The truth about QuiBids
QuiBids is a penny auction website with an irresistible hook: win awesome stuff at bind-blowing prices, like a brand-new Apple iPad 16 GB Wi-Fi for $4! It seems unbelievable but it’s true. It’s also very deceptive.
I spent a little over $300 today and won only some Pyrex containers (I did need them, at least). Before I expose the penny auction machinery let me make clear: I’m not blogging this in a fit of rage over my $300 Pyrex containers. Believe it or not but I don’t care about the money. Also, I intended to spend that much because I was sure no one would out bid me at that price level (I was bidding for an iPad and historically they’re won at far less than $300). My motivation for this blog is simply to lay bare the plain details and facts about how (this) penny auction website works financially, to show and prove to you that, unless you enjoy seeing your money disappear at a fantastic rate whilst participating in the grotesque enrichment of the company to which it went, you should not participate in penny auctions.
I speak of QuiBids because it’s all I know. I can only guess that other penny auction websites operate similarly. If QuiBids objects to this blog post then that’s too bad because I’m protected by free speech and nothing I’m about to say is false to the best of my knowledge. (I will correct any factual inaccuracies pointed out to me.)
Let’s use this auction as an example. At the time of writing, the bid price for that iPad is $157.26. Let’s simplify and call it $150. Now here are some important facts:
- Users (i.e. you and me) must buy bids; users do not bid with real money.
- Each bids cost $0.60 (sixty cents). E.g. 75 bids = $45.
- The price of items, like our example iPad at roughly $150, are bid up in $0.01 (one cent) increments (this varies; sometimes the increment is more).
- The user who wins can buy the item at its final bid price.
Let me first emphasize the last point. If an item is bid up to $150 and you win it, then you buy it for $150 plus all the money you spent on your own bids, that is, $0.60 times the number of bids you made. So if you made 100 bids then you spent $60 on bids (100 * $0.60). Therefore the real final price for your item is $210: $150 for the bid price + $60 spent on bids.
Obviously you want to place as few bids as possible, but that seems nearly impossible to do if you have any chance of winning a “sexy” item like an iPad because, as our example auction shows, the bidding may drag on for hours. Our example auction began sometime this morning around 11am–I know because I place 278 bids ($166.80). This presents a very high barrier: bid competition. Some auctions end after less than 100 bids, and other auctions require thousands of bids. It’s easy to calculate how many bids an auction has received: for auctions with $0.01 cent increments the number of bids is simply PRICE * 100. So our example is 150 * 100 = 15,000 bids. The math is simple: 1 bid = 1 cent increment in price and there are 100 cents in a dollar so there are 100 bids in each dollar of the price.
Now wrap your mind around this: each bid cost someone $0.60, so if an item, like our example iPad, has received 15,000 bids then that’s 15,000 * $0.60 = $9,000 that QuiBids receives for one iPad.
Someone is going to win that auction, and let’s say it’s someone who comes into the auction late and bids only 100 times, thus costing their self $60 plus whatever the final price of the time is. Right now, since I’ve been typing, the price has increase from $157.26 to $160.78. Let’s be generous and hypothesize that someone won it at $160. So their final price is $160 + $60 = $220. And $160 at 1 cent increments requires 16,000 bids minus the 100 the winner placed meaning that the losers spent $9,540 (15,900 bids) for nothing. I am one such loser.
In their defense, QuiBids let’s you apply the money you spent on bids towards buying the item at what they consider retail price. For me that means I can buy the iPad for their retail price of $699 – the $166.80 I spent on bids, which equals $532.20. With shipping the iPad is $548.19 from QuiBids and $528.94 from Apple, a difference of only $19.25. That’s seems fair, right? No, we’ve been tricked again! When I describe it like that it looks like I’m only paying $19.25 more for my iPad but in reality I’m paying $548.19 to “buy it now” plus the $166.80 I already lost which totals $714.99, or $186.05 more than had I just bough the iPad directly from Apple. I’m still better off just paying direct from Apple and cutting my losses with QuiBids because if I buy from Apple for $528.94 that totals $695.74 with my $166.80 QuiBids loss, or $19.25 less than the “buy it now” option. Sure that’s only $19 but why give QuiBids another $19 when they’ve already raked in over $9,000 for that one iPad?
