Bidrivals.com

shakes88

Hi,

Has anyone used bidrivals.com? Is it legit and has anyone actually won and received their goods?

The site is obviously making a fortune and everyone except the winning bidder loses and potentially quite a lot of money.

Any and all thoughts welcome please.

Cheers
Dark

cyberbob

The only winners are the site

iieee

No, but I've heard really good things about pleasepaymelotsofmoneythisisntmyownwebsitehonestguv.com, have you looked there?

emby

iieee wrote: »

No, but I've heard really good things about pleasepaymelotsofmoneythisisntmyownwebsitehonestguv.com, have you looked there?

Oh you old cynic you

macfly

I'm disgusted that sites like this are permitted to advertise on tv. You can't smoke at a bus stop but you can rip people off.

steven_garner

macfly wrote: »

I'm disgusted that sites like this are permitted to advertise on tv. You can't smoke at a bus stop but you can rip people off.

I bet the Directors of the website come up with ideas to rip people off while smoking at a bus stop... ba*rstads.

emerald_starcat

Is this the spam of the day thread?

shaftingham

If any of you are in ANY doubt about this Bidrivals scam (I have only had experience with this 'auction' site but I guess others are similar) let me explain what I saw in 5 hours there!

Sorry for the long post but you should REALLY read it before ever using one of these 'auction' sites!

OK, I am on Quidco and see a cashback of £35 for buying £17.50 or more of 'bids' for joining Bidrivals. I check it out, and think OK I can't lose, so I join and pay £21 for 50 'bids' via Paypal.

I observe for a while; there is a link to 'live' auctions that are in process or shortly to begin. This link contains a page of thumbnails with item photos. At the top are the 'hook' items such as iPod, iPad and other electricals like a PS3. These auctions have been going on for hours. After them, are Amazon gift cards of £15 or £10 in value, £10 multistore giftcards (can be redeemed in Boots, WH Smiths etc,) and also PACKETS OF 30/50/100/200 'BIDS'.....

Right, let me explain that to buy 'bids' the price is 42p each, so as you can see I got 50 for my £21. Each bid you use increases the price (which always starts at 1p or 1 of your local currency unit) by 1p and adds 15 seconds to the auction.

Secondly, you can buy-it-now on any item you bid on, except gift cards** and the price is reduced if you lose the auction by up to 100% of the value of bids you spent if losing the auction (which you WILL but I'll come to that!)

Example: Subscription to National Geographic £39.95. Starts at 1p, I bid 20 times, either manually or using 'BidAgent' which you can program to bid automatically for you - in this case I could have set it up to bid 20 times before I either quit or 'won' (hahaha)

OK, surprise surprise I 'lose' the auction, and I have thus spent £8.40 on my 20 bids. I either lose this or use the buy-it-now and get 100% of my bid value back, thus getting the subscription for £31.55 plus £2 'costs' £33.55.....

Fine, you think. NO! and I'll explain why. On the 'hook' items such as a 64GB 3G iPad you can ONLY redeem 25% OF YOUR LOSING BID VALUE and when I explain how much it costs to 'win' such an item you'll see what a fiendishly clever money creaming operation it is!

The retail price of this iPad is £699 approx. They have it at £729 for buy-it-now. After 5 hours of observing, the iPad had reached £68.76 at their 'acution'. At 42p a bid, starting at 1p, this is 6875 bids thus the iPad has raised revenue to them of £2887.50 so far (I fell asleep at this point.) *REMEMBER IF YOU BID AND LOST ON THIS YOU WOULD ONLY GET A MAXIMUM OF 25% OFF THE £729 IF YOU B-I-N SO IF YOU WERE HOOKED IN AND SAY MADE 1000 BIDS (£420) you would only get £181 OFF THE PRICE ON B-I-N THUS PAYING £958 PLUS TRANSIT!!!!!!!!!!!!

Therefore the 'desirable' items which attract thousands in bids have little or no opportunity for you to get any money back. You either lose your bids for nowt, or end up paying over-the-odds for something you may not want, overpriced, just to avoid the feeling of loss....:mad::mad:

So, you realize quite fast, with a sinking feeling, that your money has been wasted. So, you try to escape by buying a gift card say, for £10. You think that even if it costs 13 bids, about £10, at least you get your money back! Think again.......YOU DON'T GET BUY-IT-NOW ON GIFT CARDS NOR DO YOU GET CASHBACK FOR YOUR LOSING BIDS TO OFFSET AGAINST THE GIFTCARD PRICE IF YOU DON'T WIN IT!!!! So you bid......

(This is where it all gets highly suspicious.)

You get the page of thumbnails 'live auctions' up, seeing what price all the items are on, as they all have little clocks on with the current live bids and prices. You see that an Amazon £10 gift card has just sold for 3p!! Brilliant, you think, 42 or 84p can get me a £10 gift card. So you click on the next Amazon giftcard due to start auction in 30 seconds say.

Sure enough, it's on 1p. Amazingly, now you've got the window open, 2 'bidders' on BidAgent suddenly materialize. You don't bid, but watch in disbelief as a bidding war starts between the 2, and the price rises to 71p (70 bids x 42p = £29.40) so each 'genuine' (sorry, shill bidder) has suddenly decided to pay at least £14-15 for a £10 giftcard.........

Still not wanting to believe you've been scammed, you work this out for yourself and when it says 'going once, going twice' you put in a manual bid thinking in no way would the 'bidders' want to spend more than the item is worth. GUESS WHAT! You will be outbid, and suddenly one of the 'bidAgent' bidders will drop out and you'll find yourself bidding against the other one. And you will NOT win the item for a few bids, say 10 bids = £4.20 - the other 'bidder' will go and go until you too spend far more than the card is worth or run out of bids. Then, even if you DID 'win' it there is £2 to post it to you..... within 21 days.

Last resort, you look for a low value item (say 20-30 pounds) which has 100% redeemable bids against the B-I-N price if you lose the auction. ANYTHING to get my cash back! But, these auctions are few and far between, and the item is usually tat or very overpriced. Just write your losses off and get out!

IN CONCLUSION:

*Items are overpriced.
*There is clearly shill bidding.
*There is no buy-it-now on any items that can give you a break- even 'get out' like gift cards.
*The software is clearly aware when you OPEN an item and watch it: the 3p final price items always occur on the thumbnails..
*It is simply a way of the site buying an item for x and selling it from 2-10 times x

The sites are based abroad, this one in Malta. I don't believe they would be allowed here, as they are basically online 'fly auctions' which are illegal in the UK. It is like a gambling site without a licence - stake your cash for a slim-zero chance of gaining value on it. Will you be the 'lucky' bidder allowed to 'win' an item under cost? I don't think so! If a reputable site like eBay saw 'bidding' patterns like I saw the bidders' account would be suspended in minutes.

AVOID!!!!!