Insanity!

[OMG-ZOMBIES]

Just found the penny auction for guns, bidgunner.com and was intrigued.
Did a search on here to see if it was legit and how it really worked and I
am still in shock. Watched a S&W ar15 bring at least $11000 last night!!
I guess the old saying, A sucker is born every minute, is true. But actually what I don't understand is, why doesn't everyone sell guns this way? Is this just a fad for scarce items like i-Pads and ar15's? Do the sellers have lots of risks? Looks like price gouging to the extreme or perhaps just a tax on those of low intelligence, either way I think I will stay away. Probably why I don't buy lottery tickets either. Link below.
http://www.bidgunner.com/auctions/6884

 

[miborovsky]

You're right, it pretty much is gambling.

Bidding fee auction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As for why it's not more popular... I guess some of us don't pay the stupid tax! (i.e. gamble)

 

[ghuns]

It's like much ebay for the mathematically challenged. That said, like any gambling, if you are good at it and devote enough time and $$$ to it, you could come out ahead. As long as you don't object to the actual amount of money the seller/house is raking in from the losers.

 

[OMG-ZOMBIES]

The part about the amount the sellers are raking in, is what i have a hard time getting over. Looks like you could try to snipe a deal, but it would be very frustrating. Apparently some of the less popular items you would come out ahead on though.

 

[jwh20]

It looks to be another pay-by-the-bid then pay-for-the-item scam auction like beezid.com and some of the others that have popped up.

The scheme is you have to buy "bids" for some price, usually $1 but can be a little lower if you buy in bulk. Then you use those "bids" to bid on the item. You're not really bidding $$$, you're bidding "bids" and each of these bid up the price by $0.01. So one dollar's worth of "price" nets them $100 worth of their "bids". SWEET! (for them anyway!)

So when an item finally sells, and this is really more a matter of chance or who has the deepest "bid" pockets, you get the privilege of paying the bid price in $$.

Remember, the site is the SELLER of both the item and the bids. So they make money no matter what.

For example say an AR-15 rifle sells for $850. That looks like a fantastic deal. But in reality it took 85,000 "bids" to get to that price. So the site gets:

$85,000 + $850 = $85,850 for that rifle! Ok, on their site they say "bids average 65 cents each. So it's STILL a fantastic deal for them even at $0.65:

85,000 bids at $0.65 = $55,250

 

[roisigns]

Works alot like a raffle.

 

[ghuns]

It looks to be another pay-by-the-bid then pay-for-the-item scam auction like beezid.com and some of the others that have popped up.

The scheme is you have to buy "bids" for some price, usually $1 but can be a little lower if you buy in bulk. Then you use those "bids" to bid on the item. You're not really bidding $$$, you're bidding "bids" and each of these bid up the price by $0.01. So one dollar's worth of "price" nets them $100 worth of their "bids". SWEET! (for them anyway!)

So when an item finally sells, and this is really more a matter of chance or who has the deepest "bid" pockets, you get the privilege of paying the bid price in $$.

Remember, the site is the SELLER of both the item and the bids. So they make money no matter what.

For example say an AR-15 rifle sells for $850. That looks like a fantastic deal. But in reality it took 85,000 "bids" to get to that price. So the site gets:

$85,000 + $850 = $85,850 for that rifle! Ok, on their site they say "bids average 65 cents each. So it's STILL a fantastic deal for them even at $0.65:

85,000 bids at $0.65 = $55,250

Isn't there also a catch in that the "auction" doesn't end when they say it ends. When it gets close to the "end" time, each new bid extends the auction for x number of minutes? Or something like that.

 

[jwh20]

Isn't there also a catch in that the "auction" doesn't end when they say it ends. When it gets close to the "end" time, each new bid extends the auction for x number of minutes? Or something like that.

That's correct. The auctions are open-ended. After each "bid" a countdown timer starts. Something like 15 minutes. The auction ends whenever the countdown expires with no additional bids.

 

[Sfrandolph]

Isn't there also a catch in that the "auction" doesn't end when they say it ends. When it gets close to the "end" time, each new bid extends the auction for x number of minutes? Or something like that.

Yes, that is exactly how it works. Which makes getting a reasonable deal virtually impossible. Plus some of those "penny" auctions charge you for every bid that you make rather than taking a percentage from the seller. So the bidder gets screwed all the way around.

 

[hysteria]

Isn't there also a catch in that the "auction" doesn't end when they say it ends. When it gets close to the "end" time, each new bid extends the auction for x number of minutes? Or something like that.

The last one I read about had to have no bids for 15 minutes, or something like that to end the auction. They touted it as "preventing bid sniping", but it's pretty clear that it really helps them in this case.

Edit: Dang, I'm slow. Guess I should refresh my page before replying, haha.

 

[Seancass]

You guys are crazy! This is the best idea i've ever heard! Lets get one of these going within ingo! We'd never have to donate/become site supporters again! Think of all the good ingo could do if the site made $50k+ off of every item that sells!!! Ingo would be as big as eBay in a matter of days!

 

[seldon14]

There is also not really any way to prove if they are shill bidding there own auctions. I remember there was a poster on one board (seemed legit) that said he had won a couple of auctions at decent prices, but in the end only ended up ahead by a few hundred dollars.