QuiBids Allegedly Offering Different Auctions to Different Users

One of our forum members just recently brought to our attention what he calls a “trap page” on QuiBids.com. Basically, it seems as if varied items are being served to different users/computers, different active and sold auctions. We were also able to duplicate this with two computers. It seems like it’s as if there are two different penny auction sites on one site.

We recently interviewed our forum member whodatbids to further understand what he meant by a trap page and to hear his thoughts/opinions:

PAW: Can you explain what you mean by a “trap page” on QuiBids and how you found this?

whodatbids: My wife was looking at a travel card and called me to bid on it for her. I logged in my account and could not find the card she was talking about. Then I cleared my cookies and there it was a whole different site then what I seen when I logged into my account. Totally different bidders and items

PAW: That’s an interesting observation. When did you start bidding on QuiBids?

whodatbids: I started in early september

Since you first started bidding on QuiBids how many items would you say you’ve won?

whodatbids: Wow quite a few wins but down about 6000 dollars to wins. Most of that came in the last month

PAW: So you kept track of your items & how much you spent? That’s wise.

whodatbids: Yes, I have records of everything I won and all my records of what I spent. You see there is alot of paramaters this could get in to. with pay pal. credit card companies and then the ftc. But the most is fraud by deception which is a criminal offense for sure

PAW: Ok let’s back up a second, How long ago was it that you discovered this, just recently?

whodatbids: about 2 weeks ago. I knew something was funny and when this happened, It all came together. And do not forget the trap site has anywhere between 20-30 items less ending than the main site

whodatbids: Hmm, what seemed funny?

whodatbids: I was winning then all of a sudden no matter how I tried and how long I stayed away and jumped in. I had to pay BIN or just walk away with nothing

PAW: Do you have any other thoughts or opinions about Quibids, any complaints?

whodatbids: I am very upset that they would take advantage of people who in the first place made them as big as they are, and they turn around and just plain deceive them without any regrets at all. And also tarnishing the penny auction in general with their unethical practices and deceptions.

Here’s a video from our member Whodatbids, which will give you a better understanding of what we’ve been seeing:

Whodatbids asked QuiBids Customer Support to explain what he was seeing, he posted the following conversation to our forum:

Dec 03 11:18 am (CST): Hello, could you please tell me why when I sign in I go to a different screen than I am on now. I have written about this several times. How did you decide to redirect me to the page I am on. And why would you do this without telling me and letting me loose tons of money. Also why would you put me on a beginner page when I am not a beginner. As I have stated before this is very deceptive. Everyone who goes to quibids.com goes to the main site, but when I sign in I am redirected to this site that has 20-30 less items and just as many if not more bidders. This is very unethical and i do not understand why quibids keeps dancing around my question.  

Daniel, Dec 06 11:05 am (CST):

Based on feedback from our customers, we have found that customers typically don’t want to see an increase in their competition as QuiBids’ popularity continues to grow. QuiBids has so many auctions ending at the same time that we can’t simply show each customer all auctions. This means that, although you may not see every auction, others may not see your auctions either, giving you the best possible chance of winning a great deal. Our number one goal is to maintain a great user experience for all customers, along with balancing heavy strain on our servers. If the product you want is currently not showing, please continue to check back as new and exciting products will be added frequently!
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance, and have a wonderful day!
Sincerely,
Daniel
QuiBids Customer Support
Dec 06 11:47 am (CST): QuiBids Notification So your saying that Quibids manipulates who sees what auctions and limits the number of auctions certain customers can see. Like on the page I am on, it has 20-30 items less to bid on. So even though I pay the same price for bid packs, I do not get the same chance as other bidders. I am being locked into a page where the competition is more with less items. I would not even be discussing this with you, but I discovered this and went back and looked and everything made sense as to why I lost so much money on Quibids all of a sudden. You put me on a page with less items and more competition without my knowledge and without the decency to confirm this to me. If someone has been bidding on your site and then all of a sudden taken to another page that has been manipulated this is purely unethical. No matter what you say, the servers are not overloaded at 6 a.m. and the items are not many at all. But you insist on keeping the two pages. Or are there more of these hidden pages?

