Buy1get1giftcards.com

[mlschlu]

2/wk and 7/mo seems pretty tight. That site will quickly be "out of sight out of mind" without repeat customers. What are everyone else's thoughts?

I don't know...first they have 10/wk and now 2/wk. There is way too much flex in that. They usually have 4-5 auctions a night. With only 2/wk there is going to be no competition. But the 10/wk was way too high. I think they need to come up with a happy medium.

[nawty]

I think they are working on that........trying to find a happy medium. I think thats why it keeps changing. Being a brand new site, they just need to find a good balance between keeping people happy versus power bidders running new users out.

[dollfunatic]

2/wk and 7/mo seems pretty tight. That site will quickly be "out of sight out of mind" without repeat customers. What are everyone else's thoughts?

I agree with you. I think the win limits are too tight. I thought 3 per week was fair but they didn't even give it a chance. What's with the 7 per month??

[Chocolate]

I stopped bidding on this site because of the lack of win limits. When they enacted win limits, they did not send out a notice, so I and many others would have had no way of knowing, but for fellow PAW member's comments here. I will try them out again, but only after they settle down and pick one set of rules.

[nawty]

Chocolate....give them a shot. Im pretty sure the limits they set last night will stay that way for a while anyway. Ive talked to the owner through email and it was actually my suggestion in the first place that they tighten their limits. I told them with only 2-3 people winning all the time, and most people wouldnt bid against those particular players, they HAD to do something or they were going to go out of business. They set new limits almost right away, and I have seen several new names in there since then. As their user base grows, they will probably relax the limits somewhat, but for now, I think they plan to leave them as they are set.

[mlschlu]

LMAO...they are changed again! Oh boy!

New win limits 2/day, 3/week and 7/month

[nawty]

LMAO...they are changed again! Oh boy!

New win limits 2/day, 3/week and 7/month

Why so funny? They are trying to find a set of limits that works for everyone. Perhaps if you made a suggestion to something you think would work better, it might help? They are very open to new ideas and listen to their customers feedback.

[Chocolate]

i think it is funny too. i hope they send an e-mail when they make up their minds.

[dollfunatic]

Why so funny? They are trying to find a set of limits that works for everyone. Perhaps if you made a suggestion to something you think would work better, it might help? They are very open to new ideas and listen to their customers feedback.

They do listen, Tom is great. I wish they would just go with 3 per week and leave it at that.

[rpgman1]

Funny, I haven't gotten any responses from Tom two days ago after I won an auction. I wanted to get PayPal payout instead of the gift cards since the auction I won has a choice. I'll try again Monday if he still doesn't respond to my e-mails.

[BidMan]

First off, rpgman, I apologize for not getting back to your email quicker. The auctions we posted this past week were supposed to only be for gift cards as we've had a lot of exchanges over the past couple of weeks and we don't want to be stuck with a lot of gift cards. Since the particular auction you won didn't specifically say no exchange I will honor your request. I will get you a payout on Monday before midnight.

To the rest of you... If I've not responded to an email or post something here for you I also apologize. Mikes been sick and I've been on the road and I've been running double-duty trying to keep up with auctions and other duties.

As for the win limits. I know that they changed a couple of times this week and I have to say it was a very positive thing for our site. Since lowering the limits we have add more users this week than we did in the past 4 weeks. A large user base is our lifeblood and will help us to continue to offer more frequent and larger auctions. We had to slow down some power bidders so that others would feel safe to come and give us a try and it worked. The win limits will stay where they are for about another week or so then we will re-evaluate raising them some. I will always keep the win limits clearly posted on the site either in the overhead area or just to the left of the auctions so everyone knows what they are. Everytime I've changed them it was after all of the days auctions had closed. In the future I'll put a note up on our site giving everyone a heads-up that they are changing. I'll also make the change at the end of our week so that it doesn't effect someone's weekly wins.

Thank you for your understanding on this. We are really working hard to make our site fun and enjoyable for EVERYONE. In the near future we will also be adding some first timers auctions. I respectfully ask that you our current user not participate in these auctions.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at our helpdesk email address.

Tom

[nawty]

Funny, I haven't gotten any responses from Tom two days ago after I won an auction. I wanted to get PayPal payout instead of the gift cards since the auction I won has a choice. I'll try again Monday if he still doesn't respond to my e-mails.

actually, from what I can see, the choice isnt offered. It just does not say its NOT allowed?

