28th February Update
This blog post became a lot more popular than I had expected. It has been getting a lot of comments and people have been sending me emails with their experience with penny auctions. There is no way that I can say that Biddu.net is a 100% safe and legit just as I can’t say they are not legit.
Since so many of the people visiting this post seem to have a problem with Biddu I started doing some research on good alternatives over the last couple of days and found another penny auction site called BidRivals.com. What makes me prefer this site over any other penny auction site out there is their “buy it now” function where the value of all the bids placed will be deducted from the price of the item you are buying should you not win the auction.
For a someone like Alexia, who left a comment in this post about having lost €250 bidding on an item this would have meant that she would have had €250 discount on the item she was bidding at if she would have done the bidding over at BidRivals instead.
With a buy it now function like that it really doesn’t matter if Biddu.net are legit or not because I would pick BidRivals over their penny auctions all day long since you aren’t really risking any of your money when you know that 100% of the value of your bids are counting towards a discount on the item you are bidding for.
Source: BidRivals.com
Earlier today a friend told me about a website called Biddu.net. Since I am an Internet geek I can’t help but to check out a website whenever I hear a URL mentioned so I decided to head over to Biddu to check it out. When I arrived on the site I quickly realised that is was one of the hundreds (or maybe thousands) of bidding sites out there (also referred to as penny auction sites).
Even though I have seen this type of site before I have never really done any research on them. When I visited the Biddu.net website something triggered the Internet geek within me and I decided to do some actual digging to find out more about the site.
Reasons Why I Don’t Trust Biddu.net
Even though Biddu might be a totally legit website that is not using bots to make “shill bids” or other rouge techniques I have still found a couple of things that make me not want to deposit money on their site.
The Use of a .net Domain
This is just my personal opinion but I can’t see why any serious business would use a .net domain these days. I understand that the name “Biddu” might have been the best name that the people behind the site managed to come up with. I also understand that the .com domain was already registered when they decided to launch their site. After some quick research I have found that the domain Biddu.com was registered back in 2000 while Biddu.net was registered in 2010. If I was behind Biddu I would either go ahead and offer the owner of Biddu.com a pile of cash to buy his domain name or I would go back to the drawing board and come up with a new name for my business. Going ahead with the .net domain is telling me that they are not planning to be in the business for the long run as it’s a lot harder to brand your business as a .net rather than a .com.
It’s a Relatively New Site in the Niche
Penny auction sites have been around since 2005 when Telebid launched their website, it was later re-branded as Swoopo.com and they filed for bankruptcy in March 2011.
Biddu.net launched their operations in 2011 according to the about us page on their site. When reading through the Biddu.net about us page I came across a pretty interesting snippet of text that made me want to research them a bit further;
When first reading this snippet of text I wasn’t really surprised. It’s not really uncommon these days that a business launched in 2011 goes on to dominate certain markets within a year. What is very surprising though is that a website that claim to be one of the largest ones in its niche in both Europe and North America is hardly ever discussed online. When searching in Google for terms like “Biddu.net” and “Biddu.net scam” I only came across one site on the entire Internet where this website was being discussed, and that was on a German version of Yahoo Answers. Now there is just no way, whatsoever, on this planet, that a website that claim to be one of the market leaders is never once being discussed online in terms of being legit, customer friendly and so on. If this site really had the amounts of clients that they say they have then the search results should be flooded with results when you search for things like “Biddu.net“, “Biddu.net Review“, “Is Biddu.net a scam?” and so on. The fact that they are nowhere to be found in a Google search is raising all kinds of warning flags.
The Alexa Rank
When looking up Biddu.net on the traffic ranking website Alexa.com you will find that Biddu.net has a traffic rank of 217.167. This means that according to Alexa there are 217.166 websites on the Internet that are receiving more traffic than Biddu.net. Just to have something to compare to I also looked up penny auction site BidRivals.com on Alexa and it turns out their traffic rank is 26.399, now that’s surprising considering Biddu.net were supposed to be one of the largest bidding sites in both Europe and the US.
Who Is Outbidding Me Then?
Before I write this next part of my Biddu.net review I should say that I have no proof that these people are running a shady business and I don’t really have any reason to think they are using “shill bids” on their site to keep the auctions going.
With so many different bidding sites out there it’s obvious that there are going to be a few bad apples. I am not saying that Biddu is one of them, I’m just saying that it is possible. Getting a penny auction site going from scratch is almost impossible without doing some kind of cheating. The website PennyAuctionWatch.com recently uncovered a cheating scandal where the bidding site 7Bidz.com where using a bunch of people from India to create fake bids for them to keep the auctions going.
