Got a Question for Swoopo?
By Ed Oswald | Monday, October 6, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Technologizer’s seen quite a bit of traffic over the past few weeks regarding our initial take on Swoopo, the newest auction site here in the US. A lot of this probably has to do with our search engine position — we are the #2 result when searching for “swoopo” — which no doubt probably isn’t sitting too well with the folks at the auction site considering we were not all that complementary.
In the interest of fairness, we got in contact late last week with Swoopo to give them the opportunity to tell their side of the story and to answer what seems to be from commenters some concerns over its business practices. So, we’re opening the floor. Is there a question you would like to ask the company? Let us know in the comments. We will try to ask as many of them as possible.
The floor is yours.
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51 Comments For This Post
October 13th, 2008 at 10:12 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%.
October 13th, 2008 at 10:13 am
visit http://www.kcbidz.com
October 13th, 2008 at 10:15 am
http://www.kcbidz.com 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%.
Go and check http://www.kcbidz.com and enjoy lowest unique bid auction!
October 17th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Do U MAKE A PROFIT?
October 30th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
WTF !
Why are all the user names on the swoopo site look like they are made up? I tell you its a scam, they got my 50 bucks.
if you do contact them, ask them to tell you the name or even email address of one person that has won.. Cause it all looks like the “bid butlers” always win! I think they setup fake accounts to jump in at the last min and take the winning bid!! if you find someone who won, have them contact me.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
i watched this site for most of the afternoon, i even registered and spent 10 british pounds buying me 25 bids. after watching and bidding in the last second on an nintendo wii, i was out bid. how? i watched some other items and even noticed a canon camera that other people where bidding on, so far it was at £580, starting price off £39, which at 50p per bid they made £3864.28 and people where still bidding. in the recession crisis going on how can this company justify making that kind of profit out of people just trying to grab a bargain and have afew nice things, at 600 per cent profit so far on the camera its day light robbery. is there a law in place thats protects the buyer? and do people really get the items there bidding on? is there any evidence that the buyers are getting there goods? in the small print it says you can be the highest bidder on one item at a time, how comes i sat and watched 3 people so far being the highest bidder on multible items at the same time. i believe the people who set up this site is getting friends or employees to out bid true buyers to make profit with nothing to show in the end…………..
November 10th, 2008 at 10:50 am
A Swoopo auction consists of the three elements that legally define a lottery in most if not all of the fifty states of the United States:
Prize – An option to purchase a product at a nominal price that may differ significantly and substantially from the retail price.
Chance – The prize will be won by the ticket purchaser if and only if nobody else purchases a ticket for substantially the same prize within a time period commencing with the time of ticket purchase.
Consideration – Each ticket costs $1.
Is not Swoopo a lottery according to this definition?
November 25th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I think this site grababid.com should be checked into are they cons?
November 25th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Hello, this is for the writer of this article. I thought you might be interested in this: I was on http://www.swoopo.co.uk (the swoopo site for the United Kingdom) and I realised that the first item up for auction was going for 28 pence…I thought that I would check out the “American” site, http://www.swoopo.com, to see how much items were going for on that site. To my surprise, I realised that the same items were being sold on both sites. However, what caught my eye was the fact that the first item, going for 28 pence, was now going for $0.60. That is not a correct conversion rate (the current conversion rate from pounds to USD is not more than double (actually, it’s not close to double)). Why would the conversion rate be so off?? Because unless they have some type of legitimate explanation, they are making a lot of money off this difference.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I just posted the above comment and would like to add to it. I just realised that only some items are sold on both the American and British sites. That aside, I realised that some of the items that are sold on both sites are also named slightly different things. For example, there is a tv titled, “Toshiba Regza 37XV503DB 37″ Full HD LCD TV” on the British site, but it is titled “Toshiba Regza 37RV530U 37″ 1080p LCD HDTV” on the American site. (the last two words in each are different). However, this tv is sold by the same person and I clicked on the tv and they seemed to be the same one. Why would they have different names??
