Swoopo has invented a new auction business. Different from Ebay, Swoopo is with the following features:
- Bidding on Swoopo auctions starts at 15c, with no reserve prices.
- The price goes up by 15c with each bid placed.
- If a bid gets placed in the final moments, the auction is extended automatically by up to 20 seconds.
- Each bid placed on an auction costs $0.75.
As some netizens commented , this new way of auction is “manipulating game theory to tap stupidity, the greatest resource on this planet.” Think about a tiny deal–if you buy something worth 20$ with a successful bid of 15$, there have to be 100 bids, which equal to 75$. The bidders including yourself collectively have paid Swoopo $15+75=90$. Any item worth 150$ or more will bring Swoopo 750$ net profit. The auction is very much like a casino machine gamble. Only in Swoopo’s design, human beings form the machine. And because of human stupidity, Swoopo is going to run just like a machine, with the result and profit very predictable.
Swoopo calls it “entertainment auction”–this is disgusting. Swoopo makes bidders reveal their stupidity, watches, and mocks them while money piles up on its account.
*** ***
Now, how do we beat swoopo?
Since the design of swoopo is based on the assumption that human beings collectively will act in a stupid way, we can beat swoopo if we somehow reshape our collective action in swoopo auction.
Here is how we do it:
Outside of swoopo, bidders have to form their own association–Association of Swoopo Bidders (ASB)–make some decisions based on simple calculations, and enforce the decision.
Example:
One item is posted on Swoopo, and its value is 225$. The Association of Swoopo Bidders (ASB) figures that if the item worth 225$, the highest bid should not exceed 37.5$. (Just follow this formula: highest bid=value/6) THe ASB then makes a dicision that no member should bid more than 37.5$.
Then ASB will enforce the rule, meaning for any rule-breaker bid more than 150$, the rule-breaker’s name will be published on the ASB website immediately, and at the same time ASB will appoint its enforcement force (some members with free bids provided by ASB) to bid against the rule-breaker, who therefore will not be able to get the item or pay substantially more than the price the rule-breaker wanted. The enforcement force will continue to punish the rule-breaker in the future auctions ruthlessly until the rule-breaker apologizes and convinces ASB nothing against rule will happen again.
–Note the point is whoever places the first bid above 37.5$ will NEVER get the item. In addition, the rule-breaker bidder will not get anything in the future.
Consequently, rule-breakers will be prevented from unnecessarily bidding high, and all members of ASB will have a fair chance of getting cheap goods.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/12/swoopo.html
*Swoopo
SWOOPO….Via Megan McArdle, this has to be seen to be believed. Swoopo.com has been around since 2005, it’s almost literally a scheme for throwing money into other people’s bank accounts for no special reason, and apparently it’s still going strong. Details here.
At least Bernard Madoff’s customers had the excuse that they didn’t know what he was doing, but Swoopo appears to be pretty upfront about the whole thing. There’s no excuse for not realizing what’s going on except rank idiocy.
Posted by Kevin Drum on 12/13/0
I love the ideal of ASB! Maybe you guys should also create AIB ” Association of Ipod Buyers” where everybody would join to force Apple to lower the prices of Ipods ( since they have crazy margins 😉
I really do not believe that Swoopo is a scam. Swoopo is like a carnival game where you pay $1 and get three balls. With these three balls you have to knock down three pins off a pedestal. If you succeed, you win a huge teddy bear worth a lot more than a dollar. Have I played? Sure. Have I won the huge teddy bear? Never. Do I think carnival games are a scam? No. The rules are set up so you are not likely to win, but knowing the right strategy you can increase your chances of winning the bear.
Anyways, if you are interested you can check out my website with free tips on bidding on Swoopo.
Swoopo Bidder = SB
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.
Hi,
I just did a search for “Beat Swoopo” and this came up! Nice article 🙂 Feel free to check out my site that I’ve had up for a while. It outlines strategies on how to ‘beat swoopo’! 🙂
Cheers,
Dave
Unless the rule laid in the article is somehow followed, bidders cannot beat swoopo. Any other strategy to “beat swoopo,” such as Dave’s (see above), is a part of the swoopo FRAUD.
Dave, you may not agree with this, but you ARE a part of the swoopo fraud.
Here is my experience with Swoopo from 2/23/09 until now, Feb. 26, 2009. I was tracking 32GB Ipod touches. These are listed all in succession as they occurred. The first one I tracked went for $192.15. The next went for $12.30! The next one went for $88.20. The next one went for $138.30. Finally I saw one go for $243.00.
I find that this range of finish prices is absurd. Who is to say Swoopo didn’t end the one that went for $12.30 early just to keep people interested.
I can honestly say that I did buy a $30 bidpack to try it out after the first one I watched, as I thought you could get a pretty good deal. After seeing these ranges there is no way to tell at what price the auction will end. I will not, let me say that again, I will not! ever buy another thing off of this site when my bids are gone.
Who is monitoring who is actually bidding? As far as I know Swoopo people can just keep running up the price, end the auction early, who is to say?
Also, I did place a bid on BidButler just to see how it works. I used 2 bids and I set the price range from $20 to $40. I figured if one goes cheap I will get a bid in at $20 and another at $40 as it nears the $40 price. It doesn’t work like that. As soon as the price hit $20 BidButler placed a bid. As soon as someone outbid that, BidButler placed my other bid. So both bids were placed in a matter of 2 seconds. This is the biggest scam. Let me say this, it is better to just place single bids when you want. If you placed 10 bids with BidButler 30 minutes apart, BidButler will use them all in the first minute.