If Biddu.net was to be a scam site cheating its customers this would most definitely be the way they are doing it.
The Conclusion
Biddu.net may or may not be a scam and there is no real way of knowing for sure since there are absolutely no reviews or statements from users available on the Internet. Since there are so many options when it comes to penny auction sites I don’t see any reason why you should be signing up with one that doesn’t have any reputation. In many cases I would rather sign up with a site that have a couple of bad reviews rather than none at all. The bad reviews are at least showing that there are actual people visiting the site.
Update
After I finished writing this article I felt a bit guilty about criticising a website without trying it out myself. So I decided to give Biddu a go and bought a couple of bids. I started out by bidding on a Samsung Galaxy S2 to test the waters without any luck. What struck me as odd right from the start was the amounts that these products end up going for. The Samsung Galaxy that I was bidding on ended up going for close to €100. The reason I find this odd is because similar products almost never go for over $30 on BidRivals.com which is a similar website. In order for an auction to reach the €100 limit there need to be 10.000 bids which holds a total value of €2800 (€0.28*10.000). Another reason why it doesn’t make sense that the auctions reach these kind of amounts is that it just doesn’t make fiscal sense to sit and bid up to the €100 regions when the value of the product is only €429.
Since the really valuable auctions seemed impossible to win I decided to try bidding on an Amazon Kindle instead as I had seen those go for between €3 and €5 all day long. I started bidding when the auction reached about €4 since the previous auctions had told me that this one would soon come to an end. Unlike the other Amazon Kindle auctions earlier in the day this one just kept getting new bidders all the time. I decided I was just going to keep blasting bids on this auction to see how far it was going to go once I knew for a fact that at least one of the bidders (me) was a real person. About 180 bids later I was the winner of the Amazon Kindle auction and I got it for €11.03, that’s about three times as much as any other Kindle had gone for during the entire day.
Obviously none of this is proof of Biddu.net using “shill bidders” to keep the auctions going but the whole experience left me with a lot of doubts.
I will make sure to update this post once I have received my Amazon Kindle to let you all know how long it takes to get the stuff delivered once you have won an auction at Biddu.net.
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{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
L-ewwel haga prosit ta’ l-artiklu u naqbel mieghek. Izda ma tarahiex stramba li prodott jinbiegh madwar 500euros retail, tibidja ghalih u tirbhu bi 100eur?
Zomm kuntatt dwar jekk tircevix Kindle jew xi kaxxa b’xi ilma go fiha haha.
Francesco
I got to know about Biddu.net from Facebook and it seemed like they had some really great bargains but after looking at the website I wonder if it’s really safe to deposit money there.
They are all the time posting about how cheap you can get an iPhone or iPad but when you see the finals price of the auctions it never goes as cheap as they try to advertise on FB.
Hi Debbie,
I’m pretty sure it’s a 100% safe to make a deposit to the site as all payments are going through Paypal. The main issue here is to find out whether Biddu.net is a legit website or not which is almost impossible.
Since Biddu.net is such a new site and they are misrepresenting themselves on the About Us page I would stay clear of them for now.
I won my auction on the 20th of February and when I checked my account there this morning it says “Paid, Awaiting Shipment” for the product I won.
It will be very interesting to see how long it will take to get this item delivered, if it’s ever shipped at all.
Regards,
Marcus
I just got this email from Biddu http://marcusnilsson.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/biddu-email.png
the item you have won Amazon Kindle WiFi 6″ E Ink Display has been marked as sent and completed in our system.
If it was tangible good, it means item has been shipped from our warehouse to your address. You can expect the package to arrive in few working days.
If item is being delivered online, it has been applied towards your account.
Thank you for shopping with Biddu, the ultimate shopping experience!
Biddu
So it seems the item should have been shipped today. If that’s the case I should have it next week sometime.
I also came across the Biddu site from advertisements on Facebook and Gmail. I had my suspicions about this site and I didn’t feel it was safe to deposit my money there. The auctions just seem to be going on forever so my chances of winning are close to zero.
I’m keeping my eyes peeled on this one. I’m really curious as to how it’s gonna turn out. Personally, I doubt you’ll get your Kindle. But if you do, and it turns out ok, I’ve got some bidding of my own to do hehe.
I think you will get your Kindle. If they weren’t sending out the stuff to the winners there would be a lot of bad reviews about them but the only review out there is yours.
The penny auction industry is flooded with scammers and because of that I will never use them to try and make a bargain as long as they are completely unregulated.