Even worse, my $300 loss was over two auctions so the amounts cannot be combined to buy an iPad through QuiBids less $300. If that was possible then I probably would not have written this blog. (I intended to play only one auction but technology failed me–that’s a completely different complaint, though.) I think the inability to combine losses verges on unethical because, all told, I gave QuiBids $300 in exchange for $26 worth of Pyrex contains–that’s terribly imbalanced. I’m willing to pay them more than Apple’s retail for an iPad because the extra money would be for giving me and others a chance to win that iPad for a very cheap price. Of course, any way it goes, I’m out money but that’s the price I pay for playing such games.
The bottom line: penny auction websites like QuiBids are a bad idea because countless people will waste countless hours of their lives only to lose thousands of dollars on a single item which costs, at retail, only a few hundred dollars, and all their lost money becomes the sole profit of the company which cleverly masques the dollars-and-cents reality of its game in a shroud of penny-bid lingo.
Quibids.com is not a scam. You can actually win really great items at really low prices. But in order to do this you have to have a plan and you have to do your research.
http://www.quibidstracker.com has the tools you need to research the items you want to bid on. Find out what the avg sale price is as well as how many bids you will need to actually win a specific item.
QuiBidsTracker.com
tim
7 Nov 10 at 4:30 pm
I won’t use QuiBids again! I spent $60 for the initial registration and 100 bids. I only was able to get a photo printer for 80 cents. I had to pay for it with shipping which totaled approximately 10$ THe printer was only worth $34. So i basically spent $70 for a $34 printer! Annoying but I guess I learned my lesson. I bid on a few other things and some seemed shady. I walked away for a minute and there were like 20 bidders involved I returned and the item was sold for a really cheap price. This happened on more than one occasion. Wondering it they have decoys playing in this too???? disappointing to say the least.
janet
21 Nov 10 at 4:12 pm
If you know how to play the game, you can get great deals. If you don’t do your research, you’ll get stiffed. Like anything else in life, if you don’t know what you’re doing, teach yourself before jumping off in an area you’re not familiar with.
As I type this, I’m watching a woman spend hundreds of dollars on unecessary bids on an iPad because she doesn’t have a clue what she’s doin
amy
30 Nov 10 at 2:29 pm
…If you want to play, follow these tips:
1. Don’t bid unless there are less than 10 bidders bidding on the item
2. Don’t expect to get an iPad for $0.40 with little effort
3. Don’t spend a penny until you’ve watched and learned how these auctions work.
Otherwise, you may as well wipe your ass with your dollars.
amy
30 Nov 10 at 2:31 pm
insane. the only ones who benefit from this are the owners of the company. its like a casino – more like a twisted slot machine. someone might get lucky with a small jackpot, but the house is making a KILLING off of the losers.
d
12 Dec 10 at 1:12 pm
Another great site that provides more comprehensive stats is http://www.QuiBidsReport.com
They not only report the average price, but the Hot Range, and On Fire Range of the price to optimize winning.
James Orlando
8 Feb 11 at 2:59 pm
I respectfully agree and disagree with the comments made here. The only question I have (in all seriousness) is how much time and money does it cost to get a penny auction site like quibids up and running? Anybody, I don’t need an exact figure, an estimate will do. I’ve gotta say it’s pretty f#$kin genius. These guys are making money hand over fist. Whatever the initial start up it’s gotta be worth the invested money.
Crawlingsurface
1 Mar 11 at 10:43 am
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a scam, as everything is spelled out on their site, if you take the time to read. That being said, it is very much based on the model of a casino. It’s a game of chance. YES, you can get lucky and get an iPad for $.04 and YES you can blow a lot of money and get nothing. So the motto should be the same… don’t play with money you can’t afford to lose !!!
The real issue I have with the site is that it appears (I have no physical proof) that there is a bit of a shell game. It “seems” like after you have been on the site for a week and used up your “real” bids the auctions you see are more limited resulting in dozens of people bidding on every single little item. If that is indeed the case then the term “scam” is not so far off. Certainly “deceptive”.
As for the above article, I do agree, although I don’t think all the math is correct. If you have an item that retails for $500 and you place 300 “real” bids (that cost you $180) then the $180 is deducted from the retail meaning you owe $320 + shipping. You don’t pay for the bids twice, as the article seems to imply.
Irregardless, this should be viewed as an interactive lottery. All you need is a dollar and a dream !!! Or in this case $60.
Kevin
21 Mar 11 at 3:58 pm
And not to mention that you bid with the assumption that you’re bidding for the latest model iPad2, but I got the shock of my life when I brought the iPad via “Buy it now” option and it was iPad 1.
