Swoggi penny auction site or scam?
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extrapole
Posts: 1 Newbie
I feel foolish to have fallen for this but cannot un-do what I have done .
Attracted by what appeared to be a good way to get high tech goods for a bargain basement price,I became a Swoggi Member and had to buy credits in order to bid for the items I wanted .Foolishly,I bought £250 credit because I thought I might have to go that high to get my hands on the iPad I wanted .
I started bidding and soon grew tired of having to bid constantly ,only to be outbidded at the last second .So,I decided to call it a day and cancelled my account .
And this is when the problem started ! I asked for a refund of the money left on my now closed account and was told by their "customer service" ,the matter was now in the hands of their refund department and that I would get my money -minus- £15 for admin - within three weeks .That was on the 2nd of May and now more than three weeks later ,I still do not have the funds refunded and worse ,they do not answer my emails .
I wonder if I am ever going to have my money back ?
Is Swoggi a scam or a genuine online auction site ?
Attracted by what appeared to be a good way to get high tech goods for a bargain basement price,I became a Swoggi Member and had to buy credits in order to bid for the items I wanted .Foolishly,I bought £250 credit because I thought I might have to go that high to get my hands on the iPad I wanted .
I started bidding and soon grew tired of having to bid constantly ,only to be outbidded at the last second .So,I decided to call it a day and cancelled my account .
And this is when the problem started ! I asked for a refund of the money left on my now closed account and was told by their "customer service" ,the matter was now in the hands of their refund department and that I would get my money -minus- £15 for admin - within three weeks .That was on the 2nd of May and now more than three weeks later ,I still do not have the funds refunded and worse ,they do not answer my emails .
I wonder if I am ever going to have my money back ?
Is Swoggi a scam or a genuine online auction site ?
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Comments
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Seems to be a scam I'm afraid. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20140512072007AA6Au760 -
Hi I foolishly did the same thing too yesterday! I did not read the conditions or explore how to bid before I paid for £50 worth of credits. Since there was not a box which you had tick to say you agree with the terms and conditions, does that mean you can argue and get your credits refunded in money? It really makes me angry how websites like Swoggi are allowed to trade and is so blatantly unfair to its users. Is there anything we can do?0
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. Since there was not a box which you had tick to say you agree with the terms and conditions, does that mean you can argue and get your credits refunded in money?
It's imposible to register without ticking the box to state that you have read, understood and agreed to the terms and conditions.
I'm not saying that I agree with the way that they operate, but ultimately it's up to the users to read up on how they are spending their money.
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These are gambling sites, not shopping sites. If you like to fritter money on horses & fruit machines then there is a place for these sites.
Not as a shopping site though...<--- Nothing to see here - move along --->0 -
I 'm having a similar bad experience with Swoggi and was wondering whether any of you know whether the transaction to buy credits on these penny action sites is covered by the general Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.
To be more specific whether you do have by law a cooling period during which you can cancel your purchase of credits and get a full refund.
I'm asking this because I have a dispute currently open with Swoggi.
I registered with them after having found a voucher on the internet that- I thought-would entitle me to some free credits. the voucher appeared to be validated on their website so i continued with the Paypal checkout process without realising that i was about to be charged £50. ( OK, on hindsight it was foolish to proceed, but I had gone through a similar process before with another online vendor where to claim something free I still had to go checkout - without being charged though!!). Anyway, in this case at no time during the paypal checkout pages the value of the payment was specified and furthermore a message appeared that I would be able to confirm the transaction before being redirected to the vendor site. However this did not happen and 30 seconds after being returned to the swoggi site i received an email form paypal confirming I had purchased £50 worth of credits. I immediately email swoggi customer service, explaining that I purchased the credit by mistake and asking to cancel the transaction and refund my payment. Similar to what what happened to Extrapole I was told that they would only refund £35 because of their T&C n.7 which states "If a member wishes to have a certain balance, which has previously been deposited at Swoggi, repaid in the form of balance on a bidding account, the member will be charged an administrative fee of £15". They also said that the appreciated it was a mistake, but pointed out: "Our measure of fairness to all our players cannot allow us to make a particular case".
...and they kept repeating that if I wanted they could reactivate my account so that I could use the credits to win prices!!!
What a cheeky answer!
I found this very unfair and I'm wondering whether their foggy checkout process is deliberately misleading to trick new members into deposit money in the system.
I know I've been stupid, but I refuse to give in and I have opened a dispute through Paypal asking for a full refund under the above regulation. I do hope I have the same consumer rights, I would have for any other purchase made online.0 -
The use of the term "players" in their message is very telling. They are positioning themselves as a gaming or gambling site. I wonder how many happy customers they have. I guess a fraction of one percentage point?Warning: any unnecessary disclaimers appearing under my posts do not bear any connection with reality, either intended, accidental or otherwise. Your statutory rights are not affected.0
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I considered giving it a go a short while ago, but changed my mind when I saw how few "auctions" there actually were.
They must be making an absolute fortune.0 -
Think though, it doesn't even need to be an 'honest' auction, if they have a shill-bidding bot to make sure they win every item...0
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It sounds like they use misleading practices, but I only have that from what I've read from people who have been misled. It's all very well losing a couple of pounds but £50-£250 smells like a racket to me.margheritauk wrote: »I 'm having a similar bad experience with Swoggi and was wondering whether any of you know whether the transaction to buy credits on these penny action sites is covered by the general Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.
Gather as much information as you can and get in touch with your local trading standards office, that's their job to look into it..0 -
Hi everyone,
just a quick update to let you know that I have just received a full refund from Swoggi for my unwanted credits. It took a while, but I guess it is another confirmation that if you believe you have been taken advantage of, it is worth fighting your corner and no take no for an answer!
Having said that, I think I will be much more careful when trying to redeem a voucher online, from now on!0
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