I still have 22 bids which I will place strategically(ha, ha) hoping to get that last bid in. You know, when Swoopo recognizes someone that isn’t in their ring leading the auction, who is to say they won’t just keep bidding over you. This would drive the prices up, thus, noone
actually wins.
That is my experience, I will check back in after I use up the rest of my bids!
Here is my conclusion. Save up money for what you want. Give someone that money you will waste on the bids to someone. At least you will bless somebody.
Oh yeah, and to think you have a system for Swoopo, you are deceived.
Please don’t spend more money on someones system to beat Swoopo.
This site has to be shut down!
STAY AWAY FROM SWOOPO!
Nice article. However I do think it would be impossible to pull off something such as The Association of Swoopo Bidders (ASB). You will always have the newbie that happens across swoopo and that might never have heard of the ASB. Also Swoopo would be out of business within a few months if an ASB ever did take off it would simply ruin their business model. It’s an interesting idea though. What I find facinating about it would be that if Swoopo was indeed a form of gambling. Something like the ASB could be seen as illegal.
Check out this story of a bunch of poker players that have recently been caught colluding by Betfair:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/2783722/Betfair-orders-poker-players-to-return-winnings.html
They fixed the game, and it was classed as an act of collusion and they had to pay back their winnings.
Good job that Swoopo isn’t a gambling site then is it! Bagsy not being the one to have to manage all 2-3 million users into not bidding higher than a certain price though!
It is a scam because;
a) They (Swoopo) represent themselves as an auction site, while they are actually a gambling site. Gambling is betting on an uncertain outcome, staking something on a contingency, or playing a game for money (freebids, cash, bids themselves) or property. (the item listed). Online gambling is illegal in the US.
b) They post numerous items of a similar nature/type in various countries, which are invariably won by one bidder. For example, the same bidder has won a sony viao laptop computer in the US and an acer laptop in the UK. This ‘bidder’ is most likely a ‘swoopo bot’ that hyperinflates the prices of items, making ‘real’ bidders fall by the wayside, with swoopo thus pocketing all the change. Too many other examples to list here.
c) If you check closely, you shall see that the majority of winners seem to have won in majority of the other bids (just google the names of the winners and see) and even spend more than the retail price for the product. Some bloggers are terming them powersellers, but if you look closely, they are ‘swoopo bots’, ghost winners!
d)Bidbutler/s? Please. Just another way to explain away the scam! For those familiar with bidbutler, you pick a start and end amount, say between $10 and $20, and place a certain number of bids you want to place when the bid falls within these amounts. Just watch the auctions and see how two bidders under bidbutler shall be pit against each other, and in just a few seconds, have their valuable ‘bids’ gobbled up, just to introduce another group of bidders, who fight like gladiators, and inflict mortal wounds to each other, all the while while swoopo (the nefarious emperor) cheers on, giving the thumbs down. The ghost bidders, obviously on bidbutlers, pick up the bodies, and prepare the arena for yet another bloodbath! Entertainment for Swoopo (they call it ‘entertainment shopping’) but a no win situation for the gladiatorial bidders (also called gambling, which is illegal, I repeat)
e) Scams always depend on public gullibility, misrepresentation about the issue in question, a smokescreen to pacify initial disgruntlement (I guess some real people actually win $10 HDTVs or $2 iphones!) and the inevitable escape route! If it walks and talks like a ponzi scheme, it is most likely a ponzi scheme. If not a Ponzi scheme, a pyramid scheme. Remember the people burnt by the Madoff scheme? Madoff misrepresented the process, just like Swoopo is doing here.
This site shall go down later due to legal reasons and/or bidder fatigue (previously gullible public). The misrepresentation shall be questioned both legally, and more and more by regular Joes who shall have spent money and not won anything. At this time, even posting pictures and videos of ‘winners’ shall not matter. The site shall go down. The escape route? They are making piles of money, which shall insulate them against the inevitable lawsuits, a cost of doing business! Remember, even snakeoil had its supporters, and people wondered what the big deal was ‘since everybody knew snakeoil to be a placebo ‘; not everybody knew, and the snakeoil salesmen misrepresented the oil as having true medicinal value. It is the same with the swoopo scam. Please keep off swoopo, send the letters to the FTC, and warn all others to avoid spending their money on this modern snakeoil!
Pingback: » “快乐点”–中国首创竟拍购物第一网的骗局 Home Is Where The Heart Dwells
The main issue with Swoopo seems to be the chance element. The way to beat it is to avoid it. There are other sites out there like http://www.pricedrip.com that allow you to SET your own risk level. You can either bid at what you think the price will go to or just cough up a few points and bid at the current price. Either way, it’s win/win. The risk-seekers can have their fun and the true bargain hunters can have theirs.
What do you think?
Note that Swoopo may have hired people bidding to trap you! If it is true you have no way to beat swoopo–even with the nice idea of ASB. Please see the following link:
-—
Hi there, I am an ex-marketing executive hired by Swoopo and left the company last month. I just want to let everyone know that there are indeed legit winners on the site, albeit very few. But be warned that you will be battling bots and paid employees to win these goods. Swoopo has kept these measures in place to maximize profits. The owners are VERY savvy entrepreneurs with business degrees and have made a science on capitalizing on peoples weaknesses. Be warned! That is all I can say.
