 1300.

Now lets say the item is selling for 10.00, and there has been 1000 bids by multiple people/bots (each bid raising the selling price by 0.01). Now lets say that of those 1000 bids, 500 were actual paying customers. So now ItemA has brought swoopo 500. The bot bids because it must ALWAYS be the last bidder until ItemA has netted 1300. But this time, however. Nobody else bids and the auction ends. All the people who bid will see that the item sold for 10, when in actuality ItemA was won by the bot.

In that case, nobody knows that its a bot or a real player. So swoopo can simply take that item that just made them 500 in profit from bids, and put it on the FUTURE BIDS list with an internal (secret) +500 profit added to it that only swoopo and its bots can see.

Then ItemA goes up again.. and does the same thing, its won by a bot. Now the secret profit is +1000, because real people bid on ItemA again, netting them another 500. It did not meet its profit point, so the bot won it, and now it sits on the FUTURE BIDS list again.

ItemA goes up again, and does the same thing – again won by a bot. Ending up on the future Bids list with a secret +1500 profit added to it. To be profitable swoopo had to make 1300 on ItemA, and currently its at 1500.

ItemA goes up again, and this time the bot backs off, because it checks its algorithm and sees that the profit of ItemA has been satisfied. So this time, ItemA is going home with a real person. ItemA sells for 10.00 to a real person, and nets an additional 500 for the final auction.

This way ItemA could have brought 2010.00 to swoopo, giving them a 710 increase of profit than they intended to get (1300).

Also i’m not finished. They also get free word of mouth advertising. Because that fellow who won the deal with ItemA, is telling all his/her friends or the internet/world how he used swoopo to bid 40 times and get his retail 1000 ItemA, at the incredible Bargian of 10 + 40 bids = 50.

Now this is all speculation, but because only swoopo knows the internal workings of their machine, and theres no way for users to see serial numbers, to check if they were in a previous auction, you might as well assume this is how it’s done. But if you want to flush your money down the drain, please either give it to your local charity, or to the poor folks on the street so they can get some food, or paypal it to me at tka_is@hotmail.com because i could find someone like that who needs help.

Francis Says:
April 29th, 2010 at 1:37 pm

This site is so retarded, I just wasted $24 the cheapest package. I feel like these people that I’m bidding against doesn’t have any common sense and aren’t real. They would spend more bids and invest more than the retail price of the item. Ive seen a person who wasted $1500 worth of bids to win a $700 product? Also, this site offer so much bid vouchers, it’s almost impossible to compete with them. The Bid Butler is one of the worst feature for this website. I once placed 15 (all my bids) on Bid Butler and it disappeared in one second. There’s no point of bidding against someone who has 300-750 bids that they won from the voucher package when you only have 40 bids. I always see the same winners all the time, they just have LOTS of bids. They use those bids to WIN even more bids (bid vouchers) and just keep spamming bids on the good items.

Jane Says:
June 21st, 2010 at 7:18 am

I consider myslef intelligent, but I was a complete idiot to join this site and flush money down the toilet before reading these comments. Yes, someone eventually wins and may save money on an item but at the expense to all the other “bidders” and at great profit to Swoopo. I agree it is more like a raffle than an auction. I am truly embarrassed that I wasted money on this site by being so gullible, but it doesn’t take long to see that there is absolutely no “fairness” in this bidding process. Total scam.

duncInsurry Says:
June 27th, 2010 at 7:32 am

hi from me
and from you

Rick Duris Says:
November 22nd, 2010 at 2:26 pm

Sounds like a Tony Seruga scam!

michal Says:
February 3rd, 2011 at 11:55 pm

those sites usually have their own "robots" that bid for them and make other people spend more many to win it. of course they let people win (from time to time), but only when they already made profit on an item. is this ethical? i think there should be some legal supervision for such sites…

Chandler Says:
March 10th, 2011 at 11:06 am

If they gave the bids back to everyone that did not win, they would make no money, instead lose alot

John Says:
March 14th, 2011 at 5:03 pm

Hi,

I am with a law firm that is investigating complaints about Swoopo.com auctions and the various problems users have been having with them. If you have bid on items on Swoopo.com and would like to learn more about our investigation, please visit our website at http://www.GirardGibbs.com/Swoopo.asp or give me a call toll-free at (866) 981-4800. You can also reach me by email at jwh@GirardGibbs.com.

Thanks,

John

PennyBurners Says:
March 25th, 2011 at 12:55 pm

Swoopo has filed for insolvency in Germany. Read about it here: http://www.pennyburners.com/swoopo/swoopo-gone-wh…

Vi Sterry Says:
April 7th, 2011 at 2:25 am

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Tina Anne Says:
December 14th, 2011 at 5:51 am

That doesn't sound very good to me – as a consumer. But on the business side, since it makes a lot of money, it's really good. Whoever came up with the idea is clever, indeed.

12 Trackbacks For This Post

yashke.com » Blog Archive » Podbij.pl - pieniądze robią pieniądze Says:
September 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am

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CrunchGear » Archive » Swoopo: “Entertainment Shopping” or Scam? Says:
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Swoopo: “Entertainment Shopping” or Scam? - Moviesdock Says:
December 11th, 2008 at 9:42 am

[…] $500 goes towards buying more product for the site and increasing Swoopo’s revenue. They’re reporting about 50,000 users in the US right now so chances are strong that you’ll get to win some…. There are also “BidButlers” who can watch the bidding for you and bid automatically, further […]

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February 3rd, 2009 at 11:37 am

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February 12th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

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Swoopo raises $10M more for “entertainment shopping” » VentureBeat Says:
April 2nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm

[…] model was criticized as being rather scam-like on various sites because you can end up spending lots of money on bidding fees without actually buying (or […]

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Ever used Swoopo? Says:
October 16th, 2009 at 2:49 pm

[…] a link that describes how it works… Is Swoopo Nothing More Than a Well-Designed Gimmick?*|*Technologizer The big thing I noticed is that it costs you a dollar per every 15 cent bid. And, if you don't […]

What the World’s Been Searching For in 2009 | Technologizer Says:
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Swoopo raises $10M more for « entertainment shopping » | Maketobewin.com – Project – Coming soon Says:
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