The site seems legit enough, you look at it and see that people are walking away with items saving over 90%. A Macbook pro for $7 ($23) with bids, an LED TV for $11 ($19 with bid). But Dont believe it.
But this site, Swoopo.com is a complete and utter ripoff. I have spent over $600 trying to win their fake auctions. This site is a scam and is setup so that you can not and will not win. And unlike ebay you are bidding with REAL money, each bid you place costs you money and if you dont win, then you are out of luck.
After using this site for the better part of 10 hours, I have realized how corrupt it is. No fewer than 25 times, I was the high bidder on an object, watched as the timer hit 1 second only to have the system hang for 2-5 seconds after which bid from other people (usually bidbutlers) appeared.in one instance, the system went to one second and hung there for 10 seconds!!! And then other bids came in.
The final straw for me was an auction I actively in for over 5 hours only to have 3 consecutive instances where the counter hit 1 only to hold for 5 seconds. A bidbutler then bid and while I was REPEATEDLY clicking the bid button nothing happened as the 10 seconds ticked down and then the bidbutler won the auction (A bid butler is a corrupt system that bids for you, but really just guarantees that their system will screw you over because you may have your bidbutler bidding against another and instead of one bid, each one will play 50 bids against the other, essentially costing the bidders $30 in the span of 2 seconds).
The way this system is setup you WILL NOT WIN. You will spend HUNDREDS of dollars trying to win something but in the end you will not. Either your timer will hit 1 and hold so they can keep the auction going, or you will mysteriously not be able to bid and watch as someone else wins (usually a bidbutler that I would guess is probably REALLY swoopo themselves).
Plus, Swoopo is making a KILLING on these items. For instance, the auction i was in was for a macbook pro that costs 1500. The sell price was 94.47. As this is a penny auction, each bid raises the price by 1 penny. Each bid costs 60 cents. This means swoopo, collected $5,558.20 on this auction!!! For a 1500 computer.
After doing more research on their company and practices I found ALOT of issues. For instance, their testimonials are completely made up (http://usacomplaints.com/internet-fraud/swoopo-com/swoopo-com-entertainment-shopp-8ab88.htm).
Also, I have spoken to 5 friends and amongst us we know (through degrees of separation) 55 people who have used Swoopo, and NONE of them have EVER won anything! Literally none of them. I am posting ads on craigslist to find out if anyone has EVER really won anything on this site and will report back.
If you want a LEGITIMATE timer based auction site, use Bigdeal.com. At least with that site if you dont win you can take ALL of the money you spent on the auction and put it toward gift cards that they will send you that you can use to buy whatever you want. Unlike Swoopo. With swoopo if you spend 400 trying to win a macbook pro they will deduct 400 from the price of your macbook pro and you can buy one at FUL price from them. But if I had 1500 to spend on the computer THEN I WOUDNT BE ON SWOOPO! So the money is just COMPLETELY lost.
0 comments