-—
http://technologizer.com/2008/10/09/swoopo-looks-to-set-the-record-straight/
The purpose of my comment is to provide a deeper awareness for those who may not fully understand what Swoopo is offering. If this post provides you with a deeper understanding of the risk you will be taking (or have taken), I’ve accomplished my purpose. Here is a broader way to view Swoopo (In my own opinion of course.)
Swoopo has created it’s own market and has created the rules in order to influence that market so it can make money. Basically, it’s goal is to SUPPLY enough auctions to match the pace of DEMAND in order to convince it’s prospects (you and I) that the reward is greater than the risk. Swoopo APPEALS TO THE GAMBLER AND ALSO TO THE UNSUSPECTING. It is to the unsuspecting that I write this post.
Swoopo’s business model involves INFLUENCING both sides of the market – controlling the supply and inflating the demand side. Ever notice that the number of auctions generally remain the same in each category? The supply is very consistent. Ever wonder why Swoopo doesn’t just use a dollar for dollar bid system? or why they make the rule that the clock will reset with simultaneous bids? Why are there so many penny auctions? Why are most all auctions “International” and not just the US? These are their rules so they can nearly guarantee their making a profit. Let me explain.
In the Swoopo “economy”, the price of the product doesn’t really determine when the product sells. All the low price does is entice unsuspecting bidders to play the game. It is a tool to PROLONG demand for that auction. The product actually sells when the demand for an auction lets up enough so the clock runs out. In other words, the risk one takes in the Swoopo economy is that the demand will never let up enough for you to win before you run out of money (and/or the nerve) to keep bidding. To help me explain this concept, let me take this concept to each extreme.
At one extreme, suppose Swoopo floods it’s site with 1,000 identical computers and there is just one bidder that is interested (or who knows about it). That bidder would walk away with 1,000 computers costing $10. Swoopo wouldn’t survive. This is obvious. What may not be so obvious is the other extreme (and what most people may not understand).
Taking it to the other extreme, if Swoopo only allowed one computer at auction, and there is a CONSTANT demand for that computer, the auction would NEVER END until the price reached the retail price!!! At this point, new demand would cease and the winning bid would come down to those who are heavily committed to the auction because of the money they have vested in it. After a history of these kinds of transactions, it would be obvious, even to a monkey, that there is no benefit to playing Swoopo. You could just go buy the computer from a reputable retailer with less head ache and risk. Swoopo wouldn’t survive in this type of extreme market either.
Let’s now look at Swoopo’s “economy” based on these two extremes. Swoopo must stay in the middle of these two extremes in order for it to entice customers AND make a profit! They have created their own system that is heavily influence through it’s playing rules and in the SUPPLY of auctions. The rules they have made are to maximize GENERAL demand – to slow the auction down so wave after wave of customers run across the auction and feed a perpetual bidding war. These bidding wars heat up and cool off – they ebb and flow racking up several thousands of bids. On the supply side, (if their business is honest) Swoopo will allow just enough product into the market so there are winners.
Swoopo’s rules slow down the auction process to keep demand flowing and people bidding. One rule is the .01 cent and .15 price increments. These small increments are merely a confusion to unsuspecting people to think it is a good deal so they will play that auction. It takes a long, long, long, time to move the price to it’s retail price a penny at a time. Resetting the bid clock also prolongs the bidding war and allows wave after wave of new demand to prop up these bidding wars. International auctions are yet another way to even out the demand.
In Swoopo’s economy, Swoopo controls the entire supply side. This is very dangerous because it gives them the ability to manipulate auctions at will – no checks, no balances. I’m not saying they do rig their auctions, I’m just saying that there is no one to notice should they choose to. Swoopo places all of the auctions! They give account to no one but themselves.
Take notice that they average about 200 auctions at a time. Also, compare the 200 auctions to the 5 countries bidding on them! Do these odds really make sense? My point is that this not only a gamble, but a big one at that. The odds of winning a legitimate auction, as Swoopo has structured it, are very, very slim. Watch any auction that is in it’s last seconds. Watch how many people are bidding in those last moments. Follow the bidding war for a short while. How many new names do you see join the bidding process? How many times does it ebb and flow when Bid Butlers but heads? Most importantly, notice how the auctions are ending. Do the auctions end because the demand dries up (I haven’t seen one yet) or are you watching auctions with ten active bidders, half new to the scene, which abruptly ends? Remember, there are only three ways to win: No one is bidding, lag prevents bids from registering, or foul play on Swoopo’s part. All I am saying is just watch several for yourself and apply your logic after you see how most all of these auctions end.
I hope my thoughts have helped you see that Swoopo is a gamble. If you are a gambler and accept this risk…go for it. If your stomach churns then forget Swoopo exists and stick with eBay.
D’oh! I let greed get the best of me. Comment #9 above is so right. I googled a handful of previous winners and most of them have won many items in many different languages. At least I only bought the smallest number of bids. Oh well. I have no one to blame but me. caveat emptor!