[rpgman1]

All the other auctions clearly stated gift cards only, no PayPal. Mine doesn't even say that, so I wonder if I can exchange mine for PayPal payout then? I'll find out tomorrow then.

[BidMan]

I made a post last night, but I see it's still not up. So here is another update.

I just got off the phone with PayPal. There official stance is NO cash payouts. They have made it loud and clear that if we continue they will shut off our PayPal account. I told them I had a couple of outstanding cash payouts to make and they told me that I can make those last couple then NO MORE.

So our official policy is from 6/28/2010 there will be no more cash PayPal payouts. They even told me they frown on e-cards, but don't forbid them. We will continue to offer e-cards on a limited basis. If you don't see it as an option in an auction item, then it's not an option.

rpgman, You are one of the last to get a PayPal payout.

Tom

[rpgman1]

Thank you so much Tom. Never thought PayPal will be this adamant on cash payouts. Guess you can only auction off gift cards, even e-cards. Why are they being this harsh on cash payouts when other sites are doing the same thing? Only a few sites completely give up on PayPal as a payment gateway since PayPal seems to make excuses toward other PA sites.

[nawty]

Another site I am on has it posted that they cannot do payouts through Paypal either, because spending money to win money is considered gambling. I suppose they see it the same way on this.

[BidMan]

Rpgman1, I'll go with they consider it gambling although I was very polite and didn't push the issue because I didn't want them to turn off our account 100% since so many people know/trust PayPal as a payment processor.

I was told by the person that wrote our script to be ready for PayPal to 100% pull the plug on us as a payment option. The lady that called me at 8:23am was very polite and told me as long as we are mailing out product they will leave us alone and continue to process our payments. I probably called some attention to ourselves last week when we had an issue with the volume of outgoing monies. But, that being what it is.... We will march forward. Please bid on gift cards based on there values not the store/resturaunts name. We will still gladly change out the card for another brand if you let us know before it's shipped. That at this point is the best we can do.

Now for another topic of much interest! If our user base continues to grow as it has over the last week our win limits will relax a bit probably sooner than I wrote before. We are working very hard to hit a happy median of limits that isn't to restrictive, but keeps it fun for everyone. We are open to your ideas. My personal opinion is with 10 auctions/day we could have a limit of 2-3/day with a weekly limit of 7ish/week and a monthly limit maybe around 20/month. As the auctions increase so will the limits in some porportion. As I said before, we are open to your opinions on this. We have been trying to make our site fun and not get bogged down with making rules. I'm not sure, but I think a couple of people might not have liked the limits lowering so fast, but it was to the point of change it NOW or close the door. I think that we had a very positive effect on growing our base. We nearly doubled our users in the past 10 days. Now if a good portion of them will come play regularly we'll quickly raise the auction $$$$'s and ####'s of them.

[rpgman1]

I haven't received my PayPal payment yet, but I know it will be the last one from your site. I wonder if PayPal will go after other PA sites if money is the auction item (BF, B4C, ETWA, L2B, and PA.ca are examples). Must be the increase in fraudulent activities from bad PA sites.

That's nice to exchange gift cards for others of the same value. Have you been thinking about what other payment processors you can use for your site?

[BidMan]

Just my opinion... If we our PayPal account was older maybe we would have skated by, but I was told that they had been doing a review of our account, I'm thinking that's a normal review process on new business accounts and they saw the large sums going out and that threw a RED FLAG for them.

I'm just about to process your payout now. I don't want to wait since I was given clearance by them to do the last couple. Don't want that window to close on me before they're done.

Thank you everyone that's been waiting on a payout for your patients as I've worked through this issue. I'm sorry that we can't continue it, but I'd rather lose that than get shut off by PayPal.

And yes we have been in talks with other processors, but that's not an easy task and in the tight credit market there have been larger flaming hurdles put in place to opening a merchant credit account. They also consider PA sites high risk. In fact they put us in the same risk category as a porn site. I'm not comfortable being associated with that calliber of website. But we will continue to investigate other options.

For now we will do exchanges on all auctions!

