www.telebid.com

kenigma

Just to share my experiences so far...

I wasted about £100 initially by bidding on lots of different things before I really understood how the system worked. Left the site for about two months, then decided in a fit of boredom to give it another go. I like a bit of a flutter, and recognised the site for what it is...effectively gambling.

I decided to only bid on things I really wanted, and in a targeted way. I also decided to watch bidding patterns more carefully.

It's very interesting looking at the ended auctions to see what they've gone for and what kind of savings (or losses) people have made.

Most notably, yesterday some poor sap spent £1,800 in bids to get £500 cash.

I'm not sure whether he had just set his BidButler thing too high, or whether he was just chasing his losses thinking "it can't go much higher surely"... But whatever the reason, the auction went on for over 24 hours after it had counted down for the first time and he ended up massively out of pocket. Telebid on the other hand ended up with an about £15,000 profit from it.

So far I've won a cheap digital camera, 300 free bids, an eee pc, some cordless phones and £40 cash. I've spent about £500 I think on bids, so in effect I'm down £100 on the value of the savings I made on the items. I have also got a fair bit of entertainment out of the process, and unlike a fruit machine, actually will have something to show for it (assuming I get my items delivered!).

The digital camera was just luck, the 300 free bids was partially down to the telebid website fortuitously crashing just as the auction ended with my bid the current one...

the eee pc I think was also luck, the cordless phones was luck, and I'd already wasted almost the entire purchase price bidding on another pair. The £40 was a bit of social engineering - it was a "Nailbiter Auction" where BidButlers are not allowed. I made sure I was always the "counting down" bid...and there were a bunch of people bidding at the last second to stop me winning it...I think everyone must have had the same thought at the same time, and on the second or third countdown no-one bid (each presumably thinking someone else would extend the auction for them without having to waste their 50p). Unfortunately that same tactic hasn't worked again...and the nailbiters tend to be more fiercely contested.

I think I'm probably going to cut my losses and stop buying bids now, but I don't exactly regret using the site. I had fun, and did get something to show for it. I can see however that if you're unlucky you can just wind up with having paid hundreds of pounds for the privilege of hitting a button a lot of times...

Caveat Emptor i guess.

TeleGinger

I would also like to add that its not just a person there pressing a bid button they also have a bid buttler that will automatically place/waste your bids for you..I know how this works with auction sniper on Ebay, please people read the help before you dive in, I wont be playing with Telebid anytime soon..
Please see:- Help-> Bidding-> How does BidButtler work?
Those that win good luck you beat the odds, you should be very happy.
Thanks for reading

nullogik

The owners of Telebid are raking it in - I only wished I'd thought of it first...sigh!

stupidfool

As you can guess by my name I wasn't a winner either!
Let me say firstly I AM NOT RICH. I am a housewife with paypal !!!!!!!!!!!
Joined and bought first £5 = bids then £10 = bids then another block and another block and before you knew it I was up to £ 200.
It was fun at first then it became a catch up game, you know, I've already spent £25 so I had better win something and then I will walk away.
Needless to say I never won,
I was going for a fryer, then I seen the watches going for £10/£30, you know the ones worth £900 so I had a go on them, then the laptops too.
When I reached the £200 mark I quit and walked away but not before reading the deliverly notice.
I live in an area they do not post to so I was fuming, wrote an email off and got a reply saying they were in the process of blocking areas on their site (for payment) and that if I won anything they would ship it to me anyway at no extra cost to me.
I did go back on thinking, ha if I win a telly they have to pay for off shore island post £90 odd pound.
I may have been stupid once but not anymore....

This must be a total con, I have looked at the ended lots and most all of them are won by bidbutlers which they themselfs say win most. You sometimes get cheap things won from bids but not alot of the big stuff. I had afew bids left so bid on perfume I hit my bid at 2 secs to go and it came back saying sold and yeap, it was a bidbutler. also lost 3 things topping up bids, to yeap, bidbutlers. I did used bidbutler, but all my bids were used in one go
They must be laughing their heads off on the way to the bank but I think this will catch up with them. the sooner the better.