December 2nd, 2008 at 2:41 am
I think you’ll find they have different descriptions/listings to assist with understanding by the ‘locals’. In some countries people may recognise “1080p”/”1080i” etc, in others they may find “HD” more common.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I have been watching this site for a while now and it seems like a scam to me. How does anyone know that the winning bid is a real person who actually will receive the item. They can systematically have fake names that always win the bids, taking people’s money, and then re-auctioning the same fake item since they don’t have to even have a real item that they are auctioning. Who is there to police these guys and make sure that real people are the winners of these auctions and these auctions are ligitimate. Additionally, what if someone bought some bids and later on chnaged his/her mind and didn’t want to use them to bid and wanted to get a refund. What is their refunnd policy? It definitely seems like a scam!
December 10th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
This is not by any means a scam. They list every aspect of how this site works, to the person who asked how they were outbid at the last second, that happens on ebay every auction!
ACTUALLY, with swoopo, you CAN’T outbid and win at the last second because every bid ads 20 seconds to the timer. So the timer resets on each bid. Those are the rules.
If you were to sit down and read everything first, you’d see it’s totally legit, like a lottery or gambling, – not very good for the consumer. It’s great for swoopo though.
That being said, like the lottery or gambling, it’s GREAT when you’re the winner.
I don’t know why people keep crying scam. Just because you’re playing a game where the odds are decidedly against you DOES NOT MAKE IT A SCAM.
December 12th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I think they are both scams, espicially grabad, I watch certain items for several days, they I bid on some items some very popular and some not so popular, even the non popular items I bid on for 6 hours and could not win. When I was watching them they would end within 2 hours,and them seem to have ended with in 1 hour after I stopped bidding. I do not think this is a coincidence. I am going to have this checked into. I would also like to know the name of 1 person who has actually won something. Also no matter what time of day I was on, there we many of the same bidders, you have to have money to bid, and sleep.HMMMMMMM
December 13th, 2008 at 6:18 am
That should have been GRABABID. I also noticed many of the same winner names over a days of watching.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:34 am
The most important e issue seems to relate to whether there are legitimate bidders upping the bids last minute or if the company is upping the bid on their own to lure the legitimate bidders in to bid more. Also only the winning bidder gets the prize so if no one actually wins but these fictional bidders then actual bidders are just losing money on bids. I find it curious that the company makes it clear that only the winner gets the spoils of the item being bid on, has anyone been winning and talking about it. I have only heard complaints, no recommendations suggesting that they are winners and they are repping this site for great deals. Policing to make sure that there are actual winners is what is necessary.
December 25th, 2008 at 6:59 am
Question to ask them:
Do you consider your business ethical?
Would you consider adding wording on your site, on the page where the bid is placed, wording such as:
“By placing this bid, You are BETTING $1 that you are the only person out of our 500000 others (currently online), that wants to buy this $1575 HDTV for the sum of $20 and 40 cents. Are you sure you’re NOT INSANE ???”
December 28th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Personally I prefer Price Plummet. These are UK only at the moment, they launched just before Christmas, and went down due to the servers becoming overloaded.
Those which managed to get on won some amazing bargains. I snagged a PSP, a PS3 and a state of the art mobile phone watch. I even received them before Christmas.
They will be back up and running in January with more stuff after they have load balanced the servers to compensate for demand.
If you want a fair system, then these are the fairest. Auctions start at half the retail value of the item and go down by 10p with every bid placed. If an auction goes below zero the winner receives bids back worth the amount it went over by.
Also, there are no bid butlers, instead each auction has a feature button which allows you to manipulate the auction to try and win. This allows you to use skill to win.
Everything is visible, you can see who are the skilled players and how many bids each user has placed on each auction.
Oh and unlike other sites you can even leave feedback on a won item, so you can say if you got your goods or if you have had a bad service and it is there for all to see.