Tom

[rpgman1]

Ouch, being grouped in as a porn site? How is it high risk since all they do is charge weekly, monthly, or yearly fees? PA sites are just like auction sites and I think PayPal/eBay is jealous of the fact that PA sites are becoming more popular and taking away eBay's customer base. I think PayPal is just being in its own self interest like any other corporation.

[BidMan]

Just my opinion so take it for what it's worth...

I believe (might be wrong) that it has to do with fradualent charges (stolen CC's being used) and high chargeback ratio of SOME auction sites. As in the known/suspect scammers! And, PayPal protecting the mother-company eBay.

At this point I'm frozen in my seat for fear of causing a ripple with the boat and attracting to much attention again. Actually I think we will be left alone and we'll just march forward.

I'm with you, after being told we were high-risk like porn sites I felt like I needed to take a shower to wash the dirty feeling away!

Tom

[rpgman1]

PayPal is protecting their own interests and we can't deny that fact. I can understand fraud and chargeback because many scam PA sites just take the money while the bidders must recover their money from those sites. I think PayPal will just leave you alone if you continue to auction off your gift cards.

[rpgman1]

Ooh, you have a Chik-fil-A gift card and a iTunes gift card combo pack. My brother loves to eat out at Chik-fil-A. As for me, I'm bitter that they wouldn't hire me after filling out their application. You know, you could just put your bid packs up for auction at Pognu. People tend to buy bid packs there at low prices. You just determine how low your bid pack price will go.

[BidMan]

Just wanted to let you know that we at buy1get1giftcards.com are posting a charity auction item later this week. The money raised will be sent to an orginization that sends cellphones and phone cards to wounded soliders servering in Iraq and Afghanistan so they can contact their families. Mike (buy1get1giftcards.com co-founder) servered in Iraq for 15 months so he has seen the great work that this group does. Check out our site over the weekend and we hope everyone will help us raise money for this very important group. All the details will be in the auction item detail.

Happy bidding everyone!

Tom
www.buy1get1giftcards.com

[nawty]

If anyone wanted to, could we also just make a Paypal donation to you for the cards also ?

[BidMan]

Nawty,

If you wanted to do that we would gladly accept that and pass it along. I might recommend sending it closer to the time/date the auction closes.

Thank you in advance to everyone's support on this auction.

Tom M.

[scottyboys]

Great site, great service, I bid with the free bids and won a GC not often that happens. Thanks Again.
Scott

[BidMan]

Scott,

I hope you enjoy your winnings and we hope you remain a guest at our site for a long time! I see you got your cards today in the mail. Congratulations on the win!!!

Tom

[BidMan]

I'm sorry but I've been bogged down a little the past two weeks and I didn't get this posted yesterday. As you all problably know by now we don't have any auctions running tonight (except the charity auction). Mike has been out sick and taking care of other personal issues the past 10 days or so and it has run me a little tired trying to keep up on the server and running auctions. I had to take a day off to get caught up on shipping out cards and taking care of the database on our server. We will be running auctions Saturday July 3rd, in fact I'm about to post them now. I will also be posting auctions for Monday as well tonight. Buy1Get1GiftCards will not have any auctions close on July 4th. There are two reasons for this. First and foremost it is a very important holiday for our country and secondly most of you will probably be spending time out at the grill, lake, family gathering you name it and most likely won't be in front of your computers to auction anyways. The auctions that will close Monday will be live so you can bid if you like, but they won't close till Monday night.

One other order of business. While Mike is out of the loop I will ask for your patients in my ability to ship gift cards. I will be shipping only once per week instead of our goal of twice per week. This will free me up to take care of other needed business to keep our site running as it should. Once Mike is back in the loop we will resume our normal shipping schedule.

Thank you everyone and hope everyone has a enjoyable safe 4th of July!

Tom
www.buy1get1giftcards.com

PS. I will be starting a new seperate email address to handle gift card swaps. So when you win an auction please look for the new address to let me know if you want something different than what's listed in the auction. Best policy would be to still make your selection in PayPal when checking out and then forward your PayPal reciept to the new address. Look for it in the item description. And as always if you have any questions feel free to contact the helpdesk address.

[rpgman1]

Guess it is too much work for one person to handle. I think most people will be gone on July 4th anyway. However, there are still some people that are willing to bid on the holidays. Watching the nightly news made it worse since people are predicting a "double-dip" recession. Now, it is even harder for me to find a job during this period.