Hello Marcus,
thanks for your feedback. I will forward some points you mentioned to your management, so they can take care of it and probably improve our auction site even more. However, your item will be shipped from our greece location. It will take a few business days until your new Kindle arrived
After you got your item, it would be great if you could provide a photo/video proof here on the website so people see that we are for real and no scam like many other sites. It took us a long time to develop Biddu and we are doing serious business.
Thanks in advance. Enjoy bidding.
Best regards
Jon
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for leaving a comment here, I appreciate it.
Getting the Kindle shipped out to me was never really the biggest concern that I had after bidding on your site. It’s pretty obvious that you are indeed sending out the won items otherwise it would have been easier to find reviews about you when searching in Google.
My biggest concern with your company is that you are obviously twisting the truth a bit when you claim to be one of the largest penny auction sites in Europe and North America.
You might be an up and coming site in the European market but you are far from being one of the most popular sites there (according to Alexa.com).
When it comes to the claim that you are very popular in North America I find that very hard to believe as you are not even offering any of your auctions in the USD or CAD currency and I very much doubt that any American or Canadian would want to come over to an EU based site and start bidding in Euros.
Regards,
Marcus
Hi Marcus,
the interesting thing is: I made the same experience as you … the items I am bidding on are curiously going much higher in price than the median. Last worst experience was a Samsung Galaxy Note, which stopped at 140 Euro. Another concerning thing is the following: did you check once the bidders? The behaviour of them doesn’t make sense to me … often they are switching between agent and single bid in a very strange pattern. I can’t imagine one single sense, why i should bid each 2nd bid with a agent and then bid again normally …
Just my 2 cents
Hi Michael,
I’ve been looking a bit at the patterns of the people bidding and it’s true that it doesn’t always seem to makes sense. One thing that I have found to be a bit weird is that Biddu only offer high value items compared to other sites but they still never seem to have any problem covering the cost of the products in terms of bids.
Another thing that I have found a bit weird are all the users with username ending with 4 digit codes and I was meant to add that to my post but I haven’t got around to it yet. If you look at the auctions for a bit you will see there are a lot of bidders with a username that ends with 4 random digits (for example “randomusers4768″). I guess it’s normal that some people decide to create usernames ending with a random 4 digits but at Biddu they have loads of them and it just seems odd that there are so many people out there deciding to create usernames with these random digits.
Maybe I’m just a tin foil hatter who’s been scammed on the the Internet one time too many though
Regards,
Marcus
Hi Marcus,
the Users with the 4-digits at the end of the usernames are people that connect via Facebook and don’t choose a username. The name is generated from first + last name and a random 4 digit code automatically while signing up and the users are free to change it later.
Best regards
Jon
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for straightening that out for us. That explanation makes sense.
What about the part where you claim to be one of the largest bidding sites in North America? How come you don’t have a single testimonial from anyone in Canada if that’s the case? How come you don’t have a section of your website for people wanting to bid in CAD? How come Alexa doesn’t give you any credit in that region? (See attached pic) http://marcusnilsson.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/biddu-net-alexa.png
Thanks for taking the time to reply to our concerns Jonathan!
Regards,
Marcus
Hi,
I heared of biddu through facebook. I checked out the website and was amazed by the bargains… I decided to deposit money and spent almost 250EUR in bids without even noticing…
The worst thing was that even though the products I was bidding on sometimes were won on 30EUR, I wasn’t able to bid and keep the bid…Even when the items price bids were raised to more than 85EUR.
I hope that it’s not a scam and they would answer my questions.
Thanks.
Hi Alexia,
Sorry to hear that you lost all that money and got nothing in return. It’s not that uncommon to burn through piles of cash when going for high value items. That’s the reason I went for an item with a lower value when I made my experiment because I knew I had a good chance of winning that auction since the Kindle usually went for about 3 to 5 Euro. Now I ended up paying over 11 Euro which I found a bit odd since I haven’t seen a Kindle go for that much on Biddu before or after that. I would like to point out that this is in no way any proof that the auctions at Biddu aren’t legit.
Regards,
Marcus
My friends and I have decided to try giving a chance to Biddu, but all of us in vain. We all noticed what you saying here, that when we were just observing the items sold out much cheaper than the ones when we were bidding. Also we found it starnge how in the same time on same item you have a single bid and agent from same person.. very strange indeed. I also tried on the Amazon Kindle, they all sold very cheaper, when I did bid it went up to nearly 11euro and by that time all my tokens were spent in vain. Did you receive the item? and Jonathan can you answer us, maybe we can start trusting biddu?