The customer service is great, I had several questions and response was fast and amazingly helpful.
Will be back playing when they re launch in January and I suggest anyone in the UK looking to give these type of things a try do the same.
They made my Christmas.
December 29th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
i want on a bid, used all my bids, and the moment i used my bids another so called user bidded on the same item, this bid lasted for hours and hours until i finished all my bids and then like a magic trick nobody bidded on that item no more, just as i finished all my bids, this is a scam website, please ask them if i can get my money back.
December 30th, 2008 at 10:55 am
I have, like many others, purchased some bids and have the same comments. I tried different hours of the day, bidding at the last second. For some bidders, it adds 30 sec and ofr me and others (I guess real people) it adds 50 to 60 sec, you can follow the bids and at peak time, bids are placed before the last 10 seconds so that’s when I log off. A few minutes later I go back on the site to find that items were magically sold. How can that be? I found a blog where a guy said his friend won a bid for a PS3 but just that one. Are there actual winners or is this a computer generated bidding program to get people to spend at their bids. I have yet to hear that real people win.
January 4th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I won a bid on this sight for a Roomba vacuum.. It was around Christmas and I still have not received it. Not sure that I ever will.. First I should have noticed I can not find a real phone number to call them.. I send e-mails and have not had a reply yet… STAY AWAY<< I will sue
January 9th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I won a bid on grababid.com Dec 12, 2008 and I have not received the item or the free bids promised. I have been answered with 3 emails (1 per week). I don’t know if I will get the item or bids, but I am thinking I will stick with ebay & ubid unless anyone knows of sites with similar track records.
Thanks
Carl
January 11th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
i joined swoopo after checking out several mixed reviews, why are items displayed on uk website identical on u.s website ???? same bidder same price albeit in dollars ?????
this seems rather unfair ?
February 27th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Everybody who just wants to talk about Swoopo, go here:
https://www.technologizer.com/2008/09/17/is-swoopo-nothing-more-than-a-well-designed-gimmick/#comment-10245
Otherwise if you have a question, please use this thread as it is wanted…to ask Swoopo questions. Yes, I’m the anonymous who came late to the discussion.
These are my questions I’d like to ask Swoopo:
1. According to people who have previously used your auction site, there seems to be coding problem with your bid butler. Care to explain why the guy lost all his bids in one bid butler action?
2. I hear a guy who recently won an auction got his price delivered to him by Amazon. I’d like to hear more about this from your side, Swoopo.
3. Most people that talk about Swoopo are those who seem to never win anything. I believe your system may be too complicated, Swoopo. Care to simplify the system?
4. I think it’s the time of the company’s life to tell its users how it is making its profit. The answer to this could either save or destroy you, Swoopo.
Good luck with the interview, Ed Oswald. I’m looking forward to the answers.
February 28th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
everyone knows or by deductive reasoning that the site and operation is indeed a scam: any business is out to make money. swoopo complete aution shows they are looking money not making. For example a macbook 13 final wining price is about $250 with 60 bids, that’s a total of approximately $300 for an item they paied about $1000; you do the math, thats a $700 loss. definitely a scam.
March 1st, 2009 at 8:04 am
Seriously. Before you even call it a scam, why don’t you talk to Swoopo about it. Because people like you are bad for business. Anyway, if you read my previous post, go talk about Swoopo at the web address I stated.
And yes, it does seem as though they are taking a big loss. But let’s allow Swoopo to explain things, will ya? There’s enough people calling Swoopo a scam, I think Ed Oswald finally wants to hear it from Swoopo.
Only post questions here, not anymore discussions because Swoopo has already been tagged a scam by the USA community.
