Penny Auction Pardoo just launched this week. The question was raised in the forum of odd bidding patterns and possibly shill bidding bots on Pardoo.
Curious as to what software Pardoo.com is using? Let’s take a look at their sourcecode: 
Pardoo’s software, Cactus CMS 3.8 comes from Estonia based software developer DigitalFruit.ee.
Does DigitalFruit.ee sell software with bots?
Digital Fruit calls it the “Intelligent Investment Protector:”
Intelligent Investment Protector (IIP)
“Solution made for site owner protection for initial startup period where bidding level could be lower than expected. IIP tries to replicate human behaviour as closely as possible and making almost impossible to detect as bot.
- There will be 2 main values for revenue control system:
1) BEP level (break-even point)
2) MAX level (Max plausible price)
There is big name pool for Internal bidders (its variable and can be changed by admin). Name pool is always compared against real users to escape situation where Internal and real users do have the same username. Name pool has no bidders amount limit.
Max level will be used to escape product price rising suspiciously high. Those products can be put on auctions again. If max level is reached and last bidder is Internal bidder then it will be winner even if BEP level is not reached.
Internal bidders are taken from central “name pool” ~15 per every auction, at least 5 of them will be replaced in every 2 hours. (time is centrally adjustable).
To simulate real user behaviour Internal bidders make occasional bids before BEP level is reached, otherwise it will look very suspicious if bids from certain users are placed only on 0 time. Real and Internal players’ bids are kept in different tables to escape value mixup.
IIP has 5 values what define how does it bid: Appearance (how often it will appear in specific auction) , Risk level (how aggressively its playing), Strategy (how often it will bid and how to follow other bidders), Stage (how often player will play in different auctions)
Price: starting from 1570 EUR” -From DigitalFruit.ee
Investment Protection/autobidding bots/whatever you want to call it is STILL stealing. Notice how Digital Fruit repeatedly assures the purchaser that suspicious behavior will go undetected?
Almost.
Seems pretty fishy wouldn’t you say?
That’s not all.
Pardoo gives us an address for their company in Miami, Fl: 
The IP address of a recent commentator, who left a good review for Pardoo also comes from Miami, FL.
Mere Coincidence? Nope.
We have proof that a recent comment that was placed on our first Pardoo post is a shill/fake comment. It comes from the same IP (Internet Protocol) Address as is detected in an E-mail from customerservice@Pardoo.com!
See where it says Originating IP and received from Oscar, Oscar Henao is the CEO of Pardoo.com, New Developments LLC.
Looks like Pardoo aka Julietn is the one who won the PSPgo, makes you wonder what else Pardoo has won.
The timer on the current Sony Vaio auction was acting funny too, it went from 1 to 0 and back up to 1 again before someone overbid Warrenkg on autobidder, (a user seen on other penny auctions). The auction paused at 1 am and just went active now.
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Mike R September 4, 2009, 4:13 am
Thanks for breaking the scam and being such a good penny auction watchdog. We all owe you big time!
Penny Auction Watch September 4, 2009, 4:31 am
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eric from ny September 4, 2009, 6:05 pm
thanks i was just enlightened how these ipenny auctions ripped my hard earned money hoping to win things i can hardly buy
Jonny L September 30, 2009, 12:23 am
As I understand now all the DF auctions are scams.
Digital Fruit - Olav October 23, 2009, 12:47 am
I would like to ask to get this post removed from here but I know its not going to happen ever, so instead I'm going publish my pointy of view here (I do not expect this note stay up long here, but anyway I can just try it out).
First: I have not given any written or verbal permissions to publish my e-mail address or name here in your site. All correspondence is strictly private between two parties.
Second: Anyone is able to draw any conclusions you like, its not a science.
Asking incognito something and publishing it (even without asking comments from parties involved) and then drawing conclusions from partial and not too apparent info gained in very questionable way is pretty insidious behaviour.
Third: Situation is pretty much framed up. Insisting too many times to protect your site in initial launch state from professional bidders and almost demanding that its the only way. Sure its possible to develop you any solution if you really-really-really insist, just leave us out from it.
Forth: We build, design and install significant amount different web based solutions for any very different kind of auctions in every month. We always stress out before they make final agreement that using any kind of bidding help or biding yourself on system is really too great risk.
Fifth: Maybe Pardoo is having something, maybe not – I'm not able to tell it. We have not installed anything there (reason is not having it). Having something theoretically possible is one thing and having it done is completely another thing. If you want to know for sure, you better ask directly from them.
And finally: If you have anything personal going on between people behind Penny Auction Watch and Pardoo site – then solve it between those two. Right now its like writing's on the toilet wall. Where is: innocent till proven guilty? I guess it not going to happen after all all, as Latin's do say "Calumniare audacter semper aliquid haeret" (slander boldly, something always sticks). It really does.
That's all I have to say.
April October 23, 2009, 2:12 pm
Thank you for this post… and BRAVO for leaving up the above comment.
(although the programming company will probably get several website jobs off of this post, as I am sure upstart site owners are prowling about……)
Roger Saucier November 27, 2009, 1:04 pm
Just a comment to Johnny L…not all of the sites are scams…I have bid quite a few times on quibids.com and have won a ps3..took one single bid to win that for 14.88…and I have also won a blue ray dvd player from them for about 12 dollars…they are absolutely not a scam. I don't know about any of the others yet, but they at least are for real.
Alan November 28, 2009, 10:04 am
Hmm, was that just a selfish promotion? Have we heard of quibids.com?