people get upset because they think they can get a TV for 10 bucks, but that never happens on swoopo! if you just use common sense along with some 3rd party research on the site, you won’t lose all your money. just don’t waste your bids early and use sites like http://www.swoopomanual.com for research and you’ll do WAY better.
How crazy can it get. Bidding going way over the list price for laptop.
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/samsung-nc10-10-2-netbook/146637.html
$499 netbook that actually went for $568.
Then add $430 in bidding costs. Buyer paid $998 for $499 machine.
what you are all missing:
when i win a $2000 TV for $.75 + $70 Auction with my ONE LUCKY BID!
i know, it’s too good to be true…
So recently gave into the temptation and bought my first and the smallest bid package. I was looking at the nice cameras, and i noticed this one user Phaeton123 who had bid butler set up on 2 of the cameras. I wouldn’t think this person to be new in that they had well over 2000 dollars in bids and who would be new to the whole thing and have that much money to start with. Well, he/she just won the one nikon D90 and paid double what it would have cost for 2 of them on ebay and is still allowing the bid butler to work for them with the second nikon D90 and i’m sure has already overpaid in bids alone though the final price is still well under msrp. So i thought.
THIS bidder must be an in house bidder. Other people are still bidding and they would be making all sorts of money off the other peoples bids and if the in house bidder wins, which this bidder seems determined to do even if they arn’t getting a good deal, then swooopoo still gets paid and doesn’t even have to deal with the camera…
I know there are for sure legit deals, but this person (Phaeton123) has to be the stupidest person to bid like they are or really smart and unhonest because they are in house bidders.
perhaps phae is just full of money and likes to give lots of it away… could be the case
First question is, why should you (or would you) pay the store to shop there? If you have to pay to play, you are gambling not shopping.
Ever heard of Sam’s club? I know what you’re trying to say here, but your analogy falls flat.
I did a null search for connection and speed, but apologise if anyone’s made my comment. The winner’s bid is at the top when all the hundereds of bidders-all of whom do not click before the last nanosecond-yawn and miss the end of the auction. (That answers why no one can chat with each other)
I would have a good chance of winning if my connection speed was infinate and I hit bid after 2-3 others in the last nanosecond. But my timer goes blank in the last seconds so I count down manually.
I have to guess how slowly the time got printed on my screen when I start my manual count. At the times when one bidder is riding it down to 0, I either hope or try to hit at the last nanosecond because the win must be stopped. I thereby reset the clock.
One question is when to try to put myself on top without being knocked off or resetting the clock. The Bidbutler might help, but bids a bit randomly in the last few seconds (and resets the clock). Has anyone watched BB’s bid to gage if it’s done with the autobid?
It could not win if it always resets the clock.
Has anyone at Swoopo addressed the issue of their processor speed?
Can they know out of all the signals received, the one which was generated first but had a slower connection. If the BB’s random time to bid falls within the last nanosecond is it always the top bidder (to ride the clock down again) or do other signals arriving at the last nanosecond have a chance? I understand it is random but want to know if anyone knows upon what degree of finess it operates?
The bottom line is, if you do not like this site, do not play. If you want to play make sure you understand the rules. Take some advice from sites like www.swooposchool.com . There are also some paid e-books, but I am not sure if they are any good.
This site reminds me of the black-bag electronics auction I went to years ago in an empty storefront in Oxford Circus. A fast-talking auctioneer would yell at the sizable crowd to get in on the bargains, then the winning lots would be passed through the crowd in black trash bags and cash would be handed to the front. Who knows what anyone even won in the end? Or if the winners were suckers, er, customers, or if they were all crowd plants? It was great entertainment to watch, but you’d have to be crazy to participate.
There are blog postings similar to this one throughout the Internet regarding the relative merit of Swoopo, and while I think it purposely constructed to skirt the very edge of legality, there are some conspicuous elements that I think tend to belie the fact that is absent the transparency of most legitimate sales sites.
