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Penny Auctions -what do you think?
 

Does anyone do them???

I got addicted to one of them...When I first started I lost a lot of money... but then I learned my lesson, got some experience...Now I can get things at a decent price...About 1.5 month ago i won Wii Sports Package System for just $45 including shipping, then i resold it for $210 on ebay... I was wondering if anyone does penny auctions here and then resells stuff...

Yeah I do them also. It does take some time to get the hang of it but once you do you can score some good products dirt cheap

You are right. Yesterday I was amazed to win an Apple TV (160GB) for $3.80 plus $4.20 in bids...The shipping was $24.95..Its retail price is about $200.:humble:
The only thing is it is like gambling ;) You get addicted too fast and if you can't control yourself, it's gonna be a waste of money...

p.s. Now I wonder how I can use this Apple TV or better sell as none of my stealth accounts are running yet...I am still solving my Ip problem :(

Nope. What's the website?

I would keep it you can crack them and play all your downloaded movies and tv shows on them right now i have 600 movies on mine pluse 12 complete tv shows you cant beat it!!!!

Thank you BigMac for your advise! I don't watch TV tooo much and if I do it's more Russian channels...:)
Anyway, the info is helpful, thank you!!!!!!

If you are a good boy, I'll whisper its name into your ear ;)

p.s. OMG, I am in a playful mood :) LOL

Although this site isn't quite a true penny auction you can score some good stuff pretty cheap. It is bidcactus.com. I've gotten a few $100 gift cards off of them for under $10. The shipping is rather slow though

Interesting, I've never dabbled into penny auctions.

I guess because I can't see how someone would sell and SHIP an item worth $200 for $40 ? How do you guys manage this?

someone wanna tell me the site?

bidcactus.com

seems too good to be true a 100 dollar walmart card for $7? come on... i know the initial startup of 18.75 is the investment... but seriously? And you're kidding yourself if you think they don't have bots auto bidding to up people.

hard to understand, i know they make money off each bid but looks like its kinda hard to win. Unless your in a bidding war with one guy and seems like the only way you will win is if he runs out of bids before you...

You have to know how to play them. I won a $200 gift card yesterday. It sold for $30. I spent about $100 for everything ...including bids, shipping and its final price. They made $210, so $10 profit... Another scenario -- I also won a $125 gift card for $40...here I screwed up :( I paid a little more than its retail price plus shipping. I did that because I didn't want to lose all chips that I spent on it. They made $280 with $155 of profit. So, this website is good when you have patience, don't bid like crazy and don't have a glass of wine in your hand :)

Penny auction sites are making a KILLING!!! I use beezids.com sometimes, I don't mind sharing ;) I bought a Macbook Pro for $145.00 plus $25.00 shipping and $19.00 in bids = $189.00 for a $1600. computer- NOT BAD AT ALL!!! On the flip side.... every bid for 1cent that built up to that $145. winning bid, beezid charged approx $.75..... SO, 14,500 bids, at .75 per bid, + $145. final bid,= $11,020. - $1600 (RETAIL cost of Macbook pro) = $9,420. in PROFIT for beezids off that ONE item!! GENIUS!! I didn't mind, I got a SWEET deal for only $189.00!

Oh I see all the players have to pay up so even if you win at a low price the other looser's still pay up for trying. The auctioneer never looses.

Exactly!!! ;)

Is there any other site better than this?

:shocked::shocked::shocked:
WOW i hate you

Great Article about Penny auction theory.

An All-Pay Auction - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

I'm going to auction off a $20 at my next family gathering.:bounce:

ebids lol
i want to know the website too

not fair

how do you search for penny items?

ebid is not the one

I've found it best to go after the new sites and take advantage of them while they are still taking losses. Some of them will lose for weeks before actually getting on their feet... Yoinkbid.com starts their first sales today and i will be keeping an eye out for more new ones!

I've never bidded on them chances of winning are like a scratch card, however from an auctioneers perspective that gives me an idea...