Daniel, Dec 06 01:41 pm (CST):

I am sorry that you feel this way, I assure you that we are simply giving you a better chance at winning the items by keeping the number of users down that are in the same auction.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Daniel
QuiBids Support

Another forum member, enigma, posted the following:

“They are not two different sites just some php, js and htaccess manipulations. There redirecting you to different parts/pages of there site as shown on your video. I did some javascript manipulation of my own on there site and had both screens show the same pages on one pc logged on and one not logged on. From a unethical business sense thats genius they group certain people based on there record wins/losses etc to point them to where they want too. But unfortunately it’s not new and many companies do that ebay, google, amazon etc to a certain extent. I feel your pain and thy are illegally doing that especially if there is no mention of this in any of there ToS or policy ( I never read it ).”

Consumers go online to get better prices, but *Web* merchants have their own tricks

Could this be the same thing? Slate Magazine, Consumers go online to get better prices, but*Web*merchants have their own tricks, (thanks Coolguy451), Annie Lowrey tells us, “… Major retailers are getting much more sophisticated and subtle about ways to game their shoppers. It’s common for big retail Web sites to direct different users to different deals, offers, or items based on their purchase histories or cookies.”

What do you think about QuiBids offering different items to different users?

Please feel free to discuss QuiBids and all other penny auction issues in our forum!

That’s why online pharmacies is becoming more pop over the last years. Well-known are remedies which are used to reduce inflammation caused by inflammation of the skeletal muscle etc. There were only few examples. Did somebody tell you about canadian generic Viagra? Maybe you along know about the matter. Sexual malfunction can be a result of a physical condition. Even when it has a physical cause, psychological problems can make the disorder worse. Sex drive problems are so commonly a product of how you feel that there is some to that “headache” saying after all.

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26 comments… add one
  • xxhannahxx December 7, 2010, 5:04 pm

    Had a nice long chat with an attorney and if this allgation is true, Quibids could be in for some serious legal issues ahead. I see this no different from playing with loaded dice in my opinion.

    Reply
  • Dan December 7, 2010, 10:09 pm

    I’m a little confused on this whole thing. What exactly does this show? Does it show maybe they have multiple servers or locations? Or does it show they may have data clusters and databases that are running together.

    This is the problem, making public allegations like this is not fact and before posting should be asked of by corporate. Just the implication of it is enough to kill the business.

    And who says this is Illegal? How do you know its solely based on you, and they dont randomly place bidders on different auctions. If they had 1500 users bidding on 20 auctions what is your chance of winning? I can guarantee its not great.

    Again, You shouldn’t post and write comments like this, Cause they are not comments, or opinions they are facts as your submitter has written it, and based on his and your conclusion on it it makes it fact.

    Amanda I think you should look closely, Your site is no longer a review site, It is a News reporting site that takes payment for advertisers who are also questionable in many eyes. You are not protected under Free Speech as this site currently runs.

    Quibids is not a company that will sit back and let this go I am sure

    Reply
  • BunPig December 8, 2010, 10:34 am

    My husband and I are creating a penny auction site that we are making honest and using no trickery with. We are doing this because we think the business model is a good one, but too many sleazy people are being dishonest and destroying the reputation of Penny Auctions by doing semi-criminal things. You don’t have to rip people off to make money. If a business model is a good one, you can make a lot of money with that alone, without resorting to trickery and ripping people off.

    Our site is going to launch on December 15th:

    http://www.BunPig.com

    We hope we can change the reputation of Penny Auctions and have a successful, fun business that is NOT based on BS tactics and sleazy crap.

    Your article is a very good one and thank you for posting it.

    Reply
  • whodatbids December 8, 2010, 11:56 am

    The video and things were done to prove what we said was factual. This site is a watchdog to protect and inform people of things that are not right with a penny auction site. Everything said was from first hand knowledge and hours of collecting and watching and also bidding on this site to make sure of what was being done. I have all the records, video and even emails from Quibids that prove they were manipulating the site and trapping certain users on a page with less items and as many or more users. This is a fact!!

    Reply
  • Andrew December 8, 2010, 1:01 pm

    Greetings,
    I have been following this forum for a while, and currently a victim of BidSauce.com, another penny auction website. I am in the process of trying to recover my money, but thats another story.

