www.telebid.com

RadoJo

new2business wrote: »

I didnt really want to post this as my first post on here but after reading the telebid comments I thought I would as why is everyone saying it is a rip off, it's like every other 'gambling site' you take a chance and if you win then yippee and if you lose then tuff luck. I never win the jackpot on a fruit machine I play down the pub but I dont call them a rip off. I know on telebid it is quite hard to win stuff but the chance is there and it is up to you to take it. It would be nice to hear from genuine people who have won and see how much they spent on winning something.

Sorry for the moan but it had to be said.

I think the point is that it is NOT a gambling site - it is sold to people as an auction site where you pay for the item you bid on, not a gambling site where you are trying to 'win' an item. When people refer to 'winning' in this context, they are referring to being the 'winning bidder' not to being the recipient of a prize - you still have to pay for whatever you get, as well as paying for the priviledge of bidding on it.
(In fairness, I knid of agree that it isn't exactly rocket science to see how they make their money out of people paying way over the odds for items they could purchase elsewhere, but that's not the point!)

jpneathey

This site is no worse than any other online auction site, as long as you show a little restraint. Those 'lowest unique bid' sites are no better, let's face it.

I couldn't care less how much money the owners make, it's up to me whether I bid, and all I do is use the automated Bid Butler to bid for me. For instance, I saw that the last Nintendo DS Lite went for approx 28 pounds. So I have set my Bid Butler to bid between 29 and 30 pounds, to a maximum of 3 bids. If it goes for less than 29 pounds, so be it, and I lose no money. If it goes over, then fine, I'm not going to be tempted to place 'just one more bid', and I've spent 1.50. I'm happy to lose 1.50 trying to win an item that costs a lot more, that I can then sell on EBay. Oh the irony.

I can see how people can get hooked on this kind of thing though. Just don't get caught up in the 'one more bid' game, or you'll lose a fortune.

Aegis

This actually sounds to me much like another application of game theory.

In this case, imagine that I'm offering a pound to the highest bidder, but anyone who bids has to pay their maximum bid when all's eventually settled. At first glance, you might think that bidding will continue until one person bids 99p, at which point there's no sense in continuing. However, if the loser now has to pay 98p for nothing, and the winner pays 99p and gets £1, then the loser might reason that paying the extra penny and breaking even would be better. After that, it just escalates further and further.

As I recall, the only optimal strategy in that particular game is not to bid at all.

Further reading here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_auction

Of course, it's a horrible way to do business and is most definitely something everyone should avoid if they can!

oscardog

Have just watched this site for a few minutes.

The auctions that never end!!

They are now making money on auctioning bids for the truly hooked and desperate. Very good money making idea but I agree with all other posters that there is only one winner and a LOT of losers.

sleep2much

I lost £225 on that stupid site, what a fool I felt when I had to explain to the wife how I lost on an auction I didn't win.
Somebody or something using the "bidButler" looks to be the winner of 80% of the "auctions". I don't know if the Germans complain about this too? It's the same auction at the same time, only they pay 40p per bid, I wish I'd never seen the advert for this, when you see "auction, TV sold for £50" you tend to think of ebay, but it's more of a casino, this should be reported to the office of fair trading, but if I'd won I maybe saying something differant.

robpw2

mojam55 wrote: »

Just seen an advert for Telebid and thought I would pay it a visit since I am an experienced ebay seller.

Was stunned at the first auction I viewed.

A Panasonic widescreen TV with a current bid price of £1741.95 this could be purchased from any reputable online retailer for around £1100.

I can see why someone might invest a couple of quid trying to bid on something that would made less than its market value but why on earth would anyone still be bidding on this.

http://www.telebid.com/auction/panasonic-viera-42-full-hd-ready-plasma-/53007.html

Alex

they only paid 98 pound fr it thought.

Its not the bid price it goes for its the set price at the begginng

cyberplayer

One more "Word of wisdom." Sometimes the site becomes unavailable even between the said "7am - 12am" thereby taking the chance of winning out of your hand unless you don't mind refreshing your browser indefinitely. Here is proof below:rotfl:

********************************************

Dear customer,

Due to technical issues, TeleBid is currently not available.

We're working as hard as possible to restore the service.

When the site is working again, we will add ten minutes to the countdown of live auctions, to allow all bidders the chance to get back on-line and start bidding. Please check back regularly.

We're sorry that you're not able to bid at the moment, but we will be back soon.

Your TeleBid team

*************************************************

cherrypie556

I found this site yesterday and registered. But on watching the bidding system and seeing how the time increases every few secs i realised you haven't really got a hope in hell of winning, and im glad i stumbled across this thread to remind me not to bother with it.

so2006

I registered bidded 2 times using my free virgin sim card, didnt win anything gave up lol, it is not a con it is just a REAL clever way of getting peaple like me to bid! I first thought it was like ebay, you could bid what ever amount, but was wrong And this website is a scam, If you look on the 100% free auctions, on everyone there is the same person bidding the person out called "bid Star" I then stoped and learned from my mistakes :rotfl:

eifzzz

Hi all,
I would just like to share my expeirience of using this website. I've been registered for just over a month, I popped into this message board before i registered with telebid in order to see what other people think of the website and I've had a positive expeirience so far. It does take time to get used to the way the website works so that you get to know the do's and dont's on when to bid, and what to bid on in order to be succesful.

So far I have succesfully purchased 8 items

This is England (DVD) Price: £1.10 Bids Placed (3): £1.50 Delivery: £2.80
Total Cost: £5.40
(I initially bought this to see wether or not the website worked, it arrived, so that gave me the green light to carry on)

Sony Playstation 3 Console (4 of them!)
1) Price: £105.84 Bids Placed (30): £15.00 Delivery: £9.80
Total Cost: £135.64
2) Price: £100.94 Bids Placed (130): £65.00 Delivery: £9.80
Total Cost: £175.74
3) Price: £49.49 Bids Placed (118): £59.00 Delivery: £9.80
Total Cost: £117.29
4) Price: £81.83 Bids Placed (35): £17.50 Delivery: £9.80
Total Cost: £109.13

Panasonic cordless phone
Price: £2.03 Bids Placed (6): £3.00 Delivery: £9.80
Total Cost: £14.83

Davidoff Cool Water (20ml)
Price: £2.60 Bids Placed (8): £4.00 Delivery: £2.80
Total Cost: £9.40

Logitech AudioHub 2.1 Notebook Speaker System
Price: £8.26 Bids Placed (32): £16 Delivery: £9.80
Total Cost: £34.06

I've sold 3 PS3's and made myself a tidy profit that basically covers what i paid for all the other items I've bought, so i'm chuffed. The only thing you need to be careful of is the amount of bids you place because you keep looking at the item's price without noticing that the cost of bidding builds up. As you can see with a few of the PS3's I won, I placed a lot of bids that costs me money, I was lucky that the final price was cheap so it cancelled out the cost of some of my bids. The best chance you have of winning an auction is to be the person that's using the 'bid butler' system, which places automatic bids for you. I never go for laptops, TV's or mobiles because there are too many people bidding for them.

I hope this helps anyone who has doubts.