Even apple doesn’t sell iPad version 1 anymore and these guys have stocked up so much of iPad 1′s they are selling for way more than what they are for.
Mark
8 Apr 11 at 11:37 am
Anyone who leaves a comment in favor of Quibids is obviously employed by them. End of discussion. Thanks for the honest warning.
Abe Lincoln
17 Apr 11 at 8:13 pm
In response to Kevin’s statement – yes, once you have used up your 100 paid bids you no longer have the same amount of items to bid on. This you can prove for yourself by loging into the main page of QuiBids.com (after you’ve used up your 100 paid bids) and bringing up the same page on another computer – not on your IP or logged in to QuiBids, or a smart phone on 3G – and you will see that there is a considerable difference in the available items to bid on.
I asked QuiBids about this and this is what they said:
“Based on feedback from our customers, we have found that customers typically don’t want to see an increase in their competition as QuiBids’ popularity continues to grow. QuiBids attempts to limit some auctions to participants of comparable skill, as determined by QuiBids, to enhance user experience and maintain a viable business model. In so doing, QuiBids may limit which auctions are available to particular users based on any factors deemed appropriate by QuiBids in its sole discretion, including experience of the user, historical success of the user, demographic factors, prior bidding and spending activity, and other factors. In particular, QuiBids may limit certain auctions to less experienced or successful users in any manner QuiBids deems appropriate to optimize the overall user experience of all QuiBids users. You acknowledge that You may be, and You consent to being, excluded from auctions at QuiBids discretion. Our number one goal is to maintain a great user experience for all customers, along with balancing heavy strain on our servers. If the product you want is currently not showing, please continue to check back as new and exciting products will be added frequently!”
I was unable to find any of this information in their Terms of Service.
I actually won several items (not the big ticket items, I didn’t even try for those) because as I watched the site for 4 weeks prior to buying the bid pack. Once I used up my 100 paid bids, I was unable to win anything with my voucher bids. I found that several of the auctions I was bidding on would end as soon as I stopped bidding. Bots? I don’t know.
Rae
22 Apr 11 at 12:41 pm
You know, I noticed that trend myself (available # of items available to bid on) after I was in the quibids loop for a bit. I will say this. I managed to spend $60, while accumulating more than the said amount in merchandise. I did not however stick around to get sucked into buying any more bids. I guess I’m one of the lucky ones? Has anyone here been on bidsniper.com
A friend told me about this site. I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
crwalingsurface
8 May 11 at 6:56 am
Thanks for posting your revelations about qbid. They post their press release reprints as evidence of legitimacy. eBay is a more legitimate market especially with “buy it now” pricing and “make offer.” I have never been scammed at eBay.
steve
31 May 11 at 9:12 am
Not to mention how bidding time increases by 20 seconds for each time one bids! You’ve got to be insane (or unable to do the math ha) to use this site! Just another way to scam the unfortunately unintelligent public.
Jessica
15 Jun 11 at 8:32 pm
I have also used the great statistics at http://www.QuiBidsReport.com with a lot of success. They have the top 10 best times to bid for each item and I have even maxed out the number of wins you can get in a month bidding on gift cards and using their service.
Darren Eberle
20 Jun 11 at 2:54 pm
From Personal Use i believe QuiBids is a scam because if you spend time watching the web site one an item reaches 0:01 it seems that it just doesnt sell. What happens is that someone else bids when it is at one second and the timer just restarts. Therefore i believe that it is a scam
Andrew
3 Jul 11 at 8:32 pm
People that gamble with their money are an indication of a much larger issue than just gambling. It shows where their values are and what they put their faith in. This will continue until the debt ceiling crushes us, and by the way the debt ceiling is not just economic debt it is moral debt as well. Gambling removes the intrinsic link of accounting: economic debt, and accountability: moral debt. That missing link is the proof that we are addicted to entitlements and see money as god. This will soon change as we are quite rapidly headed back to a fact based society. The real tsunami headed our way is the an economic collapse created by those who high-jacked the dollar in 1913 and are using it to the exact end game that is now in sight. Get out of the coastal cities and off the internet and put some seeds in the ground and learn how to protect yourself and your loved ones.
Gary
8 Jul 11 at 12:54 am
The quibidsreport.com site charges approx. $84/yr for a membership… it’s not free either. Might even be owned by quibids… that would be brilliant! I think I agree with the poster who first mentioned the casino model… rings true to me. House will always win in the end.
