Bidrivals is evil

I've noticed ads for Bidrivals appearing here. This is an auction site that is basically a Swoopo clone and seems to be just as efficient at separating bidders from their money. Read Jonah Lehrer if you haven't heard of Swoopo.

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I find it annoying how many of the posters on that thread are shills for other similar sites. At least anyone with a couple of brain cells can tell that they are.

Never had the urge to gamble, I always find it an unpleasant experience even if I win. Similarly, if there's something I want on ebay, I just wait until the auction's nearly done and if it's not overpriced, I put in my bid in the last few seconds. If I get it, I get it, if I don't, I forget about it. I stopped getting into a bidding wars after I realized it didn't profit me at all.

We should do a dollar auction. I put up a dollar, minimum bid is 25 cents, there has to be at least 2 bids, and I keep the top 2 bids, but the dollar only goes to the winning bidder.

It's an amazing deal.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 27 Oct 2009 #permalink

And, frankly, I won't have this dollar available long. Getting a deal like this is like sticking one in the eye of jerks like swoopo and bid rivals who just want to rip you off and think you're idiots.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 27 Oct 2009 #permalink

Marion, you're on, with two teeny, tiny rule additions:
- bidders must reside in my apartment
- auctions repeat until a simple majority votes to end them

Don't worry, my wife and I promise not to bankrupt you too much.

Sorry, last minute modifications like that wouldn't be fair to the other bidders!

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 28 Oct 2009 #permalink

Also, just to clarify, I'm only offering up one US dollar for bid. So bid wisely, since that's all the winning bid will purchase.

By Marion Delgado (not verified) on 28 Oct 2009 #permalink

If you use your bids to buy the product at RRP price it's definitely not gambling... and if you use a coupon code and buy a big pack (getting bonus bids) your final price even if you don't win may be less than RRP:
Some coupon codes, only work once and some are expired: FBG12, PLM100, NKU10, PLM93...

By QuertyTech (not verified) on 30 Dec 2009 #permalink

Actually, Bidrival isn't a scam, but is something that require luck over anything else.

First, yeah you might win an item for 1/10 of the RRP.

BUT you'll need to pay for EACH bid you'll make. So if you have to bid 100 times, it mean it cost you (in Canadian Dollars) 90$ of bids.
AND this isn't about who stay on the screen the longer, but is about who got the most money put in the BidAgent since the BidAgent will automaticly bid every 4 secs. People might say "So, I just need to wait for the time to reach 0 sec", but that's where the trick is. As soon as the timer reach 0, it will reset to 15 sec because a BidAgent will automaticly bid. (Try to find a bid that doesn't add 15 sec at the last 0 sec. You won't find any)
Now, how can people work it out without paying hundred of dollars in bid credits? They need to bid for a bigger amount than EVERY BidAgent or they need to bid as EVERY BidAgent doesn't have any credits left for the item.

That's said... you got as much chances as a high chance lotery instead of getting the good timing. And you need to calculate both the prices and hope people haven't been crazy to put 75-90% of the actual RRP while the bid incrediment is 0,01$. (For exemple, a newly release game which cost 59,99$, people might put a bidAgent so that both the cost of the bids and the price of item combined shouldn't reach the actuall RRP price of the item. So people might have put around 40-50 bid credits and a top price of 10$ on the item.)

Now you see how unthrusty and scary that thing is. It's not Evil, but it's quite "out of human league" since bot called BidAgent are allowed there.

By dono-sama (not verified) on 04 Mar 2010 #permalink