    I think it is ample clear that these sites are manipulative, either by restricting access to what you can bid on or by employing bots.

    The question is what else can be done other than brining more and more evidence to light and sharing our misery to the group?

    Well, I called a class action lawyer recently. What he said was interesting. Since unlike large corporations, these websites do not have tangible assets that we know of, no lawyer will be interested in a lawsuit since there is nothing to go after even if you win.

    So…..I ask the group, what do you think should be the next step to bring these scammers to justice? If they are doing this from U.S. soil, there has to be a way out.

    I filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office in my state. Any other ideas?

    Thanks
    Andrew

    Reply
  • Andrew December 8, 2010, 1:10 pm

    On another note, the concept of penny auction is flawed and should be banned immediately.

    To BunPig et all, I am also thinking of starting a penny auction site. I am very honest person, and I dream of building a collection of vintage cars someday. I also lost a few millions in the stock market recently..ahem.

    See, in this day and age, if you have to constantly defend your business model as honest, then it is not after all a smart business model. The real problem with penny auctions is, there is room for widespread manipulation, some as easy as using bots. that a site may or may not be doing it is secondary in my opinion, that there is scope of manipulation without any oversight and accountability that the end user may not be aware of, is the BIG concern.

    Once again, comes down to a simple question. What are you going to do?

    Adios
    Andrew

    Reply
  • Anonymous December 8, 2010, 5:49 pm

    I am very upset about this. I noticed the same thing about 2 weeks ago when I had deleted my cookies. I went to login to quibids as normal and there was an auction I logged in to bid on. When I was logged in that auction was no longer in existance, along with over 15 other auctions leaving me with only 3 open auctions to bid on. I then logged off, deleted cookies again and got the actual auction ID link. Once I was logged in I entered that link and it would just bring me back to the main page. Also none of those auctions I could see prior t logging in were in the completed auctions list. This was late at night and I didn’t even remember this happened until I read this post. I have recently started to lose more than win which is not how things usually go on quibids and something fishy is definiitely going on. I thought quibids was the one honest site out there and I have been with them since they opened. I feel betrayed seeing as I helped the site grow and i’m sure there are A LOT of us out there in the same sotuation. This isn’t something to be looked at lightly because there is a lot of money involved and I think legal action should be taken. If anyone would like to discuss this matter email me please. It is probably affecting all the big bidders and people that constantly win large items for just a few bids. This is a slap in the face and we all need to discuss this situation and do something about it right away. I didn’t think it was possible but it looks like greed got the better of the one site I actually trusted. I bet we all just paid for the 10,000 dollars one lucky winner got and a whole lot more. Please contact me if this is happening to you.

    Reply
  • John December 8, 2010, 8:59 pm

    Why is anyone surprised by this? When you look at Quibids owners previous websites and current and past use of fake news sites, fake blogs, etc it’s clear that they are highly unethical.

    Reply
  • Eric December 11, 2010, 7:27 am

    Same thing has happen to me so I decided to question Quibids. I received the same lame response as other users.
    Eric, Dec 03 06:43 am (CST):
    Can someone tell me why the number of available auctions change after I log in? For example; I can see 80 upcoming auctions in the video/console category, but when I immediately log in I only see 53 available auction items and the auctions I was interested in are gone and do not show up in the recently completed. This problem holds true for all categories. I have tried this on several computers, auctions are significantly different after I log in. This is a problem that I have discussed with and showed several friends. Something is not right. The auctions available are different before and after I log in. Are the veteran bidders being showed a smaller number of available auctions and possibly the same set of auctions to create auctions that last longer? Please explain what’s going on. Thanks
    Daniel, Dec 06 08:43 am (CST):
    Hi Eric,
    Based on feedback from our customers, we have found that customers typically don’t want to see an increase in their competition as QuiBids’ popularity continues to grow. QuiBids has so many auctions ending at the same time that we can’t simply show each customer all auctions. This means that, although you may not see every auction, others may not see your auctions either, giving you the best possible chance of winning a great deal. Our number one goal is to maintain a great user experience for all customers, along with balancing heavy strain on our servers. If the product you want is currently not showing, please continue to check back as new and exciting products will be added frequently!
    Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance, and have a wonderful day!
    Sincerely,
    Daniel
    QuiBids Customer Support

