Anyone here use penny auctions like qbids here?

I am looking into trying these penny auction things and was just wondering if anymembers have used them and what there experience was?

I made an account on one of the sites and with the free bids I actually won a 20$ mouse for 8 cents but competition for better items seems fierce but the products still seem to end at really cheap prices. I watched for a while and saw a really nice laptop go for .27 but a cheaper one went up to 90$ which by my calculations would get the site around 7000$ for a 900$ item.

Anyway if anyone else has some info to share I'd be thankfull.

I had considered them once because it is so sensational. Before I decided to try it I wanted to research it a little more, especially because it is so sensational. My research, honestly just googling penny auction site names and "scam" together, presented far more marketing type blog posts (WOT friendly), random penny sites (WOT unfriendly), penny review sites (WOT unfriendly), and lots of posts from 'victims'. I don't make enough to test it for myself or anyone else.

Its a scam. I know someone who won a iphone from there and all they got was a sciphone. A cheap Chinese knockoff of the iphone. After that, they stopped placing bids on those types of sites.

reply to post by Slickinfinity


Qbids have been advertising heavily on Australian TV. So I visited their website and my internet security went ballistic with attempted injection of spyware, adware and trojan. Closed the site and never went there again.

Recommend the same advice to you as well!

I've used quibids a little bit messing around. I've won a couple small item things, a hunting knife, a couple random kitchen things, etc. The big things like TVs and electronics seem to be so competitive you could spend 100s of dollars on bids and still not win it so I never even tried. I've won a couple bid packs with little competition - in theory you could rack up some cheap bids bidding on bid packs then go for some of the bigger stuff. I believe it was Wednesday and Thursday early afternoons seemed to be least competitive.

Originally posted by Slickinfinity
...I watched for a while and saw a really nice laptop go for .27 but a cheaper one went up to 90$ which by my calculations would get the site around 7000$ for a 900$ item.

Sorry, I don't mean to challenge you--but can you explain what you're saying there? I don't understand your math. Thanks.

I researched them a bid, quibids. and what I found worried me.

They have automated processes and a slew of regulars that always appear to bid bid bid above their allowed amount, and comes across as a scam.

When you originally sign up, you give your credit card details, and before you know it, you're charged $80+ dollars.

Haha they used to have an image at the bottom of their main website listing media snips saying how good they were. One was from time magazine, and the quote was "For anybody who finds a bargain even mildly stimulating, this is like pure heroin. In recessionary times, it's like heroin that will also save puppies." making a rather compelling statement.

The actual article is here.

www.time.com...

and rather than applaud Quibids, it tends to say the opposite.

The full quote.

Here's how it works. Before you can participate in an online penny auction — which I'm going to urge you, right here at the top of the story, not to do — you have to buy a pack of bids. The smallest pack on QuiBids is $27 for 45 bids. Then you hit the auctions, where items appear to be selling extremely fast and mind-bogglingly cheaply: a $100 gift card for 16¢; a $150 knife set for $1.82; a $1,700 HD TV for $32.19. A clock counts down the seconds before these insane deals are gone forever. For anybody who finds a bargain even mildly stimulating, this is like pure heroin. In recessionary times, it's like heroin that will also save puppies.

Also, 1 cent bids there, cost you 60 cents in real life. So if you bid 100 cents then you're actually paying $60 dollars.

reply to post by Slickinfinity


I just checked out Beezid today and wasn't too interested. Then I went to ebay and bought four survival knives, including a Gerber and a Bowie for 1 cent each. So, yes, I've done the penny auctions. As for Beezid, you have to pay to bid. It's like a dollar to increase the bid by only 1 cent. It's not exactly a scam, but it's close to it. For example, a car sells for 5,000 dollars, but bidding itself costs 5000 dollars for the public. Total income from the 5000 dollar sale is 10,000 dollars. I don't think I'll mess with penny auctions much, but there's actually good deals to be had there.

Originally posted by Ex_CT2

Originally posted by Slickinfinity
...I watched for a while and saw a really nice laptop go for .27 but a cheaper one went up to 90$ which by my calculations would get the site around 7000$ for a 900$ item.

Sorry, I don't mean to challenge you--but can you explain what you're saying there? I don't understand your math. Thanks.

Yea np, I saw 2 seperate auctions for 2 laptops one was retailed at 799 and one for 599 and the one for 599 was bid up to 90$ and the 799 one seemed to go unnoticed for .27 cents. Also the bids usually cost .60 and if I am correct and every bid for .01 is worth .60 than an item that sells for 90$ goes for close to 5400 so I was off a bit on that.

I am going to do alot more looking and I am going to try to win as many bid packs first before I go to battle with the bots or pros lol. I am still very weary though but watching today I saw some crazy deals and some crazy bid wars.

reply to post by Magnificient


Don't tell any of my old teachers about my bad math. The 5000 dollar car would be much more than 10000 dollars.