Swoopo avoids posting three critical pieces of information. First, the start time of an auction is never posted; second, the times of the most recent bids is never reported; second, there is nothing to validate the legitimacy of any bidder. That is, just as a BidButler is supposedly the automated bid of a given Swoopo user, there is nothing to demonstrate that anyone else’s bid isn’t just as automated. A count of viewers and distinct bidders would also be useful as well.
Swoopo’s own site design is intended to create defacto denial of service attacks on itself, which is a brilliant ploy to create plausible deniability that any one legitimate player’s bid was never received. Because many Swoopo users wait until the last second to click the bid button, the confluence of multiple users (across the many auctions simultaneously running at any given moment on Swoopo) is the very definition a denial-of-service attack. This would make it ridiculously simple for Swoopo to route auction victories to certain individuals, which then creates the problem of user transparency. Swoopo could create unlimited numbers of artificial bidders with infinite bids to prop up selective auction. The fact that there are some conspicuous bidders who have spent, apparently, thousands of dollars of bids in parallel auctions strongly suggests that at least some of the insane bidders may not exist - hence a further need for some sort of user transparency. Unfortunately, Swoopo knows that kind of transparency is very difficult to provide.
If anything is purely illegal about Swoopo, it would almost certainly be the auctions for cash. They are literal contests for money wherein the only chances to win are available via - surprise - spending money. In Vegas, at least you have some concept of the odds against you.
My guess is that, ultimately, some legal entity in the US - perhaps an individual state - will declare Swoopo to be a raffle or lottery, and thus prohibit operation in their state. That may well spread to other states, and Swoopo will, itself, have finally Ended.
Awesome post! I’m glad there are people out there who are willing to make other people aware of such sick scams.
Also, about their shipping, if you believe it hasn’t gotten any worse, I looked at some of their products and they actually charge a delivery cost as well. Just thought I should add that in there. Someone might have already said something about that though.
Stay away from Swoopo!! I bid on a Canon camera a few weeks ago on Swoopo. As it was getting late, I created a BidButler (a device to place bids automatically for you up to a specified number of bids and a specified price). I authorized 200 bids, at 1 cent ber bid. My BidButler promptly bid all of the bids that I authorized, PLUS ANOTHER 20 BIDS! Not only that, but the bid price on the camera went up only about $1.80 - since the BidButler bid 220 times for me, the bid price should have gone up at least by $4.40 (my 220 bids plus the bids from the person(s) against whom I was ostensibly bidding). Not realizing what had happened, I authorized another 100 bids. This time, it used up all of 100 bids almost instantaneously, but the bid price went up only 1 cent.
When I reported what had happened to Swoopo customer service (a misnomer if ever there was one), they basically said that everything went just peachy and it was too bad that I didn’t win.
I don’t know if there is a deliberate attempt to defraud customers, or if their bidding algorithm is just seriously flawed, but I would not spend your hard-earned money on Swoopo.
Ok so I am truly confused.
I won an auction on swoopo. I won it for $4.50 and my shipping was $4.90.
However, when I confirmed my win I was charged $37 for bids placed? I only made like 5 bids on it. That seems rigged to me. (No, I have not received the item yet, I’ll let you know if I do.)
Now my funny story. I decided Hey, I got a win let’s go waste the other bids and never deal with this site again.
I just watched the biggest scam with bots ever. A character Hfwbw1 was using bidbutler. The characters rikarli and acrimidart (don’t remember them exactly) were the auction savers.
Here is how it worked. Hfwbw1’s bidbutler would go off at around 5-10 seconds. However, if the timer reached 1 second, rikarli and acrimidart would both bid to save the auction. I watched this go on for about 2 minutes and then jumped in knowing it was a scam simply because I wanted to get rid of my last 10 bids.
So, what happens? Hfwbw1 would bid with bidbutler then I would bid immediately after him, if the bot messed up and missed his bid (maybe it’s on a timer) the other two bots would save him at 1 second by bidding and adding time to the auction.
AS SOON AS my 10 bids were used up, the bidbutler immediately won the auction.
The site is a scam, I have no idea how I actually won an auction. Don’t waste your money or time.
