Have you ever bid on RealPennyAuctions.com and won?
A few bidders on our forum pointed out that this penny auction site required a bid pack purchase upon registration, I went to the registration page and Google told me that the site’s SSL wasn’t completely secure due to “other resources which are not secure,” but that may not be a big deal…
What I’m really worried about is the following tip I received from a reader. I was able to view their code with FireBug and see that under their “GetTimes” link there’s a specified user with a specified end-time that appears to be programmed into their script. What could this mean?
This page shows a max bid of 4.00 and shows the user james12 consistently in the code as max_username along with other bidders bids to the right.
Max_bid: $4.00 – Max_username: James12.
Take a look at this video capture that I recorded while their penny auction for a new Nikon Coolpix L22 was active on 8/7/11:
And James12 won, the same bidder that was specified under: max_username programmed in their site. The end price was $4.01.
It’s also interesting to note that I was unable to find a history of completed auctions on their site and this item’s history was not to be found on the URL of the auction item page.
What do you think could be going on here? Is RealPennyAuctions.com a legit penny auction? Post your experiences, thoughts and more in our penny auction forum.
That’s why online pharmacies is becoming more popular 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 already know about the matter. Sexual disfunction can be a result of a physical condition. Even when it has a physical reason, 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.
Amanda August 13, 2011, 9:53 am
RealPennyAuctions.com CTO
August 12, 2011 at 11:47 am
Amanda,
My name is Sam DeTrent and I am the new Chief Technology Officer at Real Penny Auctions. I took over the site about a month ago. I can tell you from intimate experience with the code of the website that there is ALWAYS chances for ANYONE to win a product on our site. People DO win (check out our facebook for some posts by a few recent happy shoppers … facebook.com/realpennyauctions). In fact, we just released a new website addressing bugs from the old site and adding new ways to win. We are also developing a suite of auction management tools to allow for more complex bidding strategies, historical review of any ended auction not to mention the great products that we offer!
So Amanda, in response I can say I do feel your pain on the frustration of not winning but I can assure we are not stealing. Our site is 100% legitimate and we look forward to you and your friends visiting our new site (containing a lot of the things you are asking of our old site). In fact, personally let me know how it works for you … send me an email with your username and I’ll give you 10 credits to play around with as a token of good faith!
Thank you,
Sam DeTrent
Chief Technology Officer
Real Penny Auctions
E ~ sam@realpennyauctions.com
REPLY
Amanda
August 12, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Hi Sam,
I am not a registered user of your site, but am concerned that the code may suggest bot bidding. This is not what occurred?
REPLY
RealPennyAuctions.com CTO
August 12, 2011 at 12:28 pm
Amanda,
In the old site (which you are referring to in your example) the developers, while intentions were good, the skill wasn’t quite as good So what appears here to be auto-bidders in your example isn’t what the intended purpose of those numbers was suppose to be. Bad programming lead to the outcome you experienced here. This lack of quality coding is what brought me to RPA.
And again, your article refers to our old site. We have re-coded the entire website, top to bottom and more importantly, we have tested more thoroughly than my predecessors!
So Amanda, no stealing. Bad coding and bad testing. But again, that was our old site … our new site has addressed those issues and is continuing to help build the Live Auction industry along with folks such as yourself. We aim to be an industry leader and want solid credibility in our name and our approach. I do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and I do assure you we are aiming for fairness and great deals for everyone!
Sam
REPLY
Amanda
August 12, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Hi, I am confused. What exactly does this mean? Was that a real bidder or a programmed bot? When was the new site installed? Thanks
REPLY
RealPennyAuctions.com CTO
August 12, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Amanda,
I cannot speak on the old site as that had nothing to do with me. In fact when I took over the reason I had to build a new site from scratch was because old developers wouldn’t allow access to their code.
I really can’t speak to the old site. I will dig around and see what I can uncover.
Per the new site I can attest no auto bots, though we will be implementing a feature in the coming months for users that will allow anyone to assign their own assistant bidders to allow users to bid when they walk away from their computer and they don’t want to lose an item.
Sam
RealPennyAuctions.com CTO
August 12, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Amanda,
I cannot speak on the old site as that had nothing to do with me. In fact when I took over the reason I had to build a new site from scratch was because old developers wouldn’t allow access to their code.
I really can’t speak to the old site. I will dig around and see what I can uncover.
Per the new site I can attest no auto bots, though we will be implementing a feature in the coming months for users that will allow anyone to assign their own assistant bidders to allow users to bid when they walk away from their computer and they don’t want to lose an item.
Sam
Amanda August 13, 2011, 9:53 am
Ok, this information was found on Sunday. This was the old site? Thanks
RealPennyAuctions.com CTO August 13, 2011, 5:26 pm
yes, we relaunched Wednesday of this past week
William August 16, 2011, 10:28 am
Hmm, if it quacks like a duck, etc…, etc…. then it’s not a freakin horse, it’s a DUCK!
Matt September 6, 2011, 5:10 pm
Sounds more like a public relations guy than a programmer. Plus posting the same comment twice? Yeah he’s a PR guy.