Smarterthanthat
16 Aug 11 at 2:58 pm
Total rip off, someone on there site is upping the bids for sure, and when I try to place a bit with 2 secs left with one bid on there, it alway says you were to late, i had 2 secs. i asked for my money back luckly i only lost 20 out of my 60. i wish people on there, will figure out this site before it’s to late, there making a shit load of cash of people.
colton
15 Sep 11 at 12:30 am
Very informative, helped me to keep my hands off this game.
Kevin, great input, until you wrote “irregardless”
Andrea S
28 Sep 11 at 7:54 am
Simple, Play QuiBids big auctions ONLY if you are ready to buy at end after loosing.(remeber direct price can be more then market price)
Example IPad2 Wifi + 3g ATT is 50$ more compared to market today.
Instead of directly spending at store; check your luck if you can get for less here, else buy at end.
check luck
17 Oct 11 at 1:22 pm
Thank you Daniel.
You saved my money!
Octan
7 Nov 11 at 11:58 am
Thank you so much for this article. Quite honestly I went to the Quibids website and was intrigued by the auctions. But my better judgement caught up with me and I decided to do a search on the internet about whether or not this is a scam. Yours was the first article I came across, and although Quibids is not technically a “scam” per-say, it is something that I will be avoiding based on your intelligent insight into the world of penny auctions. Thank you so much, and I’m sorry to hear about your $300.00 Pyrex containers…I hope they at least serve a good use for you.
Liz
13 Nov 11 at 5:27 pm
Quibids feasts on the weak and the gambling addicts. Period.
I love how they claim to lose money on 90% of the products they sale. That’s a lie.
I just finished watching an APPLE TV 2 item that sold for 10.35$. OK Quibids made .60$ a bid times 1035 = so that’s 621$ for an item that retails for $119. Where are they losing money. The winner used 119 bids – 119*.60$ = 71.40 plus $19.99 shipping so He has paid 93.39. So he spent over 2hrs to save $26 aprox.
Now just image the other bidders losses – 1035bids – 119 bids from the winner so – 916*.60$ = 549.60 of quibids users loses. WOW.
Spread the word and stop quibids now!
Mike Brunet
24 Nov 11 at 1:03 am
Quobid is gambling, should be banned or they should give same tax as casinos
p
29 Nov 11 at 11:51 pm
OMG!!!thank God I was just about to give away my credit card details and purchase $60 bids. Thanks to all for this comments. I am back to ebay and amazon
shax007
1 Dec 11 at 12:00 pm
thank you so much everyone for your input. I was so tempted to play. I can sleep tonight without remorse at being had. If it sounds too good to be true beware.
Linda
2 Jan 12 at 10:25 pm
Thanks for everyone’s feedback. I wrote another article: The technical argument against QuiBids. I do not hold a grudge against QuiBids, I just think it’s important to share and discuss other points of view.
Daniel Nichter
4 Jan 12 at 12:05 pm
Quibids is a very deceptive game with only one winner. Quibids! They advertise about people buying items for a few bucks without any mention of the real price paid for the item which is 60 cents for each they make PLUS the “selling price.” They fail to mention this in their ad.
Auctions traditionally don’t charge each person who bids on an item. The high bidder is the only one who pays. Thus the deception!
EVERYONE WHO BIDS AT QUIBIDS PAYS. The vast majority who bid go away with a handful of nothing! It is an out right lie to advertise as they do! Quibids is a license to steal. Auctions are exciting and people get caught up and that is what Quibids is counting on. I’m afraid that too many people jump into this without thinking through the outcome.
When I bid at Quibids I only bid on items that I was willing to buy such as gift cards. if I didn’t “win” the item I bought it. After 11 auctions I bid on, it got boring (and expensive because you also pay a shipping fee for each one.) I bid to the maximum value (in 60 cent bids plus the selling price) then stopped and bought it. I noticed that the number of bidders always increased when I began to bid! Auctions that I didn’t bid on went for less. I did suspect the sit bid to keep it going but of course, could not prove it. I had them delete my account, even after they offered me free bids.
You are chasing your tail at this site and it will cost you alot to be entertained. Steer clear and save yourselves some $.
Gary
4 Jan 12 at 9:57 pm
I hate to defend a “brilliant business model”, but you just give credit where credit is due. Anyone who uses this site should know what it’s about, no one puts a gun to your head and makes you start bidding. Myself, I’m glad it’s availiable to me to use or not use. I would not classify this site as gambling, simply because you can apply your spent bids toward the product being bid on.