March 10th, 2009 at 7:04 am
I asked for information on the bid return policy on Feb. 8th. I got an email message telling me my account has been closed and my return is being processed into my paypal account. Since then I have not received my return and have tried emailing swoopo numerous times without a response other than ‘we’re sorry, we are re-processing it!’. A legitimate company would not treat it’s customers like this.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I too have been watching this site for quite some time and decided to give it a whirl. I suspected it was all an electronic facade upon first glance. I don’t really think that the prizes exist or that any of it is real. There is no address, phone number, or contact other than a generic link to “contact our customer service team”.
I decided the best thing to do was to use my bids to try and get additional bids in the “vouchers” section. I placed a bid butler on a penny auction for 25 bids over about a $2.00 range. I actually won the auction to my surprise. Here’s the link: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/300-bids-voucher/157442.html
It has been 3 days since then and no 300 bids added to my account. I received one email saying that I won and another email saying that the auction had been “verified” but that the bids were NOT successfully added to my account and to contact their wonderful customer service team. After 3 emails now, I have received one automated “robot” response saying they had received my email. I highly doubt anything will ever happen from here on and this confirms my suspicion that this is a huge SCAM.
March 11th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Also noticed today the user name ‘deafhausen’ won a laptop for $1.23. http://www.swoopo.com/auction/acer-as8730-6918-18-4-inch-laptop/161601.html
If you Google that name he/she/it has won several items in every language of Swoopo, and always for super cheap! Yet more evidence of what is more than obvious at this point. I wonder how this place has not been shut down yet. Oh, and wait…another one of these sites will be launched in April ’09 in the US – named Dubli. The profess to be the next ebay with reverse auctions and similar games.
March 12th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I surprisingly received my refund today after a little over a month. A couple days ago I decided to bluff and threaten them with getting a group of people together to file a class action suit and it seemed to have worked.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
I believe we have enough information to take down the company already. But the first step is to find a reknown lawyer. Anybody has this card?
Or, we could totally contact Better Business Bereau about this company and to have it kicked out of U.S.A. for good.
But meanwhile, we must wait for Ed’s interview to be completed.
March 16th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
i wanted to bid on an iphone but i wasn’t going to start bidding or even buy bids before the bidbutler person stopped bidding. I figured as long as the bidbutler was still bidding i had almost no shot in winning without spending a lot on bids. he never stopped bidding did and i never bought my bids. the bidbutler guy ended up bidding over 1,000 times at $.75 each on top of the $50, crazy idiot if its a real person. I then noticed that on all the iphone auctions the bidbutler always won, and this was the case on all the bigger auctions that i cared about, so i think its a scam. i think for the big stuff you can’t win, i think swoopo is just winning those themselves and charging people for fake bids that are going no where
March 24th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Swoopo is seriously taking people for a ride, I sat one full day bidding and watching. Not once did I even have a shot of winning anything, its not that I was unlucky, I just never had the odds on myside, people should know that this site is a total money making scam, do not use your money on here – its one of those sites that brings a simple rule into practise – “IF IT SEEMS TO GO TO BE TRUE, THEN IT PROBABLY IS” avoid at all costs.
April 6th, 2009 at 2:55 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 and stick with eBay.
April 14th, 2009 at 6:37 am
I have bid on many of these auction sites such as bidwinflip.com, swoopo.com, and alot of others. I have won and received items from bidwinflip.com and swoopo.com. I found one site like a few months ago and I first just wanted to try it out called grababid.com. So, I just bought a little cheap bidding package the cheapest one I could get at the time. Well so I used what little bids that was. Then I decided to go big to buy a $625 package which was 1725 bids. Anyways to my astonishment I was bidding on auctions with others and the next thing I know they suspended my account. After paying the bigger price on the website they shut my account down and tried to run with the money when i had 1725 bids. I had used some bids not many. They just up and tried to take the cash. I told the place that charges credit cards through there that they better take that money off my card and better not charge. Or I would be in court with grababid and the credit card company. What a way to scam someone grababid!!!! Don’t ever buy $625 in credit they will shut down your account so they can try to run with the money even if the bids are still in your account.
