www.telebid.com

jay25mcr

What really gets me about this site is that after you win the "Auction" you still have to pay for the item and delivery!

Rubbing Salt in the Wound really for a company that makes ridiculously large amounts of money for items that would be cheaper to buy on ebay.

At least ebay doest charge you 50p a pop, lol.

I suppose many months back it would have been possible to grab a bargain but 6months on with all the FreeBid vouchers won on auction its impossible to tell if your competing against a user who has over 900 FreeBids on their account and who sets up a BidButler to bid up to £1000 using 500 bids.

Thats where it gets completely pointless bidding because unless your willing to waste that many bids on 1 item, you have no chance of winning.

The most frustrating part i'd imagine for many users is that if you do set up a BidButler for say 100 bids and another user sets up one for 110 bids then you just lost £50 with nothing to show for it.

In my book thats Gambling and not "eCommerce" as the site prefers to be refered as, :P

Personally i can't see this site lasting long. It's been in gemany for about a year and the bad reviews massively outweigh the good reviews now because people who came in to win a bargin actually left £1000's in losses.

HannaHoRana

It's funny actually, reading all the negative comments on here.

I guess telebid is a rip off charging 50 pence per pop.

I've just recently found a site very similar to telebid's called www.grababid.com

I've worked out that their bids are about 25 pence (50 cents is equal to 25 pence?)

Might as well make use of the weak dollar!

annievtaylor

To avoid the time jumping up after every bid...Only ever bid on "nailbiter" auctions...then the last bidder wins. I quite happily used 20 bids and won a Viera Hd tv worth bundles for £60. I dont care how much telebid make on things as long as i can punt and win a bargain occassionally. Got the goods...fantastic and as described.

Haggis2008

There are a lot of things that this site doesn't make clear so beware.

If the item that you win is out of stock they can offer you an alternative worth less than the item you won. If you are not happy then they will refunded you're final price but not the bids you used to win the item.

If after winning the item you have any unused bids then they will either refuse to refund these or if you push them they will refund but charge you £5.00.

This what has happened to me and I now have to take them to the small claims court to get my money back.

pkc_2

Its a known fact that a lot of this sites have automated bidding.

eg.. 1st bid when site opens is from xyz... all day long the same use is bidding right until the site closes.. Nobody would sit on an auction site for that many hours... unless they had some automatic system running.. futhermore the cost would be more than what you are bidding on.

All of these have been bidding on more than 1 item (300 free bids) most of the day. Either have a lot of spare cash or work for the company.

£101.64 Modarc Single bid
£101.57 Carpcatcher Single bid
£101.50 Fridel BidButler
£101.43 Mmcgavigan BidButler
£101.36 Fridel BidButler
£101.29 Mmcgavigan BidButler
£101.22 Fridel BidButler
£101.15 Mmcgavigan BidButler
£101.08 Fridel BidButler
£101.01 Mmcgavigan BidButle


DO NOT ENTERTAIN SUCH SITES... REMEMBER IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT NORMALLY IS...

pkc_2

chum_2000_uk wrote: »

Nope, thats not how it works... you would only pay for your bids and the final auction price. However you would be extremely lucky to win with one bid!

Or less than 20 bids....

pkc_2

BigNige wrote: »

The bottom line is that telebid is not an auction site. It is a gaming/ gambling site and most likely will fall foul of the Gambling Commission before too long

Its not a uk company so would not come under the uk law.. its a german company I believe..

eifzzz

I think i was a victim of a telebid friend pushing up the prices of a playstation 3 this morning, which was a bit annoying, the guy kept on bidding non-stop! Generally when you type the username of a bidder into google, the past auction wins come up for that specific user, and for this guy there was nothing, but he was bidding as though he had tonnes of bids to burn.

I eventually won the auction, but I'm a bit cheesed off that the price was pushed up.

Although after saying that, he/she may have been an inexpeirienced bidder, but the price pushing must be happening on few of the auctions.

bigbloke45

I think it must be Gordon Brown running this venture. It sounds so much like one of his tax simplification ideas!

dogdatadot

robfosters wrote: »

As with all gambling, only risk what you can afford to lose.

Well said.

I looked at the site last night as a friend won an auction and I'd never heard of it before. I was cautious as soon as I read that you have to pay to place bids and, of course, everyone knows that placing a bid doesn't mean you're going to win it! I immediately thought I can't afford to buy many bids without a guarantee of winning something so I've only bought £5 worth and had a little go last night - no luck so far but I'll use the few bids I have left and won't buy more as I can't afford to lose money.

One thing in the site's favour - you can't bid without having already bought bids so they're not allowing folk to rack up debt by making bids that they then have to pay for.

As for extending auctions every time a bid's placed in the last few seconds - that's how auction houses work. It's just that we've become so used to Ebay closing auctions at a certain time but that's not how auctions work in the real world.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Telebid as I don't like things that prey on folks' greed but, as long as you only spend an amount that you can afford to lose on buying bids then it's up to you. As for preying on those who can't afford it, I don't see that that can be as bad an issue as folk maybe think as you HAVE to have money to buy the bids in the first place and if you're on as little an income as me, you won't have it nor would you likely be looking to spend what little you have on unnecessary, luxury electrical items.

I can see that it could be dangerous though at suckering folk in but more likely those that do have some disposable income to spend. As for having 'stooges' bet, I'm unsure. They may have but might not need it as people's greed usually comes to the fore if they think they're going to get a bargain. Personally though, I'm more worried about high street shops like Bright House etc. who, IMHO, do prey on the poor by giving credit at extortionate rates but, then, that's a whole other thread.