This is an old post, but yes I do them as well. It´s definitely not easy to win, but I have fun trying lol and I won a few things, so I am happy with them. I always try to find new ones that are legally registered as new ones have less competition (because many are scams - I don´t want to give my money to a kid working from his living room and using bots to cheat). Recently found 24hbids.com on facebook, looked them up and see they are registered as a corporation in Canada and they are open to usa, canada and even europe, which is where i am :) just sharing a tip as i am new here, they have free auctions from july 1st - july 15th i think, if its free, its free lol look under their news page, they dont have it posted on the homepage though.
If anyone else here is in to penny auctions let me know. I maybe want to make a penny auction forum one day and can use a friend to do it with me :)

HA, i own one!

Mine is cooltowndeals.com

Nice. Are you registered as a business or corporation? Did anyone buy any packages from you yet?

Nice simple looking website - where your auctions at?

Thanks guys. I am currently in the process of getting registered as a business, and yes, i have sold quite a few bid packs.


@rsot

The reason i am not currently running auctions is because the most wonderful company ;) AKA: PayPal
closed my account. They dont want to deal with PA sites any more because they are auction sites (just like ebay). :doh:

I am in the process of getting approved for authorize.net :)

Hi, I do wish you the best with your site. But i want to be honest and say what i think.
Paypal works with hundreds of PA sites as we speak today, and they always will. Why would they close your account but allow beezid and quibids etc etc to use them? Since most people use paypal it will be hard to survive and make money by not offering it to your bidders (just my opinion). But your reason for not having paypal is suspicious.
And this is my biggest fear with small sites; they sell a lot of bids and have no auctions running. You said you have sold many bid packages. Whether this is true or not i don´t know. This is not professional, not fair to the bidders, regardless of reasons or excuses.
I hope you can get things straightened out so you can have success.

@yellow0102 i should also add i looked through google and the good news with your site is no scams have been reported yet :) so i said negative things in the last post, now i should say a positive thing :)

Thanks for your opinion, but there are many other small sites that have been s**t on by PayPal. Take a look at:
pennyprizes.com
good2gogaming.com
stickybids.com

I actually talked to a paypal employee on the phone, and they said that the reason that they closed my account is because it is an auction site, and they dont want the competition with eBay.

and if it takes much longer to get approved by authorize.net, i will refund my customers bids :)

I was very interested in what you said, and I called paypal myself today and read to them what you posted about why they closed your account. They explained they cannot give out the reasons why they did close your account, but they said they do not care if a website that uses their services is a PA site or an auction site. They said if you were verified and sent them what they asked for (ID, etc) they will not close your account.
I have had paypal for about 10 years and although I only own little websites that have nothing to do with auctions or gaming, I never received any problems from them. Paypal would not chase any business or customers away unless that business or customer did not comply with their requirements because they would lose money. And no business wants to lose money. Also, no small PA site or auction site is competition for Ebay. Ebays competition is the larger PA sites like Beezid, Quibids, etc, and if they did not want competition they would deny these businesses their services.
The reason I went through this trouble is I love penny auction sites, but I only feel that registered penny auction sites that are open to everyone, including paypal, can be trusted. You may not be a bad guy, but paypal either closed your account because you were not verified and refused to become verified by sending in documentation, or they did not accept the documentation you sent in to them for any reason, or you did something that they caught and they closed it. Any website that cannot use paypal, unless it is a gaming webiste or an adult website, is unfortunately not safe in my eyes.
I´ll leave it at this, I have no interest to bash you, I just don´t like being lied to about something that involves trust and money.

I used to use penny auctions as one of my primary sources of income. I used swoopo.com. If you just bid blindly, you will never win which is why many people call it a scam. You either have to make multiple accounts or just get lucky.

I took the multiple account approach. Made two of them. Now what I'd do is set one on the "bidbutler" and let it run, while getting in a bidding war with my other account. After that, I'd simply turn off the bidbutler and since everyone thought it would bid the other account would win because nobody else would.

I did this until swoopo went bankrupt. Thing is, I have over $3,000 worth of stuff and bids I do not have because of this. Really got me pissed, so I just quit the damn penny auction stuff.

That's just about the nicest looking small penny auction site I've seen. Nice job. I registered.

You have the right to your opinion, and you can think how you want.
I have many satisfied customers, that have had some great wins.

You really should read about pennyprizes.com on Pennyauctionwatch.com
They are probably the best small penny auction site out there (they got screwed by paypal too). You dont have to have paypal to run a good business. :amen: