Penny Auction Watch® | Penny Auctions

CarsBids is New Penny Auction for Cars, But With Hefty Reserves

May 17, 2013 Amanda Lee 0 comments

CarsBids is the latest penny auction to launch offering cars. The latest, and perhaps only penny auction that’s still around auctioning cars.

On first glance of this new penny auction we’d surmise that something doesn’t seem right with the high volume of cars up for bid including an Audi Q7, Cadillac CTS, Mitsubishi Eclipse, Kia Soul, Ford Edge, Dodge Charger, Toyota Camry, Ford Escape, Ford Edge, Dodge Dart, Yamaha R1, Chevrolet Cobalt, Chevrolet Impala, Uplander, Ford Mustang and a Mazda 6i Sport to name just a few of their current offerings.

But there is a bit of a catch, CarsBids places reserves on each of their items to ensure that they don’t lose a lot of money. Each reserve is specified on each penny auction.

For instance, the reserve on the Audi Q7 is $849.00 – that means the auction end price needs to be at $849.00 BEFORE the Audi actually has a chance of getting sold to the bidder left standing once the auction clock has ran out. That’s 84,900 bids! 84,900 bids, well more like $84891.95 since the auction start price was $8.03.

CarsBids states an 100% refund of all bids if an auction does not meet the reserve amount.

“Cars Bids ‏@CarsBids15 May

CarsBids – The only place where you can buy a good car for 100$!!!!!!!! http://carsbids.com ”

They stated the following on our forum, “We just opened CARSBIDS.COM and yes we are for real!!!

Besides cas/suvs/pickup trucks we’ll offer also motorcycles and vintage/classic cars!

We are car people from Chicago and we currently partner few Chicago-land car dealerships.”

What they claim in their marketing both on their website and on Twitter, not really, I mean, of course it’s possible, but as a bidder looking to get a deal on a car, well, how probable would this be? First the Q7 auction needs to take in nearly 84,900 bids before anyone actually has a chance to bid, this means they either need a. a high bidding volume, or b. high bidder volume… then of course someone might be able to then win the car for $100 or even 1 bid. You don’t know. We don’t know. That’s just the nature of penny auctions… so to claim that they are the “Only place to get a car for $100″ well that’s not a guarantee.

SO, knowing that a lot of bids have to be placed before you even have a chance to bid and win, would you still do it?

CarsBids does not state much information about their company on the site, and whether they are a dealer or not.

Discuss this penny auction and all penny auction questions and issues with us in the Penny Auction Watch forum. We need your help to determine the legitimacy of these bid-fee sites and keep penny auction sites honest! Join our forum now, it’s free!

Is HQBids a Legit Penny Auction? User Charged $49 Without Realizing It

April 22, 2013 Amanda Lee 1 comment

One of our readers sent us a very discouraging message about the penny auction site HQBids.com, he wrote:

“I tried to find how to purchase an I Pad & found I was onto the HQ Bids site. A “FREE” site. which cost $49 US to join. Alright, I signed up, but found the whole thing stalled when I was asked for MasterCard Secure Code. It said “We will get back to you”. When? And how? Is this a scam? There doesn’t seem to be any provision to log in to bid.”

On HqBids.com ending right now there are 4 new iPads, 2 iPhones, a Google Nexus 7, PS3, Galaxy Tab 2, gold bar, Nintendo Wii Bundle, Toshiba laptop, LG 50 inch TV, xBox 360 with Kinect and dozens of new items ending soon.

Take a look at each auction and watch the bidding patterns closely… The majority, if not all, usernames are one syllable names, not common usernames.

For instance: lupo, tarpley, mclean, deaton, christie, searle, edward, thomas, conner, to name just a few who are currently bidding.

Alexa tells us that this site has a pretty low traffic ranking and is very popular in Kolkata (West Bengal).

”Statistics Summary for hqbids.comThere are 492,149 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Hqbids.com. The site has a relatively good traffic rank in the city of Kolkata (#33,286), and approximately 78% of visitors to the site come from the US, where it has attained a traffic rank of 113,899. Visitors to Hqbids.com spend about five minutes per visit to the site and 67 seconds per pageview, and approximately 9% of visits to the site are referred by search engines.”Interesting?

Who owns HqBids.com? Well, the domain name registrant info is protected by “Contact Privacy, Inc.”

Registrant:
Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0126868198
96 Mowat Ave
Toronto, ON M6K 3M1
CA
Domain name: HQBIDS.COM

Administrative Contact:
Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0126868198,

HQBids “About Us” page is minimal at best:

“is a free to join, members only e-commerce site. We specialize in providing our members with instant access to top brands at up to 98% off retail. All products offered for sale come with the manufacturer warranty and are the same brand new, brand name, and factory sealed products you find in stores”

Their contact info which can be found on their privacy policy page is just an address for UPS Store post office box:
Or by regular mail:
HQbids Customer Support
4798 S. Florida Ave, Suite 117
Lakeland, FL 33813-2181

One tactic used by a lot of what we found to be questionable penny auctions has been to use news clips/interviews with winners of other penny auction sites and label them or make them seem as if the video was about their site, for instance:

Page one of the registration process states “Free sign up, No Free, NO Surprises.” Why then was our reader confused/surprised? See page two of the registration page:

Of course the page states, “We Guarantee you will win today, a bid pack purchase amount, but above address information states “Where will we ship your wins” This format has been known to confuse bidders on other now-shut-down penny auctions where Federal Trade Commission action against site owners has happened.

Two complaints were filed with the Better Business Bureau in Florida:

http://www.bbb.org/central-florida/business-reviews/penny-auctions/hq-bids-in-lakeland-fl-90140637/complaints#breakdown

Another bidder posted the following review to ScamBook.com:

http://www.scambook.com/report/view/226609/HQBids-Complaint-226609-for-$49.00

“I got the starter package and as I was going to win a bid their site froze…it had nothing to do with my computer. I lost everything. What a SCAM!!! I contacted them and they try to blame my computer, bandwidth and more. They sent a nasty email back. SCAM!!!!!!!!”

Check out the bottom of the registration/bid purchase page it states “See what people are saying” below various logos of major media networks that have featured penny auctions, a majority of which actually interviewed me/Penny Auction Watch, this seems very misleading.

Knowing that there isn’t much information about this company, seeing the questionable bidding names and high volume of big dollar items would you bid here? Did you? Did you win? Were you confused by the sign up page like our reader was? Discuss this and all penny auctions in our forum!

BidCactus Now Has Free Penny Auctions

April 10, 2013 Amanda Lee 3 comments

BidCactus, one of the very first penny auctions to launch in the US, just recently introduced free penny auctions. These auctions are indicated by the words “free to bid” on the bid button and are totally free to enter, and bid, all the winning bidder has to do is pay for the final auction end price in addition to stated shipping & handling fees.

Want to try bidding on a penny auction without even purchasing a bid pack to see how it goes? These auctions are for you. There’s a limit of one free auction win per day.

Free to Bid penny auction wins must be checked out of your cart within 60 minutes of winning.

Items include gift cards and bid packs to be used on non-free bid auctions with more items

Discuss BidCactus in the Penny Auction Watch forum! Do you bid on penny auctions? Looking to learn more? You’ve come to the right place. Join us and discuss your experiences with us, help us find scam and legit penny auctions too!