I see no one has mentioned the following, so I want to throw it out there because it’s my experience and I’m wondering if anyone else is having the same thing happen:
I started figuring Swoopo was a “scam” after spending at least an hour on many auctions and bidding along with a BUNCH of others…yet at some point, I would not bid and one person would finally win. It is like 10-15 people bid at once over and over again for an hour or two–many the same persistent usernames over the course of that time frame–yet we all magically stop bidding at the exact same time? I’ve also noticed, while waiting on an auction to end, other auctions will have some of the same usernames bidding. Now, I thought something on the site said you can only bid on one auction at once, or only some auctions allow it…?
Plus, Swoopo makes too many pauses/skips over seconds in its time, especially right before someone “wins.” The last auction I tried, the auction stuck on 2 seconds for about 15-20 seconds before someone came up the winner. So I suspect that whenever a “real” person bids who is not affiliated with the site, that somehow generates all these fake computerized bids. Whenever I bid, so many other user names pop up immediately in the bid list. Sometimes, so many names come up that I never see my bid, just a number indicating I just used another bid. Like I said, it’s odd that so many bids come up over and over for a long time and then suddenly none come up when you don’t bid. And I think that those pauses before the auction ends is, like others have basically said, someone forcing the auction to finally end when no real person has placed a bid. It’s like they are just turning off their bid-generating bot program or something.
Also, I get those pauses every single time I bid. I think the pauses there are just the site generating fake bids. And the shortest amount of time I’ve seen an auction go for after the actual stated ending time is about 30 mins. So I think Swoopo will generate fake bids, even if real people aren’t bidding, just to drive up the price. And then eventually, one time a real person doesn’t bid, they will pull the plug on the auction. They wait until the price is up from, like, 35 cents or $1.25, to about $6+ for just about every auction before pulling the plug. It takes forever, but the prices end up looking nice enough for you to want to take a chance on bidding and buying bid packages.
I think most people are missing the point. If Swoopo would do anything “illegal”, like inhouse bidding to keep the item, it would come out (eventually) and it would cost them sales. Swoopo needs those sales even those that are “too good to be true”. Example: a Nokia 5800 sold for $198.45 in a penny auction. Total cost for Swoopo: Nokia 5800 (with shipping and handling), from Nokia around $400. Total income for Swoopo $198.45 + 19,845 X $0.75 = $15,082.20!!!! With items selling for around half retail price there is always going to be people interested in bidding!
With the Penny Auctions the final sales price is pretty much irrelevant to Swoopo. Take an items that has a $75.= total cost price for Swoopo. To recoup their cost all they need is 100 bids @ $0.75 each, for a total sales price of $1.= (one hundred price increments of one penny each). As long as they advertise and enough people are around so that the bidding cost per participant stay low, I’m sure anything that sells for $75 in a store will get $20 at auction, meaning 2,000 X $0.75 – $75 = $1,425 profit for Swoopo. Great business model!!
Swoopo as well as many swoopo clones do use autobidding, in Swoopo’s case I think they once did use autobiding to up the prices. If you want a great deal Swoopo is no longer the place, my advice to you would be to find a swoopo clone. I use Bidzooks, same great stuff, less competition.
Okay, I heard about Swoopo a month ago. I am a scientist – wanted to check how this works. I got into this by buying two 50 bids.
My Final Conclusion is : Its SCAM / CHEATING. We can NAIL them down. All of us have been only complaining all the time. If there are some Legal Attorneys out there, they may find some thing to Sue them forever and CLOSE this SHOP.
Here is why they are cheating and here is how it is very easy to write such a Program: The World is shrinking to BOXED world – a WORLD restricted to PC. When the PC World is shown on a BIG screen it becomes a VIRTUAL world.
Swoopo’s Algorithm is based on – some thing like Creating a Virtual Hotel and how to convince the customer/user/us/human that the Virtual Hotel is a REAL Hotel. On Average a human will believe if he can see around couple of other humans. If the program can create few HUMANBOTS, the HUMAN is trapped psychologically. This is exactly what they are doing in Swoopo.
They have ONLY THREE types of HUMANBOTS – SingleBid robots, BidButler Robots and Fresh Bidder robot. The advantage of Virtual World is :
a) It can Replicated according to the Programmer’s Whims and Fancies.
b) Every thing is an Object in the Virtual World.
c) Every Object Parameter can be altered to our benefit.
So, SingleBid robots, BidButler robots and Fresh Bidder can be controlled, created, altered at will by SWOOPO’s Technical Head – the Algorithm Fella.
With these HumanBots SWOOPO creates a live environment for a HUMAN/us. Creates a sense of Competition, Fight and frustration – Basically its Simulating the Real World where the HUMAN gets trapped to his/her emotional aspects and SUCKED/EXTRACT our BUCKs.
If you see the rules are simple:
a) First timer should WIN.
b) Second timer should Loose. (Introduce Humanbots and frustrate the User – which 95% psychologically, instigates the HUMAN to buy and get addicted).
c) and we can go on – after all its just replicating the objects, changing the parameters randomly and the past of the HUMAN BIDDER.
The Simple Way to nail them down is: Ask for the Records where we have LOST our BIDDING and go and check for the LEGALITY/REALITY of ALL the BIDDERs in that BID.
I have made a PPT of all the users in my BIDDING. I bet they are NOT REAL and are HUMANBOTS.
That could be one reason why their Servers are in Germany NOT in US. They can TWEAK every thing and any thing. However some information may not be changed, I suppose.
