• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

QuiBids.com = Genius Website

gigahertz20

gigahertz20

Golden Member
http://www.quibids.com/

I've never heard of this website before, but a friend sent me a link earlier and I checked it out. It's an auction site, but you bid on products that are being sold by the company/people that own the website, not from other people like eBay.

Here is the catch, every time you bid you pay 60 cents and the price of the auction goes up 1 cent. When the auction timer gets near the end, every time someone bids the auction timer increases 10 to 15 secs and counts down to 0 again. So auctions do not finish until all bidding is done. The people that created this website are making mad money, genius idea. Here is a completed auction to give you an idea of how much money this website is raking in:


http://www.quibids.com/auction.php?id=814163054

An Apple iPad 32GB that ended at $187.72. If you click on the link above the person that won the auction placed 13 bids at 60 cents each totaling $7.80 plus add the auction ending price = $195.52 total the person payed for something that normally goes for $800 or so, not bad.

But here is where the people that created the website make huge money, since every bid costs 60 cents and only raises the auction price 1 cent, an ending auction price of $187.72 for the iPad means there were 18,772 bids at 60 cents a bid = $11,263.20
So the company buys a 32GB iPad for $800 or less and makes over $11k selling it. GENIUS!


Now I wonder how many clone website will emulate the idea, but undercut the price it costs to bid.
 
Last edited:
I used a site that did this a few years ago, interesting how it works. The dude that ran it said to me they lost money on a bunch of auctions but on the popular ones the cleaned house. Enough to where they were way in the green. This one charged .25 per bid, I could see an item like an iPad bringing in a ton of money. I never won shit and ended up dropping about $20 on bids so I said fuck it and left. I was greedy and thought I was going to get a huge TV for like $100 bucks, it never quite worked out how I had envisioned it.
 
The concepts of these sites are not new. They were doing this when the PS3 just came out. These sites are shady since the site owners could just make dummy accounts to drive up the bids.
 
These sites are common and borderline illegal.
Click to expand...

Borderline illegal how?



QueBert said:
I used a site that did this a few years ago, interesting how it works. The dude that ran it said to me they lost money on a bunch of auctions but on the popular ones the cleaned house. Enough to where they were way in the green. This one charged .25 per bid, I could see an item like an iPad bringing in a ton of money. I never won shit and ended up dropping about $20 on bids so I said fuck it and left. I was greedy and thought I was going to get a huge TV for like $100 bucks, it never quite worked out how I had envisioned it.
Click to expand...

I couldn't ever trust a site that made you pay for each bid. Think how easy it would be for the company to create bots that would just auto bid if an auction for a particular item was going to end before there was alot of bidding action, that way they don't lose money.
 
Last edited:
I don't see how this is borderline illegal, but after watching someone spend almost $50 simply to bid on a Sony Dash, I can see how anyone who uses this site is borderline retarded.
 
Anonemous said:
The concepts of these sites are not new. They were doing this when the PS3 just came out. These sites are shady since the site owners could just make dummy accounts to drive up the bids.
Click to expand...

They don't even have to do that. They just rig it so that their dummy accounts win every auction. They never need the original product and they collect all the bid fees from all the idiots using the site. It's a ponzi scheme.
 
i wonder if there would be a way to make this legit --- because i agree that it sounds WAAAAY too easy to simply cheat
 
I think i've seen that before, and i'd never bid on something like that ... i'd feel like a retard.

If you were going to bid, why not just try to snipe it at the last second and only pay 60 cents once + that weird penny cost?
 
ViviTheMage said:
I think i've seen that before, and i'd never bid on something like that ... i'd feel like a retard.

If you were going to bid, why not just try to snipe it at the last second and only pay 60 cents once + that weird penny cost?
Click to expand...

Because you and everybody else who thinks they can beat the system does exactly that. You think you're gonna 'snipe' it and bit at the last second, but when people bid it increases the timer. So really you're just screwing yourself.
 
ViviTheMage said:
I think i've seen that before, and i'd never bid on something like that ... i'd feel like a retard.

If you were going to bid, why not just try to snipe it at the last second and only pay 60 cents once + that weird penny cost?
Click to expand...


"every time someone bids the auction timer increases 10 to 15 secs and counts down to 0 again."

I'm guessing you missed that part.
 
Marlin1975 said:
"every time someone bids the auction timer increases 10 to 15 secs and counts down to 0 again."

I'm guessing you missed that part.
Click to expand...

Not only that but even when it gets to zero for some reason thats not good enough, its like another 5 second clock kicks in when it gets to zero to give people 5 more seconds.
 
These guys are definitely not the first to do this :

19 May 2009 22:26:51

Let me see if I can dig up the original site, if it's still running.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top