April 14th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I actually won a Wii Fit, but guest what over 1 1/2 months already, still didn’t receive it!?!?!?!? They told me it’ll take a month to process, and so far still no response whatsoever!!!!! I’m very frustrated, figure I won, and they earn as well, since the item sold to me over $25 and a shipping of 12.99, and it’s over 168 bids (which is $126, plus 12.99 shipping) for a stuff that cost only $80 in target. Why are they still ripping me off, or is it most of the bids are from Swoopo itself??!??!
May 1st, 2009 at 1:45 am
I have read most of the comments and am really suprised at the response of these bidding sites. It seems pretty silly to call these websites scams, etc. since they are operating on the same principle as a lottery, bingo, raffle tickets, etc. where people pay to be included in a chance to win something of worth ($50-$2,000+ items) for a fraction of what it would normally cost.
If someone was raffling off a Playstation 3 and sold 5,000 tickets @$1.00 per ticket and then there was only one winner no one complains. They hope they will win and are willing to spend a little money with no guarantee by anyone of winning. If 500 people each spend $10 the raffle makes $5,000 of a $400 item. That may seem like a lot of money from one item but the rules were explained as well as the risk.
On these websites there are no guarantees just an opportunity to get items for a fraction of what they would normally cost in the stores and just like a raffle other people are hoping they will win as well. Also just like a raffle someone could buy 300 tickets (spend 300 bids) and someone whoe only bought 1-2 tickets (uses 1-2 bids) could actually win the item. Also just because you have never won a raffle doesn’t mean that the raffle is a scam or that no one wins because that would be an uneducated or ignorant assumption.
I personally have been on approximately 4-5 of these “bid” sites. I have wasted money trying to win some items but at the same time have had pretty good success at the same time.
Losses – one time spent approximately $200+ in bids trying to win a 16gb Iphone (white)
Loss – another time it was down to me and one other bidder and I had bid around $100-150 and my computer froze and of course other person won
Wins – Panasonic 37″ HDLCD TV – $80 in Bids + approx $50 shipping = $130
Wins – Amazon Kindle – total bids and shipping $280 (retails $370+tax+ship)
Wins – Playstation 3 – total (bids/ship) $120
Here on out I will just list the total combined price (bids/final auction price and shipping – prices are approximate)
Wins – Ipod Nano 8gb – $67.00
Wins – Ipod Shuffle – $20.00
Wins – Xbox 360 Elite 160 GB $47.00
Wins – Acer Netbook – $170.00
Wins – HP Netbook – $130.00
Wins – Garmin Nuvi – $50.00
Wins – Guitar Hero Metallic Wii – $30.00
Wins – Netflix Roku – $60.00
There may have been one or two more items but I like these sites and have had good experiences with them. It just seems like anything bad news spreads faster than good news and there are always poor losers in life.
Just like raffles, lottos, bingo and yes even gambling not everyone wins and not everyone has good experiences. On these sites you have to be smart (not like the guy who spent almost $126 worth of bids to win a $80 item) and you have to be a little self disciplined and not get caught up with some of the excitement. There are risks and no guarantees so people stop whining that you got ripped off and scammed when how the site works is explained on the sites and if you can’t take the time to read some basic instructions of what you are getting into or spending your money on then just like the old saying goes “A fool and his money are soon parted”
May 4th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
Hi, I have been on swoopo for awhile. They are not a scam I have actually won items on the site and they was shipped to me. One site I can say is a complete scam though is grababid.com. I paid money several dollars for bids. I got the bids but then my account was shutdown and lost all bids. The owner tried to tell everyone on his blog to back up information on his site had tried to say i had bad checks when I paid through plimus. The problem is my checks was not bad because I use same checking account to pay my bills. I threatened to sue them to get my money back and to my astonishment so he wouldn’t get sued they sent my money back. If I wouldn’t have threatened them they would have not gave my money back. others have said they also was done the same way but never got their money back.