IT’s NOT GOOD to EXPLOIT (in what ever form). We can create a Fair and Really Entertaining Shopping which Swoopo Claims but, at the least, they are NOT CLEAN. PERIOD.
If needed we can Nail them down – an Attorney can help us get back some compensation for our Frustration and Exploitation.
Thank you
PLEASE! PLEASE! Don’t be fooled like I was.
Over the last 2 days I have lost £150 in bought BidPacks, confidently believing that all my losses would be returned when I finally won that £1,000 40ins TV for just a couple hundred pounds. BIG MISTAKE!
I gave up my Saturday and most of Sunday transfixed to my laptop screen, following just ONE auction, really believing that I was going to win. But it all ended in tears. At 05.14 on Sunday morning I was finally outbid.
I did everything right, never leaving the auction for a whole day and a half, ready to push that BID button when the time was right.
Lady-luck plays a large part in this game, just like a raffle ticket – with just one winner. You may be one of the FEW lucky winners, but if you have little money to spare, I’d advice you to steer away from this gambling website. I wasn’t strong enough to resist. BE STRONG! BE SENSIBLE! Cheers, Cadi
Remember the computer from the movie WARGAMES?? After running through the program, he decided that the only way to WIN, would be to NOT play at all.
Same goes for SWOOPO. If in fact they have bots placing bids, you can never win. Like others have said, I bet if asked for a list of valid winners, that list would be very small.
Big time scam IMO. spent $150 in a week but no more for me. watched a bid for 50 bid voucher and someone (bot) using bid butler placed 126 bids on this auction,what a joke. I’m going to try the other auction places,Stay away from SWOOPO !!!!!
BTW, if anyone feels the need to spend anymore money on this site just send me an email and $100.00 and I’ll kick you in the nads,it hurts much less and you get more for your money.
Watching auction for Nintendo dsi plus 50 voucher points,funny how lucky******* has bid 168 times using bidbutler. that’s 168 x.75 = $126.00 now you add the price of the item that was won which is $139.95 plus the cost of shipping = $152.85 for a grand total of $278.85 just for lucky. Now add all the other bids that Suckers like you and I placed , quite a bit of cash. Why would one person want to pay about $280.00 for a something that was valued at $207.49 ? I’m probably off about 20 bids OR MORE for this person because it was going fast at the end so that’s a low ball number. Bottom line folks is that IT was a paid employee that had unlimited vouchers, a bot or a script. either way SCAM SCAM SCAM !!!!!!
So glad to see that apple Iphone went for $2.97. I’ve been looking for one but the next one to go up for bidding was four and a half hours till it posted. Imagine my surprise when one ended up in the ending auctions 35 minutes later for such a great deal. Notice the item picture and just under it it says how much it went for,That never changes even though it went for way more on the last one that went up. seems like I’m complaining a lot here but just watch the names that are coming up as bidders and the way they are bidding.Pay close attention to the the items that are coming up for auction and the ones that have ended,you’ll notice that those items were never put up for auction. Those items seem to be the awesome deals.
Hello all, nice to “meet” you. My name is Montana and I work for Swoopo.com (in the US.) I manage their social media. I know many of you out there are skeptical of Swoopo, but it truly is a legit site; in the words of Hammer, “2 Legit 2 Quit!” Yes, we charge per bid, so we can cover the cost to provide our bidders with top-of-the-line products (products under warranty, I might add.)
I can guarantee Swoopo.com DOES NOT pay people inside the company to bid on products. If people didn’t win on our site, we wouldn’t have a business.
If you are having a hard time using Bid Butler, I suggest reading the information under our Help menu. Bid Butler is listed under Bidding (found on the left hand side.)
Our site has full disclosure. We are not trying to blindside anyone.
We, here at Swoopo, appreciate your opinion, and if you’d like to see more of our company, become a our fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @Swoopo or http://www.twitter.com/swoopo.
Thank you all.
Best,
~MT
Hello,
I think the argument can be made that swoopo is legitimate, but there is no doubt that you are a sucker if you think you are going to get a good deal. These 1c auctions are designed to get the maximum number of 75c bidders as possible, while keeping the sale price low to entice more bidders.
I just watched a sale end with a 1 ounce gold “bar”. It sold for $102.13 in a “penny” auction. To get to $102.13 there had to be 10,213 bids placed, at 75c each = $7659.75. add that to the $102.13 sale price, total earned by swoopo = $7,761.88. A 1 ounce gold “bar” is worth about $1000.00. So the company just cleared a cool $6,661.00 profit…at the expense of 10,212 unsuccessful bidders (yes, the winner had made unsuccessful bids as well).
Does this sound like a good deal to you?
I opened an account and was about to start bidding when I was thinking to myself, there’s something just not right about this, you can’t get stuff that cheap….I thought it through, then cancelled my account, never bought any “bids”.
I’ll stick with eBay.
I think Swoopo is too hard to win on because people that have bid a lot on an item aren’t willing to lose because they have already put so much money into it. When http://www.GottaNabit.com launches it will be a waaaaaay better place to win items at cheap prices. At least 40-80% off every item and you dont pay per bid.
Isn’t it odd that unlike most websites of this sort, swoopo does not have a simple forum or even a chatbox?