    Reply
  • BunPig December 12, 2010, 3:32 am

    Andrew,
    Your comments are well thought out and I see where you are coming from. Unfortunately, a lot of unscrupulous businesses have tarnished the reputation of penny auctions to a point that it does seem like it has to be defended constantly. Our plan to make one of our own was actually born out of spite (and admittedly the desire to make a comfy living). We played around on various auction sites for a while, and my husband and I both being programmers came across such a wide variety of hidden rip-off features in the auction software that it made us dizzy.

    I am about *0% certain that the software QuiBids uses, for instance, is the same software package that we purchased. Now, you can modify the software once you purchase it, and we have (still working on it, actually) but the software came with built in bid-bots for bidding against customers, as well as several other little hidden bits of trickery in there. We have disabled most of the tricks in there, and by the time we launch, ALL of the nasty will be gone. So, yes, BS trickery seems to be a staple of this business model. We really do want to change that.

    And we are realistic about it. We might fail. We hope (and believe) that it is possible to have an honest business, but we might be wrong. If we are wrong, and we lose our respective asses from being honest, then we will simply quit. We have good day jobs. We don’t NEED the money. We don’t want the money bad enough to become thieves for it. For us, this is, overall, a serious experiment that we hope does well and continues to do well. So, if it doesn’t work- if it is impossible to have a penny auction that is honest, then we’ll shut it down, have a drink and watch House.

    Reply
    • BunPig December 12, 2010, 3:32 am

      That was supposed to say 80%, by the way. Typo.

      Reply
  • Glenn December 14, 2010, 4:04 pm

    I understand that poor business ethics and cheating are something to be consearned about, but its not just penny auctions. Every business you look at is munipulated. Price is always munipulated, think about it you go to any store and want to buy the next big item your going to have to pay top dollar for it. If no one buys it then the price goes down. So If I make that item I would limit release so demand far out does supply and bank all the extra money, then release more units. That is legal! Stocks the same thing. Does it make it right if its legal is the question? The answer is if there is a market for it then who cares. People can get mad and complain, the diffrence is there is only a handfull of people that actually research and review and are smart enough to catch things. To many people do not research and take things at face value, they are the problem, and they are the reason why people cheat. Everything is flawed, and its the people that cause it. You can go after sites, or stores or whatever, UNTIL YOU EDUCATE THE IGNORANT, NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE!!!!!!! So bottom line I agree with everyone, the sites have a right to exist since there is a market for them and they are not all corupt, and you’ll have the right to complain. Millions of people go onto these sites that don’t care or don’t research, so contact them and educate them, then the rest will fix itself.

    Reply
    • lawbird January 3, 2011, 10:41 pm

      Exact points here. Consumer responsibility is the biggest problem in this nation. The amount of complaints and disgruntled consumers have made this nation of commerce cowards. Does anyone realize that the complaints and consumers not being responsible in what they buy or research and make educated decisions and understand that what you buy YOU BUY!

      America is falling in commerce, more and more companies are failing, more Americans are losing your jobs and if you think it wont continue you are wrong!

      With all the complaints and pissed consumers and refunds, friendly fraud, affiliate fraud etc and charge backs it has made it impossible for businesses to run in these times.

      Making a profit in business is what employs, pays bills and taxes and creates commerce. When you see a site like this with all the complaints about one industry it is sad, truly sad. Go and google other complaint boards or complaintboards.com and see for yourself.

      BE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU BUY OR SIGN UP FOR WHEN BUYING ONLINE. LOOK FOR LINKS, TERMS AND CONDITIONS, and if you bought it OWN IT. BLAME YOUR SELF and learn from it.

      Reply
  • barb December 16, 2010, 7:41 am

    I totally agree about the different websites being offered on Quibids and I don’t like it either. Also, I’ve noticed that I was watching an auction with two different gift cards and I clicked out to put a watch notice on one of the items and when I clicked back in the other item was not there. It didn’t sell it just completely vanished off the screen. What’s up with that? I checked the item to see if it sold and it had not. Somehow I was able to pull the one item back up again and I noticed the price for the $25 gift card was up past $4.00 on the auction. That means they are receiving $400 for a $25 gift card and I don’t know why they didn’t want it shown anymore?