May 5th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Chris,
it is a scam if you won and never receive your prize. Even in a raffle! Several people on here were notified they won and went thru the process of claiming their prize and were cheated. Your explanation says nothing about this. Most people realize it is an auction,raffle, etc, but if you win you do agree that your should receive your prize? If you do not, you have been scammed. And the site or person doing this is a rip-off artist.
May 7th, 2009 at 9:48 pm
I feel like swoopo is a fake. Is it true that the items are broken or in poor condition?
May 8th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Skye,
In my experience with swoopo, all of the items received were new and in good condition. For most of the items, it appeared that they ordered them from Amazon.com and had them shipped directly to me.
I can’t speak for everyone, but my experience was positive. I received all of my items and within two weeks of payment. If I ever had a question or concern, they responded within a day or two.
I am in the US, so I don’t know what their customer service is like in other countries.
Just be sure that you really understand how swoopo works. There is no gurantee that you will win. I found that once the site became more popular, I was winning less and less. I finally stopped playing because of it as I was starting to lose money.
If you have any more questions about my experience, I’ll be happy to let you know.
D
May 11th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I highly suspect many of the bidders are robot programs at GRABABID. Before my bidding, the same kind of auctions have never passed 2 days in a whole week. However, one auction I attended lasted 7 days, and the other lasted 3 days! Also on few occasions my name did not show up as the last bidder in the central panel, though I was indeed the last one on the right panel. After my bids were gone, all the auctions I attended ended uniformly around 1 hour later! No matter what auctions they are, the other ‘bidders’ would compete as keen as possible. Why did people compete for $75 as hard as $1000? The only explanation is they are not human beings! They are robots!! By the way, the website surely has not responded to my complaints! We should do something to stop this shameless site!
May 20th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Hi all, I am a member of swoopo and kind of agree that it is a lottery site. Though i did manage to win a PS3 game for £2 and received it within 2 weeks, I also use ten-pence.co.uk where I won a wii for 40p!!! not had anymore luck with them though and refuse to buy anymore bids, i always tend to use my mobile on that site as its only £1 per bid so your in control of how much u are spending. Ten-pence is the best site I have found as I received my wii within 2 weeks also……
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:57 am
Hi Dman2000:
Glad (or I should say sad…) you had a similar experience. Actually I also did an assessment like you did, though I observed at 1 second instead of 5 seconds. I did not mention that because I thought it’s a technical clue for their crimes. They should be aware that they are not the only programmers in the world. And they are not smarter. By the way, as a control experiment, Swoopo did not have this kind of problem, as far as I can assess…. Good luck!
May 30th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Thank heavens I decided to look for reviews on Swoopo. I recently registered and was about to bid a smallest bid pack. There was something that really stood out to me, though, and I emailed them for an answer. I’ll see what they say. My question was this: If the bid amount is in increments of $.15, and my bids costs me $.75 each, and one bid is used for each increased increment, then doesn’t that mean I am losing $.60 per bid? If so, there’s no way to win as far as I can tell. I figured out that based on the price they claim was actually paid for the same item in an earlier auction of $108.00, the actual costs to the winner of the auction would have been $540.00. That’s $108.00/$.15=720 bids x $.75=$540.00. Does that make sense? I’m not that great at math, but this is what it looks like to me.
June 3rd, 2009 at 8:38 am
I was looking for a good bid site to sign up for and try out…saw Swoopo and GrabABid…thanks to this review, my skepticism has been confirmed.
June 16th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I watched for 10 hours the same auction going, the unique bids only went up by 1, this means they made $28,800 on a TV that is worth $1500, this is on the .co.nz version of the site. Checking site stats at many locations it appears they ate only getting 5000 page views a day, thats no where near the 28,800 bids which would cause page views.
July 7th, 2009 at 9:47 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.