Ok, so I just received my item.
What’s funny? Swoopo just went on amazon.com bought it and shipped it to me.
Recount:
$37 for bids
$4.50 for item
$4.90 for shipping
Absolutely no savings. The item is only worth $39.99
If you don’t like Swoopo, then simply don’t use it - easy 
i agree with the rational people here: there’s not a single evil thing - nor even a mildly distasteful one - being done by swoopo. if they claimed their site worked one way while it in fact worked another, if they did not disclose the way it works up front or somehow misrepresented how it works, i could buy into the evil bit. but swoopo does none of that. they tell you how the site works, and that’s how it works. where’s the evil in full disclosure?
if you’ve never heard of poker before, it’s not the dealer’s responsibility to tell you you’re not allowed to play until you know the rules. it’s not the responsibility of the person sitting next to you at the table. it’s YOURS, and nobody else’s. if you want to sit down and piss all your money away while having no clue which actions make you money and which ones lose you money or why, then that’s your choice, and - barring the most extraordinary sort of luck - you’ll get exactly what you deserve out of the deal. if you fail a math test in school, who’s responsible? the person administering the test? i don’t think so.
if you don’t understand how swoopo works, if you don’t understand the possible consequences of your actions at swoopo, if you don’t understand exactly how YOU are spending YOUR money, then the onus is on YOU to stay away from the site until you do understand it. blaming swoopo for any losses you sustain is the same as blaming the dealer for the losses you sustain at that poker table, or blaming the test administrator for your failing grade. in a word, preposterous.
the same goes for people who do understand the rules but are simply incapable of controlling their own spending. people who have a problem with this business model are just trying to shift responsibility for their own losses - or, even more egregiously, for their own and other people’s imagined losses - off onto swoopo rather than place the responsibility with the responsible party: the person spending the money.
i’ve always considered myself more or less a Democrat, but posts like this really make me start to see what some people don’t like about the Democratic philosophy. it’s like the overbearing Mother who protects Her children from the world to the point that they never grow up. some people, like Mr. Atwood here, are unable to distinguish between threats from an outside source and those posed by one’s own personal deficiencies, and are similarly unaware that each of these types of threat must be handled in a different way. threats from outside must be opposed and, ideally, stopped in their tracks, while threats from within oneself can only be effectively banished through self-knowledge and self-improvement. Mr. Atwood, in what i guess is often the Democratic fashion, is advocating the use of the first type of defense against the second type of threat. he’s saying that, rather than equip children to deal with the world, we should allow them to remain ill-equipped and simply prevent them from encountering that world.
that’s…not healthy.
I believe this is a form of gambling. I recently tried Swoopo and won a laptop, after winning, my bids I used during the auction were returned to me so the only thing I paid was the ending auction price. So the person who is willing to invest the most money will win the most auctions at great prices. There are hundreds of people going on bidding anywhere from 500 to 3500 times to win an item worth $1000 and only paying the final price of $85 plus shipping. These people win there 2 items for 28 days and then come back on and do it again.
Very well put Walt.
i have swoopo and madbid script info gruici_bogdan@yahoo.com 180$/copy
You fail to recognize the fallacy of your argument.
Comparing swoopo to poker is only a legitimate comparison if you truly compare it to how people complain.
The complaints are that the bidbutlers are fake and there are fake accounts bidding items up.
Your poker analogy works if the dealer is purposely dealing you good cards while making sure his friends have better cards.
There are countless stories of people watching the bidbutlers/fake accounts bid 100s of bids on items only worth $30. This does not make sense in any way, shape, or form.
I don’t argue the idea behind swoopo and it is very genius and profitable. However, if you use illegal manners to achieve your goal, then your company should be exposed and shut down.
So, the blog is this form of exposure.
I think Swoopo’s terrific and terrible at the same time. I’ve spent $50 in tokens and have gotten $80 in swag for $10, and I still have 30 bids left over. I do admit, it is difficult to tear myself away when I know I should cut my losses. People can call it a scam, but it’s not. It works so well, it doesn’t need to be a scam.