The question simply is, "Is Quibids a Scam site?". Tied into this question is, "Can you make money on this site?" The simple answer to these questions is "NO".
The reason that I say that QuiBids is not a scam site is that they lay out what is going on and what you need to do pretty clearly on the site. In other words it is more of a matter of buyer beware. If you do not at least read their rules, warnings, and advice that they put on their site, you will more than likely lose more money than you win.
As for the answer of "NO" as to whether or not you can make money on this site, the answer is a little more complicated and is tied to whether or not you really know what you are doing.
Before you start bidding you need to know and understand that QuiBids is simply what is known as a "penny auction site". A penny auction site is "A bidding fee auction, also called a penny auction, is a type of all-pay auction in which all participants must pay a non-refundable fee to place each small incremental bid." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bidding_fee_auction)
That means to you that this is not a normal auction. Normal auctions you pay what you bid. If you bid one penny, you pay one penny. In Quibids, if you bid one penny your actually paying $0.60. What that means is if you bid a total of $1.00, you actually bid $60.00. Changes things a little bit, doesn't it?
The auction, which you can find at this link, (CLICK HERE), is the result of a real auction I actually participated in, and did not win. There were 131 bids actually placed. Each bid appears as $0.01, hence the $1.31 auction value that "slewis1152" won.
On the surface this looks like a good deal, and most people's reactions would be, boy, I would like to get a piece of that. That is what QuiBids wants you to feel. Once they got you bidding against a faceless adversary, they got you hooked.
There are several things you must realize when you bid in a Quibids auction and the one I want to key on today is, "Who, or what, are you bidding against? Are you actually even bidding against a real person? could you be bidding against Quibids itself?" These are questions you need to consider if you are going to participate.
Take this auction for instance. There were four of us bidding, I am not on there because I decided to stop bidding to see what would happen in this auction. The top bidder under the bidding history, "slewis1152" was the last one to bid, and the winner.
In this auction, I bid 30 bids. "slewis1152" bid 57 bids. That means out of the 131 bids, between the two of us there were 87 bids made. Therefore 44 bids were made between the other two bidders, and "moeandmoe4me", one of the bidders probably made less than 10.
First of all, on the surface it looks like "slewis1152" made a good deal, in reality he/she spent $34.20 to win a $25.00 gift card. This bidder also did win 25 "voucher bids" with a "QuiBid" value of $15.00, but you can only spend them on the QuiBid site. It also cost this bidder $1.31 to claim the "winnings". In reality "slewis1152" spent $35.51 and walked away from this auction with an item worth in the real world only $25.00.
My question at this point is why did the other two bidders all of a sudden drop out when I quit bidding. There were only 9 more bids made and mysteriously the auction ended. My question is why?
Was I bidding against "BOTS", not real bidders, in order to get me to spend money. I say this because there is no logical reason why the other two would just drop out. The one bidder spent around 10 bids or about $6.00. The other spent around $20.00. Then BOTH of them just quit bidding. Again, my question is why?
I base my suspicions on my observations of hundreds and hundreds of auctions over the last several years. Two things happen consistently. Only a few bidders bid, and the auction ends early, like this one did. You have an Item valued at $40.00 and it looks like someone won it for something like $1.31.
Or, you start bidding from the beginning of the auction and you bid tit for tat with one or two, or so, other bidders until you bid the item up to the limit that they allow you to bid, and your prevented from making another bid. Mysteriously, once again the other bidders drop out after only a few more bids. Why? I was bidding against multiple bidders up to the limit I am aloud to bid and all of the sudden everyone simply drop out several bids after I can no longer bid!!
At this point you have two choices. You can walk away from the auction, which they would prefer you would do. The reason they prefer you do this is because you in an auction like this one you already spent $39.60 for an item they have valued at $40.00.
But, $15.00 of it are actually of no value to you except in another Quibid auction. If you use the "Buy Now" button to claim the item, in this auction it will cost you and additional $1.31. That means you end up with a $25.00 Walmart gift card that cost you $40.91. Unless you really like gambling, this is not a very good value for the money you just spent.
(http://www.quibids.com/)
http://www.quibids.com/en/auction-755520311US-C2682-25-walmart-gift-card?pp=2682,1771,1778,2924,3524,3525,3553,5548,5551,6616,6851,11842,106966,107056,107086,158436,170811,276041,8591,1457,1741,2269,4852,7875,107161,166161,8591#)