July 28th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Swoopo isn’t the only option, and there are definitely ways to beat the system. Check out other sites like bidfire.com. Swoopo is swamped with users so stuff is expensive/hard to get. A site like bidfire has the same few users winning so your chances are MUCH better.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I want to see a current manifest of obliging winners names and addresses who can proove they won with photos of merchandise and shipping/lading papers, before swoopo gets a penny out of me!
December 8th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
THIS ARE THE REAL PROBLEMS WITH SWOOPO 🙁
Swoopo is a scam site because they use scam techniques to modify auctions and increase their profit There is some problems with swoopo that frankly i think make anyone loose faith in the fairness of the site.
Some of the problems are time-outs, unfair currency conversions, and different action description for the same item in different country sites.
I will take an auction and illustrate how this problems make the site a very unfair environment:
Ex: “Auction ID: 256264″ (check it out for urself, by going on both sites, just click the different country flags)
i am from Canada and the item description for the item in the Canadain website is: This iMac features a 2.66GHz Intel Quad Core Processor,1TB Hard Drive, 4 GB RAM, 27” display and Mac OS X 10.6
in the US website the item description is very different: This iMac features a 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo,1TB Hard Drive, 4 GB RAM, and a 27-inch display
-this are 2 different Apple computers and in an auction that is something horrible to do, because it attracts more bidders for no reason. There are people that are looking for the 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac that will be attracted and people that are looking for the iMac features a 2.66GHz Intel Quad Core Processor, and they will all bid. but the problem comes with the fact that all the bids are added on top of each other to each other. This is wrong because the different countries are biding in 2 different items, so we should have 2 different auctions because we have 2 different products.
-the above example can be simplified if you consider bidding for a car, the US will bid on the Toyota for example and Canada will bid on Honda. Now the bids from both cars will be added together and so will the times. So if so far 100 US customers bid in this penny auction the price for the Toyota would be $1 dollar, and if 50 Canadian customers bid on the other auction, the price of the Honda would be 50cent = $0.50. this would be fair but swoopo adds the price and makes the price for both cars 1.5 dollar at this point, and the worst part, is that the time has been increased over and over because they have combined this auctions. in the end tho they will only sell one car and either the toyota if a US customer wins or the honda if the canadian customer wins, making double the profit just like that. WOULD YOU BID ON THIS?? Than they will auction the other car the same way.
THAT IS WRONG!!!
CURRENCY CONVERSION
-Now lets say that we are bidding on a “Nikon D90 with 18-105mm Kit + 150 FreeBids”. the price on the US website for this item is USD $1,339.00
while for the same item (excluding that the problem mentioned above exists, since the running 2 different items in the same auction happens more with laptops and desktops), a “Nikon D90 with 18-105mm Kit + 150 FreeBids” with the same item descriprtion, the price for it on the Canadian website is CAD $1,652.49. Now some might say that makes since since the US dollar is higher that the Canadian dollar, but today the rate is 1USD = 0.95 CAD while when calculating Swoopo’s rate you get 1 USD = 1.23 CAD, now how is that fair.
This problem is even worst when considering the iMac auction above where the US price is USD $1,699.00, and the Candadian price is CAD $2,284.99 buming the rate to 1 USD =1.34 CAD which is very high, that is 40 cent extra per dollar IT’S CRAZYYYYYY !!!!!
TIME OUTS
– this is an obvious problem, basically the times just gets stuck on you leaving you confused and sometimes having to refresh in the final seconds and it could cost you the auction, which can be devastating if you are bidding on an item for a while and have used 100ds of bids. this is caused by the website glitches and network lag some times. now the worst if combining all of the 3 factors mentioned above into the same auction which happens on almost every penny or high price auction.
Now i know it was long and i apologize, but i hope you learned something more because what i have mentioned are all facts and you can verify them. Sites like this are very addictive and there are people who i feel bad about because they will still play even knowing this crazy odds. Well my advice is stay away, but im not your mother so GOOD LUCK!!!!