It seems like Swoopo never displays the time when an auction will be ended. I just watched an auction for an Iphone where they said that the auction would be ended in June 24. However, when I checked it back about 2 hours later, that Iphone was already sold. Is it just me or it happened with you guys as well?
Hello, my name is “Montana,” and I am a social media marketer for Swoopo.com. My co-workers and I appreciate all the comments and questions.
I can assure you Swoopo.com is NOT a scam. We have real bidders, real winners, and real savings. If you are new to Swoopo.com I suggest you start with a beginners auction. It will help you better understand Swoopo.
Also, to learn more about our company and to become eligible for free bids, please follow us on Twitter (www.Twitter.com/swoopo) and become our fan on Facebook.
I hope all is well and happy bidding.
Best,
~MT 8)
two things:
1. these comments are crying about how they lost 5 bucks to like a bidbutler or something…you’re already getting a monster deal! what does five bucks matter?
2. yeah! great post! now everyone will beat the system, and put put swoopo out of business! yay! now no one will get good deals!
RE post by Montana from Swoopo, typical PR speak.
They may not pay employees to bid; much simpler to program bots to do it automatically, and
it seems from reports decide when to pull the plug.
The site is legit? so is a snake-oil salesman if he presents it right.
After spending half of today looking at some auctions and reading up I have come to a conclusion that it is a SCAM. Why? well because it works and they can do it, until someone steps in and puts their foot down… I had a mate who was working for a company that did telephone scams… they had special boxes built with good AI… these boxes used to cost about £20,000 They would also re-sell the boxes at higher prices to other companies. With this money they would actually start decent companies that provided a proper service… yet the money would come from SCAMS. 1 scam was to call you up and say you won some shit… or SMS you that you won some crap and you had to call them back, another SCAM was to call you, have some noise in the background like a station or outside and hang up straight away… making you to call them back. By calling them back you would get stuck in a very expensive call… and they would make money of you.
From what I see SWOOPO is the same, very intelligent SCAM, similar as the automated phone boxes… auto bidding bots. Not only that but after I did some reasearch I see that they have the same auction linked to different items, I saw that myself. So in the UK they sell apples, in the USA they sell grapes and in Germany they sell cherries, but under the same auction. You can tell it is the same auction as it ends at same times, has same bidders… but different items.
So an apple in the UK is £10 a grape in US is £5 and cherries in DE are £15… users from all over and bots keep bidding but they have no idea what they bid on so the final sale would be £8… so you look at it and think wow cherries for £8 not bad, they are £15 in the shops… same goes for UK, apples for £8 not too bad, in shops they go for £10… but in the US you think WTF, who would pay £8 for £5 grapes???
This is my theory based on what I saw, on items sold at higher value than market price and same auctions with different items. The whole system is The Matrix:) it fools the users in a very interesting way. the best part it is all legal apparently:)
I could say… wow why didn’t I think of that… well simple… the majority of people don’t like to SCAM because they wouldn’t like to be scammed either. I worked for companies in the past that were scamming people yet they weren’t…
I for one don’t believe in selling a service that doesn’t exist or scamming people… maybe that’s why I am not a millionaire… yet I have all the experience and knowledge to be one:(
You should look at Swoopo Spider (http://swoopo.rambunction.com) if you want to win at Swoopo. Swoopo Spider collects and analyzes the data you need to win.
HI All – I have spent over 350 dollars on Swoop0 bids since the middle of May, and won four cameras two of which I subsequently sold on Ebay for a total of 563 less fees; and I also won a 50 dollar and two 25 dollar gift cards on another penny auction – bidcactus – for a total of 47 dollars and change.
Am I brilliant? Certainly not. Additionally, there was an element of good luck. However, I was — and all registrants should be — keenly aware of the Swoopo rules. In fact, there is a large button, at eye level, right on the Swoopo home page with the text: “How It Works.” Swoopo does not hide anything. Moreover, you cannot even bid unless you buy your bids first. Only then can you access an auction and compete with other bidders who also want to win. So, how can any bidder NOT know that there is a chance they will lose money? It is unfair to state that Swoopo is deceptive. Risky “yes” (like a lottery); deceptive “no.”
Now, whether swoopo has robots that bid up the price — “Schill Bidding” — is another question, and it can be asked of any online auction — even Ebay. Fair question but as of yet, there is no concrete evidence — just observations that can be interpreted as suspicious, such as the delays when the time gets close to zero. These delays could also be from a large number of bidders submitting bids in the last second, which if you look at the bidder list is frequently seen to be the case after the delays. So, a benign interpretation is also plausible.
As to the claim that there is no strategy to be employed at these auctions, I disagree. One strategy I employed was to watch the bidding behavior of other bidders. I focused for example on bidders who had lost big in previous auctions. What would they do in the next auction, for example, if I was competing? I held on against these types of bidders, and in most cases the bidder quit. Did they run out of bids? Did they become frustrated? Did they learn when to quit? Who knows? There behavior was predictable, and I factored that into my decision making. Some bidders, moreover, place bids on eight or ten auctions simultaneously. So, as I had several browsers opened simultaneously on a widescreen, I could see the activity of that bidder, and if I had been competing against only him/her, place a bid on an auction right after he/she placed one on another — thereby increasing the chance that he wouldn’t return in time. Additionally, and I admit I am conflicted on this one, I set up several bidding accounts with different user names. I made sure that each user name exhibited different types of behavior. One of my identities was the “wimp” who would back out quickly, and once he had been on several auctions, other bidders waited him out. So, then I would come in with another name right before a competitor looked like he/she would wind and so on to frustrate the him or her. If you think creatively about the rules, you will discover many other techniques as well. So, it is just wrong to say that (online) penny auctions have no strategy.