People will still flock to your site to win those gift cards for those special occasions. Wish I could do something to help you, but seeking out for a job is my top priority (if I can even find one).

[Racingbroker]

I just wanted to drop in and say thanks!!
I received my wins already & you guys are doing a fine job!!
That was SUPER FAST SHIPPING & Top Notch Customer Service!!!
Glad you are here and I love your site!!
I hope you are around for a long time!!
Thanks Again!!

Racingbroker

[BidMan]

Rpgman, Best of luck with the job search, I know it's tough right now for everyone.

I for one want to just relax and remember that we are a free nation because the courage of many on the 4th of July. That is the main reason no auctions are closing tomorrow night.

Also, to everyone else I'd like to encourage everyone to take a look at the auction that is set to close on Tuesday night. Although it's not our typical B1G1 gift card combo I think in light summer months and lots of people driving this year for vacation it's a very fitting auction.

If you're already a registered user you'll be getting an email in the next few hours highlighting some of our bigger auctions coming over the next couple of weeks.

Yes, that's right our user base has grown and now so must our offerings. At our current pace of growth our win limits will be relaxed slightly either at the end of our bidding week (next Saturday) or the following week.

Thank you everyone that's email your encouragement!

As always if you have any questions feel free to email us at our helpdesk address.

Tom
www.buy1get1giftcards.com

[rpgman1]

I think I might end up working at my university library next month. Can't find any other job at my local computer retailers and fast food chains. I want to finish my college courses (still have 15 semester hours left) and just get my bachelor's degree. Yes, even a degree won't help me find a job in this recession.

I still do my hobby of PC maintenance, repairs, and upgrades. You can't take away a part of what I love to do in my free time (which is a lot).

[Racingbroker]

Just want to drop in and say thanks!! You guys are great! You have wonderful customer service and super fast shipping & I
hope you guys are around a long time and continue to grow!!
Wishing You Guys The Best!!
Happy 4th!! Have Some Fun!! Enjoy It!!
Mike, Thanks For Serving Our Country!!

Hug A Vet On Independence Day!!

Racing...aka...2Tuff2Tame

[BidMan]

We have a TomTom 335-M navigation GPS closing tomorrow night. This also includes a $25 gas card. If this auction is well recieved we will being at least one of these per week.

Thanks everyone that stopped by tonight to auction! Hope to see you back tomorrow night.

Tom

[nawty]

hey guys....there is a charity auction coming up thats really for a great cause. If you havent already bid or even signed up for the site, please think about doing so? The auction ends in just over4 hours.

Buy1Get1GiftCards.com

[BidMan]

Just want to post that starting tomorrow, July 13th 2010 we will be running more auctions per day and the win limits will be relaxed just a tad.

We will be running auctions from 12pm to 9pm (eastern time). If you haven't been by in a while come by and take a look!

Tom

[nawty]

Nice!!!......alot more to choose from today

[bunzer]

What a great job this site is doing!!! Have you seen all the cards listed for today?? Get out there and buy some bids! I am at my limit for the week, so unfortunately can't bid again until next week Leaves plenty of room for some new people to jump on. The shipping is really fast, I have gotten my cards the same week and some the following week from winning! Much better than many sites out there that you wait forever to get cards. Good luck to everyone, go get some great deals from this site

[BidMan]

Ok, as many of you have already seen we're working overtime at getting more auctions posted thourghout the day. If you haven't been by in a while you better stop over and see for yourself!

Ok, I need a little feedback from you guys here at PAW. As you all know we radically lowered the win limits about 3 weeks ago and in doing so nearly doubled our user base in about 5 days. Now that we're posting more auctions what do you feel are a fair win limits. Currently 3/day 4/week and 10/month. I'm tempted to get rid of the monthly limit all together and just have daily and weekly limits. I'm sure 4/week is to low, but I need a users perspective on this. I know the big PB's want no limits and the more normal bidders like the limits so they also have a chance.

Let me hear from you guys, please.

Tom

I'm going to busy like a beaver this week shipping so if I don't respond to emails right away I'm working as fast as I can to get out your auction winnings. It's been hard with Mike out of the loop moving, but he should be settled and back online with me within a week, I hope!