www.telebid.com

mute_posting

What is that old saying?


Oh yes...

Fools and their money are easily parted.

Notsofab

I have been watching TeleBid very closely now for a few days. As a business idea it's ingenius. Very little effort and is amassing the owners an absolute fortune - we'll maybe that isn't quite as good as it initially looks either.

Like many of you have said, the site is 'genuine' as it does sell real products for the prices shown ....... and yes they appear to be making a fortune from the losing bidders.

But my problem is this. Sit and watch a few auctions for some of the large, more expensive items ( forget the small items - they are for show ). Initially you will have to wait for the countdown to get to the end, but when it does you will see reoccurring bids (using bidbutler) from 2 'punters' that esentially bid against each other to keep the item going. These bids will be flanked by genuine bids from other people (often single bids ) trying to grab a bargain. I believe these accounts are used by the site to prevent the items from selling at a loss. By using two bogus accounts, the owners can ensure that the auctions continue to run and that no item will ever sell for a loss. This way the site has complete control over when they sell the item. They can see how many 'real' bids have been placed against the item.

I saw a laptop with an RRP of £1200 being sold for 100% off ( so £0 ) to the winning bidder. The item was eventually won by one of the suspect 'bidbutler' accounts, after which the page said that 'person' had spent over £868 in bids. Honestly if you had £868 and wanted a laptop, would you really risk the whole lot to potentially end up with nothing if perhaps just 1 more bid was placed? When you did the math (bid price / 0.07 * 50p ) you could see that Telebid had pocketed over £27,000 for this item.

So selling bids at 50p isn't a con, but surely manipulating auctions using their own accounts is? If this is whats going on,then they have taken in excess of £27,000 for a laptop that was won by one of their own accounts - now THAT is a CON.

smiffy

Really this is just like buying raffle tickets.

You spend money hoping to win something. You can increase your chances by purchasing more tickets.

Not something I'll be participating in! Wish I'd have thought of it though!

Perhaps I should start selling £1 tickets to win my house. Provided I can sell 350,000 ticktets I'd be quids in!

westferret

All i have to say it well done to the creators if they can get this amount of money out of it. I dont think it's a scam as much as casinos are a scam as the odds are always against you in order to make themselves profit. I personally wouldn't do it the same with gambling.

L0NDONER

this kind of site should be regulated by the lotteries commision

its a gambling site dressed up as an auction

as the old adage goes if it looks too good to be true then it probably is

BigNige

It seems mighty convenient that 99% of the people who are defending Telebid on this thread, or who are "winners" are 1st posters...

How nice and considerate that they enlighten us with their "news"

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

There is nothing wrong with sites like this operating AS LONG AS THEY DO THINGS TRANSPARENTLY

From the comments written on this thread, its a fact that this site is being misconstrued by innocent members of the public as an easy site to pick up bargains. In truth it is not in the slightest.

As my previous posts show, I am a regular user of prize competition and lowest unique bid reverse auction sites (Bidclever, Bidnation etc). I know what I am getting myself into when I try to place the lowest unique bid.

These and other sites like them make it clear that I am entering a relatively uncomplicated, skill-based prize competition, with the carrot being that if I win, I will pick up a prize for not very much at all. The latter point is the same message pumped across by Telebid but in my opinion, their ts and cs and modus operandi are just not easy enough to understand and in no way transparent.

As a seasoned veteran of these kind of comps, I would give Telebid a VERY wide berth.

If you want something with a similar premise but with much clearer transparency, try these sites

www.bidclever.com
www.bidnation.co.uk
www.howlo.co.uk

End of....

And for the record, I have WON on ALL the above sites at some point in the past 2 years.

TickledPink_2

Just came across it today and yeah ... it's more of a gambling site. You have to have a gambling mindset to bid on it.

Having studied it I think that the only tactic you can use is mount up the bids you have (even if piling them up at £10 per week) and then only place a bid at the last minute. If it gets that close to ending before you bid, it suggests that the number of active bidders on the item is low. It'll help you make the most of your bids and stop you wasting them when there are a lot of bidders going at it.

Might give it a go to see if it works. Great idea from the company's viewpoint, though. Everyone likes a bargain, even if it's a rip-off to anyone who doesn't win.

tun81

at the end of the day guys, if something sounds too good to be true it probably is!

bigman2k8

don't know if this is legal but if you create two accounts, this may sound wierd but if you bid against yourself people will sit back and watch you bid, that is when you stop bidding on one and win with the other. Brilliant i think really!

What do people think of this?

smiffy

Sounds like a way to loose twice as much!