You may think I am being deceptive, but my perspective is that the rules are clearly stated and I am not breaking any of them — I am playing every technique I can think of against competitors to win a game.
(An aside. One “strategy” I employed was to find other penny auctions with less participants. I have found Swoopo bidders (same user names) on those other sites, and I am guessing that they made the same inference as I. Less bidders; better chance of not being outlasted by competitors. So, Swoopo may in fact lose people as it successfully signs up new users.)
Are the auctions gambling? This is a good question, and I confess I am leaning towards “yes.” They can be compared to raffles, in that you purchase tickets/bids with no guarantee. Additionally, the success of penny auctions can be attributed in part (perhaps in large part) to an “escalation of commitment”: the increased likelihood that a person will keep spending money, the more he has already spent. Escalation is a part of gambling, but it is also a part of investing. Most, if not all, investors have difficulty “cutting losses.” The same is true with penny auctions. One notable difference between investing and penny auctions is that when an investor’s stock goes down, the company presumably loses money too. Both lose. With penny auctions that is not the case. The auctions brings in money no matter what and in Swoopo’s case wins far more often than it loses.
So, perhaps penny auctions should be considered gambling and as such should be regulated. Moreover, maybe existing gambling laws would include penny auctions as gambling entities, but the question has not been tested in court. Swoopo, meanwhile, is operating in the light of day with the rules of the game posted prominently on the home page. There is always a chance that any business is run by crooks, but nothing untoward has come to light about Swoopo. So, withhold judgment please.
Watch out for Swoopo’s recent changes:
As today announced, Swoopo just started to test a “buy it now” feature on its German and Austrian website, take a look at their today published press handout:
http://translate.google.de/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.presseportal.de%2Fpm%2F76174%2F1436618%2Fentertainment_shopping_ag&sl=de&tl=en&history_state0=
Users can apply the TOTAL costs of their previous bids towards the purchase of an item, which means that, if you have spent 100 bids and the auction is still running, you are able to purchase the item for its announced price (which is usually much above the market price) less the costs of your bids spent so far (50 €; 100 bids x 0,50 € per bid).
I wondered myself why they have changed their business model and implemented this feature … because, as it seems, Swoopo has become more attractive from the user’s perspective on the one hand and Swoopo lowers its own margin on the other hand. It obviously doesn’t fit to Swoopo’s former strategy…
Besides the fact that people have started to bid as mad, because they practically cannot lose money for bidding anymore as long as they are willing to pay the price announced by Swoopo, there is an evil aspect coming along this feature:
Just take a look at both the German website http://www.swoopo.de and the US website http://www.swoopo.com and you will see that all users bid on the same auctions. Well, this fact is not really new … but if you take into account that Swoopo shows the “buy it now” feature (blue shopping cart item) to its German and Austrian users only, the racing conditions are pretty unfair. While Germans and Austrians cannot lose anymore (as long as they are willing to pay the price announced by Swoopo), US users and users from all the other countries are taken for a ride. They simply don’t know that this feature is exclusive to Germans and Austrians, and, moreover, they don’t know that they practically cannot win anymore.
Swoopo pretends them real bargains but conceals that lots of German and Austrian users will have activated their bid butlers loaded with tons of bids – they practically have an infinite amount of “freebids”.
Don’t you think that this is a REALLY EVIL SCAM???
In my opinion, all users from other Swoopo countries except Germany and Austria should immediately stop bidding, as Swoopo takes them for a ride.
Is there anything actually illegal about how the company operates? If not, why would they have “bots” to drive up the price, that surely would be an illegal activity and ruin a business that is literally printing money for itself.
This is a Harvard “Law” blog, any insights on the legality of this business model?
Honestly, I agree with you Rui, it isn’t morally right that this company can profit so profusely off of other people’s stupidity. However, although morally, doing something about it seems neccessary, I don;t believe that any action needs to be taken. Swoopo, although it rakes in obcene amounts of money, actually provides a win-win-win situation for everyone. When someone wins a lets say $400 auction on ebay, ebay only makes around $20. Now, ebay is still very profitable, but only because it has large volumes of auctions. But if swoopo tried to run like ebay, it would fail, because there just wouldnt be enough revenue to keep it going off such a small number of auctions. Now when Swoopo hosts a $400 auction, they may make a whole lot more than $400, but in doing so, they give everyone a fair chance to take home an item for a ridiculously cheap price, in my opinion, so cheap, that I wouldn’t really care if I won or lost, and then someone actually gets to take home that item for a ridiculously cheap price, and obviously, that person wins too. So Rui, if everyone walks away from this relatively happy, why do we need to do anything about this. (I am not in any way affiliated with Swoopo, I am just trying to give my honest opinion and anyalisis)
And about people posting about how unfair it is that Swoopo offers a “buy-it-now” feature to it’s german speaking patrons, and not it’s english speaking ones on the same auctions, I would like to point out that any intelligent english speaking person could just have a german web-page translated by google, and have the same buy-it-now feature. Now, is it unfair, and somewhat shady that Swoopo prefers its german patrons, yes, itr could be. But, could it also be that maybe Swoopo.de was just the only one updated with the feature to date, and the “buy-it-now” feature could be accessible to english speaking patrons in the near future? And then you would ask, why not give it to Americans and english speakers first, and then germans? Well, I am still in the process of tracking down the parent comapny, but is it not possible that Entertainment Shopping Inc. (The parent company) is based in Germany, which would explain why Swoopo.de was the first website to have the feature added? And what if they’re not german, but they are french, or spanish? Is it not true that the world over, Americans are despised for various reasons, which would influence the makers of Swoopo to not give us the feature. Now, I understand that the last statement actually agrees with the very statements I am arguing against, but I do believe that although less likely than my othe rpossible scenarios, it is possible that this issue is based on anti-Americanism.
