Is this a good site?

carcuscrae

Not sure if this is the place to post this but as this is the board I read the most I thought i'd stick it here and if its wrong the mods will put it where it should be.

Basically has anyone seen this site or used it before?

Looks like a good opportunity to get some great items for a small outlay, similar to those how low auctions you hear about on TalkSport.

You could even get a car for effectively £5.01!!

https://www.auctionsinreverse.com

Anyone got any comments?

redfox

moving to the ebay and other auctions board

vultura

Surely the chance of actually "winning" such auctions is low, since you have to guess an amount and be the closest to the amount set by the "seller".

Plus the "sellers" potentially make a lot more money than a normally auction. For example lot No 00013 (Sony Vaio laptop) which has a bid limit of 5000 at £1.00 each or lot No 00085 (Motorola Sim Free Razor V3) which has a bid limit of 850 at £1.00 each.

Hintza

Its a lottery as far as I can see....

soolin

Hintza I agree, this is more gambling than an auction and I don't much like the odds!

Soo

vultura

As an aside I have already seen a this type of auction on eBay, as I recall it was for a Sony PS2.

angelcake

So you have to pay to place a bid?

carcuscrae

vultura wrote:

Surely the chance of actually "winning" such auctions is low, since you have to guess an amount and be the closest to the amount set by the "seller".

Plus the "sellers" potentially make a lot more money than a normally auction. For example lot No 00013 (Sony Vaio laptop) which has a bid limit of 5000 at £1.00 each or lot No 00085 (Motorola Sim Free Razor V3) which has a bid limit of 850 at £1.00 each.

I don't think the seller has set any amounts, as far as I understand it you place a bid by guessing what you think the lowest unequalled bid will be so if no one else bids what you bid and yours is the lowest you win the item for that amount. Its just like the ones that happen on talksport but those ones you have to enter via a text message which costs £1.50.

I agree the sellers do make a good mark up but there are a couple of things to think about. Firstly you know there is only a limited amount of bids accepted on each auction, the ones on TalkSport could have millions of bids each of £1.50. (Imagine the mark up they are making!) Secondly if you win the item you could potentially win it for 1p, now for a laptop that would cost around £2000 thats quite good isn't it?

Personally I think its worth the odd £1 to have a go, not sure about the higher cost auctions but there again the odds of having the lowest bid is better on those. For example the Laptop, No 13, you have a 1 in 5000 on the £1 bid, a 1 in 850 in the £5 bid, 1 in 425 in the £10 and 1 in 150 on the £25. Anyway certainly better odds than the ones being run on TalkSport (see link below)

https://www.talksport.net/competitions

vultura

angelcake wrote:

So you have to pay to place a bid?

Yes, angelcake.

In effect you are purchasing a chance to win, not to purchase the item as would be the case in a normal auction.

vultura

carcuscrae wrote:

I don't think the seller has set any amounts, as far as I understand it you place a bid by guessing what you think the lowest unequalled bid will be so if no one else bids what you bid and yours is the lowest you win the item for that amount. Its just like the ones that happen on talksport but those ones you have to enter via a text message which costs £1.50.

I agree the sellers do make a good mark up but there are a couple of things to think about. Firstly you know there is only a limited amount of bids accepted on each auction, the ones on TalkSport could have millions of bids each of £1.50. (Imagine the mark up they are making!) Secondly if you win the item you could potentially win it for 1p, now for a laptop that would cost around £2000 thats quite good isn't it?

Personally I think its worth the odd £1 to have a go, not sure about the higher cost auctions but there again the odds of having the lowest bid is better on those. For example the Laptop, No 13, you have a 1 in 5000 on the £1 bid, a 1 in 850 in the £5 bid, 1 in 425 in the £10 and 1 in 150 on the £25. Anyway certainly better odds than the ones being run on TalkSport (see link below)

https://www.talksport.net/competitions

Whats to stop someone setting the winning value, then passing it to a "friend"? Said "friend" makes a bid exactly on that amount. They would make the money and still have the item....

At least with the talksport or other "auctions" of this type (seen on music TV channels), you can assume its above board and being run in an unbiased fashion.

Don't get me wrong if someone wins a decent item and only risked £1, then its worth it, but for me I'd need to have assurance that everything was above board and the "seller" wasn't making a huge profit in doing it.

Billy_Whizz_4

vultura wrote:

Whats to stop someone setting the winning value, then passing it to a "friend"? Said "friend" makes a bid exactly on that amount. They would make the money and still have the item....

At least with the talksport or other "auctions" of this type (seen on music TV channels), you can assume its above board and being run in an unbiased fashion.

Don't get me wrong if someone wins a decent item and only risked £1, then its worth it, but for me I'd need to have assurance that everything was above board and the "seller" wasn't making a huge profit in doing it.

What makes you think that the ones on this site are not above board? Surely there is as much chance of the ones on TalkSport being won in the same way as you are suggesting as could be done on this site. Why would you assume the TalkSport ones are unbiased and this one isn't?
The ones on TalkSport you send a bid amount to a text number costing £1.50, the ones on this site you send via an e-mail and it costs you £1.00. After that you sit back and wait. I can't see how either method could be more unbaised than the other.

As for the "seller" making huge profits, i'd imagine the ones on TalkSport make far more money than the ones on this site. On this site you can work out roughly how much they make due to the bid limit but on the TalkSport ones there is no indication to how many bids can be made on each auction. So in theory if they auctioned a similar item on the TalkSport ones they could be making 10 times the profit than is made by the "seller" on this site.