    Reply
  • Pixles December 17, 2010, 12:06 am

    I just want to BID everyone A MERRY CHRISTMAS , You better Watch Out You better not cry I am telling you why , THE GLITCH who stole Christmas WILL TAKE YOUR PRIZE !!!
    Thank you for publishing the TRAP SITE, at least your screen did not go blank like mine ,I have a video, Wanna see It ?
    Maybe in the New Year…
    Cheers… FloridaBucks

    Reply
  • Andrew December 19, 2010, 11:24 am

    @ Bunpig

    I commend your honesty in trying to start a honest penny auction. I love watching House too, and I have a day job as well, but we could all do with some more cash.So please don’t say you don’t need the money.

    It is not in whether the sites are honest or not, I actually believe all the penny auction sites are honest unless definitively proven otherwise in the court of law. The REAL problem is that the end user has no way of knowing whether they are being subject to manipulation. Simply put, and like you admitted, the honesty of the auction site is at the behest of the owners. There is no accountability built in the system, and is not possible in this case. Consequently, the concept of penny auction, although novel, is flawed and should not be allowed legally.

    Reply
  • Andrew December 19, 2010, 11:35 am

    @ Glenn

    There is HUGE difference between being a sucker and buying a Plasma TV for three times the price of the shelf than waiting for the price to go down, versus buying the same TV, and bringing it homes just to realize that it is an empty case of plastic. In the first instance, you were not a smart shopper, but the business never lied to you about the product, it just sold a product to you at a higher price. In the second instance, you were DUPED. You thought you were buying something, the reality was something else. Price manipulations are part of the business, it may be unethical to some, but not illegal. Selling something to a customer what the product is not, is unethical AND illegal. By partitioning traffic without the knowledge of the consumer, and my employing bots, penny auction sites are being UNETHICAL and ILLEGAL.
    This has to stop. I can’t believe a single lawyer is not a member of this site, that will work with all of us to fight this thing.
    Seems like we middle class hard working Americans are living up to the tag of helpless whiners. Its time to wake up, and act.

    Any lawyers coming forward??

    A

    Reply
    • Glenn December 23, 2010, 12:27 pm

      What you are saying would be illegal, If you buy an item and the wrong product comes or you get nothing at all then yes, that is illegal and unmoral. But I’m saying to judge all sites and say that penny auctions should be illegal is also unfair to the companies that do try to provide a service and do it with integrity. Also If you are getting ripped off you don’t need any attorny from this site to help, you need to go get an attorny and hold the business accountable if they are breaking the law. My biggest complaint about people is them crying foul, and expecting other people to step up and make it better. If wronged handle it and then show people how to resolve issues.

      Reply
  • Andrew December 19, 2010, 11:39 am

    @ Anonymous

    Not sure if you realize that you want people to email you, but left no contact info.

    Btw, my email is andy_bh_16@hotmail.com. Email me folks some plans to how we can tackle this menace.

    Reply
  • Lonnie Kephart December 25, 2010, 1:28 am

    Here is a penny auction that after you buy your bid package after reading their terms of service you will notice several things, an auction will have a timer, however when the timer reaches zero instead of the auction being over there will be 20 seconds added if someone has bid another penny, and auction prices go up by the penny yet your bids are charged at 60 cents, yet no where in their terms of service is this noted, and their refund policy is such that they wish to call you concerning refunds which does not leave a paper trail that you may use to show to your bank or credit card that you were in any way mislead or cheated of any monies, also everytime I have been to this site though they use and advertise many items for sale, I have yet to see other then one or two large screen tv’s, bid packages of 10,20, 50, 100, 150 bids, or the outdated ipads, and maybe once in a while some type of weird blender, these represent basically all that you have an option to bid on, which seems to me not only deceptive in terms of describing their site as having many items to bid on, the mere fact that an auction is arranged to increase in penny increments and yet your bid is rated at 60 cents without any notice of that in any of their terms of service and according to people who have made the mistake of closing their accounts with a balance of bids, their customer service since it is a phone service tells them to re- sign in and ask for their refund but since they have closed their account they cannot possibly get past the sign in. This might as well be a nigerian penny auction site, and when I sent them an email showing them in their terms of service the points I was using to show my bank to recieve a refund, all of a sudden that email was noted as being in error please try again later. Now is this how an honest business is run?