So I bought a 40 bid block from swoopo and I will never do it again. They sucked me in but not as badly as the bid butler bidders who can compete against each other and lose $100 in seconds. It’s brilliant, for the people running the website, and horrible for the users even if there are no bots bidding against real people.
Montana, you are obviously lying and getting paid for it which pretty much makes you a whore, so congrats for that. The only way to win is not to play. Why should people be cutting each other’s throats over the internet over TVs and other junk we don’t really need?
@Alex, following your reasoning it seems that you are a bit simple-hearted…
Obviously, you are not one of the by yourself citated “intelligent english speaking person” which just could “have a german web-page translated by google”, because if you take a look at the German website http://www.swoopo.de, there it is clearly written:
“Bitte beachten Sie, dass eine Lieferung in die oben aufgeführten Länder nur möglich ist, wenn das Swoopo Kundenkonto auf der jeweiligen Website eröffnet worden ist.
Über Swoopo.de / Swoopo.at ersteigerten Artikel können derzeit ausschließlich an Lieferadressen in Deutschland / Österreich versendet werden. Bitte beachten Sie, dass beim Versand auf die deutschen Inseln erhöhte Versandkosten anfallen.”
In english, translated by Google for our special friend Alex:
“Please note that a delivery in the countries listed above is only possible if the customer Swoopo account on the Web site opened.
About Swoopo.de / Swoopo.at auctioned article can currently only to delivery addresses in Germany / Austria will be sent. Please note that when sending in the German islands of increased shipping costs.”
Alex, did you get it? I hope so.
The fraud here is the fixed bid increments. If I wanted to up the bid by $1.20, it costs me $6! Without a way of self-selecting your high bids, this site degenerates into nothing more than a lottery, with the players themselves selecting the balls.
Pingback: Swoopo: will consumers ever win? | BitterWallet
Hello, my name is “Montana,” and I WAS a social media marketer for Swoopo.com. Recently I have been termed, only to be replaced by a younger female.
I can assure you all things said previously by me were true. I said we do not pay employees to bid on items, this is true. We have bots that do that for us.
Nice “knowing” you suckers, errrr guys.
Best,
~MT 8)
Congrats idiot… are you trying to start your own idiot scam?! So who gets the prize after they deal the “punishment”? You’ve just turned your idea of some Freedom-from-Corporation Fighting idea into an elitest group. I can see it now:
“Join ASB for free! (cause if you do, the four of us that started it get to win your crap, for cheap, if you break our golden rule)”
Just sit down and chill out. You’ve recognized their brilliant sceme to win money from stupid people. Isn’t that enough?
Actually, the idea behind the Swoopo site is not a scam. In actuality, it’s a paid auction; you are effectively paying to bid 1 cent more than the current bid price. It would be illegal if everybody paid for an individual chance to win, and the winner was selected at random…that would make it a lottery.
Even though the concept in and of itself is not illegal, if you consider the fact that they may have bots driving the prices up and could be ignoring your bids if you are using the bidbutler (as the commenter above claims), then the site is, indeed, fraudulent.
Regardless of legality/fraudulence, it is pretty boneheaded to incessantly bid at $0.60 a pop knowing that hundreds of people at any given time can bid again…and again…and again. Just save your money and buy from a reputable seller (if there is such a thing).
Wow, swoopo really knows how to make a huge profit. Today I was watching the Nikon D90 that has a price of $1,300.00.
The bid is already $286.32 and it goes up an additional of $.06 each time a bidder places a bid. Its not even half way probably. Think about it. For $286.32, at .06 each time = 4772 times it was offered. 4772 x $.60 ( each time anybody place a bid) = $2,863.20 (this is how much swoopo already made in profit). The bid is still on going. How wonder when will it ends and how much the profit of swoopo makes at the end
Another one. Apple Macbook for $1,699.84 and the bid is raise $.02. Now, the bid is $130.04. If you divide the $130.04 by $.02 = 6,502 times. If one bid will cost $.60, the total money Swoopo makes as of now is 6,502 x $.60 = $3,901.20 Wow, thats a huge profit. And the bid still going and will keep on going.
hmmm… by analogy, this “reshaping of collective action” has been tried before…. it’s called the UN. It didn’t work…
It’s been a while since I’ve done anything to do with game theory, but I don’t believe your model would effectively overcomes the free-rider problem of people out bidding the collectively reached max price to ensure they get the goods for themselves. Who’s going to keep paying the transaction costs for the punishments? You’d have another free-rider problem there in and of itself.