True story, I spent 5.5 hours today bidding on a 42″ LG LED “package”, and already knew “per chance” going in that if I lost I would purchase the item, I blew through 546 bids, before I goofed and allowed the auction to go to the other guy left standing. No hard feelings here. The person who won received the package at over 50% discount. Unfortunately there can be only one winner, but if you win, you usually make out very good.
Quibids is in the same catagory as casinos though, try to win, just do not expect it.
Jason
20 Jan 12 at 2:17 am
Quibids has (apparently) changed their business model in the last few weeks. It’s sad, really. Gone are the days of logical bidders engaged in a friendly competition. Just last week, I saw a bidder spend 245 bids on a $25 gift card. OMG!! Doing the math, (at .60 per bid) – that’s $147.00 for a $25.00 GC!! *sigh* Sadly, there is no pill for stupid. (Quibids loves them though!)
Lois
22 Jan 12 at 2:28 pm
The unfortunate truth is that it is a scam that uses everyone together in the system created. By all technicalities it isnt a scam because there are actual products and they do sell to real people. But the truth about all the losing bids, especially people who bid nowhere near the buy it now price and they dont buy, man they are raking in fortunes off those. The winner may be saving 80% or more, but the company (or companies probably) are making 8000% or more. Ingenious to say the least. GO AMERICA!
Jeremy
25 Jan 12 at 2:35 am
Well I hate to be a hypocrite, but by some miracle I just won Call of Duty MW3 for 0.06 !!! I couldnt believe it my self. I have a total of 77 bids left after spending $60 on the original bid pack, then I stupidly bid on a bid pack (dont do that its a waste) then bought that pack for the remaining $5.37 it was worth anyway. After shipping and handling the game was $7.06 ($6.99 shipping and handling)
SO Technically, Ive just bought COD MW3 for about $70, but I have about $65 worth of bids left, so if I win more stuff without buying anymore bids, that avg. cost should go down.
What I did was I skipped ahead like 20 pages in the LIVE AUCTIONS pages and picked one that hadnt been bid on, because it had about 45 min. Only a few people bid after me but I guess they forgot about it!
I went from sad face to happy face! Im still not totally pleased, Im still out $70 at the moment (and I could have just got up off my a** and went to Gamestop and got it used for about $35 (but whats the fun in that. THat is why we are all so intrigued by Quibids anyway right?) , but perhaps I can win some stuff noone else wants, I need a nice TV Stand.
Good luck to those who do try, If not I dont blame you. Its basically a casino bid site.
Jeremy
25 Jan 12 at 2:54 am
Do not listen to anyone here trying to defend quibids. They obviously work for the company. Also do not bother with sites that give tips to winning on quibids or sites with tracker info because they are planted all over the net by quibids to sucker people into thinking its a legit site. I have performed many of my own tests on quibids while bidding and it is obvious they use bots and computer generated profiles to run up the bidding and pull you into auctions you will not win. I have many examples but I will give you one here. You can only bid until your bid value, 60 cents each, reaches retail and then you buy it now. I have seen bidders use more bids than the value. This means they must be bots.
Jim
31 Jan 12 at 5:56 pm
I don’t have a problem with Quibids. I have won many items from them but I do my research before I ever bid on an item. I might research a particular item a week or more before I ever bid on it.
Before I bid I know the average cost of the item based on past bids and I have a strategy in place on when to start bidding and how many bids I’m willing to use to get the item and what my stopping point is. Based on my research I also know the best day of the week and best time to bid on the item with the best chance of winning.
Also, if it’s a popular item I’m not going to waste my bids early on in the auction because laptops and iPads rarely go for a few bucks.
With some research and planning you can get some great deals on QuiBids. And no I don’t work for QuiBids. I am someone who enjoys getting a good deal but knows when to stop bidding before I lose my money.
Lori
9 Feb 12 at 3:17 pm
Am currently watching a user bid a ridiculous number of times for an item that is under their recent wins. can you say bot???
Rob
12 Feb 12 at 5:13 pm
O and on the map he is in the middle of the atlantic ocean…
Rob
12 Feb 12 at 5:14 pm
I don’t understand how these sites are not regulated at all.
The whole concept is kind of scammy and misleading and then throw in possibility of bots driving things up there is a major question of integrity there.
Andrew
21 Feb 12 at 9:20 am
I did some consulting to one of these sites, and can confirm they use what the management team called ‘cleaners’ aka bots. Nuff said.
Jim
21 Feb 12 at 10:54 am