AngelLaHash

Its an AUCTION so every time you bid you get a GOING GOING GOING GOING for about 15seconds, i guess as so many come from Ebay they leave it to the last second to bid, what mekes the time shoot up to 15Seconds again as the going going going bit again. What puzzels me tho is that ive seen it shoot up to 15min some times

AngelLaHash

Looking at who owns the company
Admin Name: Gunnar Piening
Admin Organization: SoFinA GmbH
Admin Street: Domagkstrasse 34
Admin City: Muenchen
Admin State/Province: BV
Admin Postal Code: 80807
it matches the info on Telebids and the location is a office block and not the middle of know were
Admin Country: DE

AudiS2

The only working principle behind this site is 100% gamble. Here is why.

For telebid it doesn't matter if all auctions were "100% off" meaning the cost of the item is 0. It's just a little less earnings for them as they have to pay for the item, but it is most interesting for players (I am not saying users on purpose). The different auction types are just "games" made to hide the gambling principle.

Since the item is "100% off", the end price is not important in this case. The auction might as well not show it. And the gambling principle becomes obvious immediately.

It is a game of nerves and greed (aka gambling). The only parameter is the timer which is ticking and you are making a decision whether to extend it by bidding 50p or drop out.

Any why some auction end up with the highest bidder paying two three times the price of an item? When they invested money in bids that equaling the price of the item, they keep bidding because if they win they will at least subtract the real cost of the item from the money invested. If they quit then they are at full loss. So they keep bidding. This is the principle of so called "one dollar auction".

The only intelligent decision that can be made is to avoid this type of game.

BigNige

the Gambling Commission will catch up with them eventually. That and the vitriol and hatred that is festering for this site.

Do they not realise that if they consistently rip off the very people they are trying to appeal to, its a one way ticket to nowhere????

vortexring

It's amazing that this site is legal, but I can't see that they are doing anything wrong, you agree to the terms when you sign up. It's an amazing money generating tool for the owners.

I just saw a TomTom 930T sell for £112.42 and it was on a 1p bid augmentation therefore 11242p i.e. 11242 bids at 50p per bid = £5621!!! They made over £5K on a £350 TomTom, unbelievable!!!

I know that fruit machines have to state a payout ratio, I wonder if this website has to comply with any payout ratio?

Yes, the owners are scum as they are praying on vunerable people, and it is a very clever way of drawing people in, even the most sceptical of people can initially be attracted to this site!

logos

I had logged onto the site some months back lured by the prices and the great deals......it seems too good to be true and it was!!!
The first surprise was that you had to pay money to buy bids which did not make sense as you would anyway be paying for the final bid.....
then it was a question of bidding and inspite of defined time limits, the auctions would go on forever as a result you would not end up winning
then they have tools like bidbutler which is only meant to place auctions at the last second thereby prolonging the auction.....
it is addictive and at times many people get so caught up in the entire auction process that you dont know where to draw a line.....it is not unusual to see people paying £20 for an item which is marked £15 only because there is a bidding war going on...disappointing
I burnt through about £100 before i realised that I could not game the system or beat the house and then decided to get out before I lose any more money. realised that i could hve bought something concrete for those £100 instead.....hve decided to never go back.....
the entire site is dodgy, did some research on the net and it is clearly operating in grey areas.....a lot of newspapers called it gambling which is what it actually is
what irks me is the extention to the time limits which only means that more and more people keep bidding without really winning anything....
another interesting thing is that there are some people who clearly hve cracked the system as you will notice from the auction winners. some people win inordinately high number of auctions and the only explanation is that they participate in multiple auctions and stay in front of the auctions 24*7....
anyway, good luck to those who win....personally, i found it a waste of time and money and think people should do their research before they get online.