    Reply
    • Not Sure December 12, 2012, 4:23 am

      Dude, this makes no since. Would you expect the bids to cost what? Bids would have no value if they didn’t come with a price, moreover the concept of penny auction would not exist, eliminating the choice/opportunity to participate.

      There is people who win, its a mix between Ebay and the Lotto, with a twist of Sears & Roebuck.

      Reply
  • AB November 9, 2011, 11:32 pm

    It is very easy to prove this is happening. I have an account at quibids. I am being placed in the competive auctions now and wins have cost much more and become less. I then opened an account for my wife and she had the easy auctions to win. 200 dollar gift cards for 3-5 dollars. We paid for Christmas presents that way with over 2000 in gift cards. Now her account is hard to win with. I then opened an account for my brother in law, copied the url of auctions in his account, went back to my account and pasted the urls. I got a bid button that was not functional, when I clicked on it, it said this auction is for other users. Its just like giving a drug addict free drugs for a few weeks and then charging him 5 times the cost for more.

    Reply
  • Jim August 5, 2012, 8:39 pm

    8/5/12…
    I started to sign up for QuiBids – but then I read the TERMS OF SERVICE:
    THEY PLAINLY STATE THAT THEY WILL MANIPULATE THE AUCTIONS to give everyone an equal chance regardless of experience. This has a bad odor about it.
    I did not continue my sign-up.

    Reply
  • Quibid Customer December 12, 2012, 4:11 am

    ITS TRUE, there is certain auctions that advanced or post “newbie” users will not see or be able to participate in.

    Do this,

    1. Use two different computers, preferably on different internet connections.
    2. Login as use 1 that has already one a few itmes and is now having a “more dificult time winning”
    3. Login as user 2 which can be a new user just created, not necicary to uchase a bid pack
    4. Find a auction on user two that does not show on user 1 and go into that auction by clicking on the product image.
    5. Copy the URL/address that is in the top of your browser.
    6. Trasfer that URL/address to the user 1 compter/browser and try to bid on that product.

    Its not happening, it plainly shows it red and says that the auction is reserved for other users. Now quibid attempts to cover them self by saying that there is auction reserved for “Newbies”. The thing is, these auctions that I am referring to are not classified as Newbie auctions, they do not display the icon as some do. Another fact is that when you first sign up, you are competing against bidders that are using mostly to all real cash bids and not vouchers, which makes it very real and possible to win. I personally like the site and I don’t loose, since all I bid on is gift cards that I ALWAYS go hard at the last minute and buy when I lose. So I have spent 168 dollars and received 225 worth of giftcards. Most of my wins were at first, the rest I have had to purchase except for two of the four wins which came later and with MUCH more competition. There is NO WAY I would bid on something unless I planned on buying it, and then I stick with items that holds strong value even at retail price, such as Gas Cards. The software that Quibids uses is very complex, they have placed great money in their operations, which I can appreciate, especially when it comes to tracking product and getting it on time. Unlike DealDash, they run a tight ship, but also unlike DealDash you have a less bang for the buck in the long run.

    Between DealDash and Quibids, I find myself fully satisfied.

    Reply
  • Quibid User December 12, 2012, 8:40 am

    Here is directly out of the TOS from Quibids website:

    QuiBids attempts to limit some auctions to users of comparable skill, as determined by QuiBids, to enhance user experience and maintain a viable business model. In so doing, QuiBids may limit which auctions are available to particular users based on any factors deemed appropriate by QuiBids in its sole discretion, including experience of the user, historical success of the user, demographic factors, prior bidding and spending activity, and other factors. In particular, QuiBids may limit certain auctions to less experienced or successful users in any manner QuiBids deems appropriate to optimize the overall user experience of all QuiBids users. You acknowledge that You may be, and You consent to being, excluded from auctions at QuiBids discretion

    Reply

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