Hi Joseph,
From what I understand by the comments here on the blog and emails sent to me regarding this it seems like everyone is having the same issue. They scout the site for items that usually go for under €10 but when they start bidding the auction always ends up over the €10 mark. My own experience was the same.
I still haven’t received my Kindle but I have no doubts I will get it either this week or early next week. If they weren’t sending out the items once they were won they would have been out of business a long time ago as that’s a pretty obvious way of scamming people through penny auctions. It’s much more profitable to have bots, or cheap Internet labor “shill bidding” for you from an operators standpoint as that is almost impossible to prove.
Jonathan has been really good when it comes to responding to most of my concerns here on the blog and if it wasn’t for the fact that they are twisting the truth on their about us page and the fact that the traffic according to Alexa isn’t really matching the high activity on the site I would say this is a legit site.
Regards,
Marcus
Hey guys,
first of all, thanks for your feedback.
Marcus, for the north american traffic: The english site was translated from german, since the original site comes from Austria. If you compare the english and german site you will see that this is a mistake in translation. On the original german site you will read that we say we are about to become one of the most popular sites in north america. Not that we are already. I’ll tell the translators about this mistake so they can fix it. It’s just “lost in translation”. The devil is in the detail. Thanks for mention this mistake.
For the people out there that lost an auction: I’m sorry, but each auction can have only one winner. We have absolutly no influence on the bidding processes and it really depends on the time of the day, how high the auction prices can go.
It’s all about the right bidding strategy:
We had one customer, he won a crazy amount of auctions everyday, he was winning that much that we need to limit our auctions, so he can not join the same auction everyday. People already complained that it’s not fair, because he was winning A LOT. He just had the right strategy.
Best regards
Jon
Hi Jonathan,
Thanks for clearing that out. I had a look at the German version of the site and your explanation definitely makes sense.
I have to say that you have been very helpful and as far as costumer service go you are as good and professional as they come.
You have replied to all of my concerns in a very professional and polite manner and I appreciate that. I still find it a bit weird that some of the items go for such high amounts but then again my sample size is the one auction where I participated to write this review and I do understand that it isn’t really enough to make a proper judgement on the auctions as a whole.
Regards,
Marcus
Hi,
Just to inform you that I bought 350€ worth of bids, only to find out that every single item I bid on was a nightmare. I bid 400 bids on a kindle, just to see how far these guys will go with this daylight robbery. Every time I bid I had up to 6 to 7 different (FAKE) bidders on the item. As soon as I did not put a bid, after 4 hours of bidding the item was won immediately. So it does seem that all 6 bidders decided not to put a bid just when I decided to skip a bid. In my opinion this is really daylight flagrant robbery!! BEWARE
Dear Marcus
Thanks a lot for you and for all others who tried to explain about biddu.net ..same like others I crossed by Biddu from face book and I kept watching it and I had similar concerns which you all mentioned here and I was planning to try but I could not place my payment to buy the bids so I am still watching
Marcus, you mentioned bidrivals.com, is it a good site to try ???
Regards
Hi Tony,
Thanks for sharing your experience with Biddu. It seems many people are having the same experience as you (myself included). Even though it’s impossible to say for sure if Biddu is legit or not it’s probably a wise move to stay away from them for now as there are other better options out there.
Regards,
Marcus
Hi Moe,
If you are interested in getting started with penny auctions I would definitely recommend BidRivals over Biddu at the moment as their auctions usually don’t go up in the 100′s of Euros and they also offer the “buy it now” option that I mentioned in the latest update of this post.
I have just posted a new article to my blog about BidRivals which can be found here http://marcusnilsson.org/stuff/guide-to-bidrivals/
Regards,
Marcus
Dear Marcus
Thanks alot for your reply , i will check your link .
Same day i had my post here , i cheked BidRival facebook page i found several person claim thay have problem with bidrivel and saying they are scam and they didnt get what they won but today these post have been removed .
Beisde i crossed by one more cent auction site called Dealdash.com …do you have any experince with them
Regards
Moe
Hi Moe,
DealDash.com only takes customers from the US so unless you are currently living in the USA you won’t be able to take part in their auctions.
From the little research I have done on BidRivals they don’t seem to be a scam to me. If you check their auctions you will see that things like an iPhone and iPad often goes for under €20, something that is unheard of at Biddu.
I have won a couple of auctions at BidRivals since I started trying them out for the sole purpose of having something to compare to Biddu. On the 22nd of February I won my first auction and on the 29th of February I received the item. I have taken a picture of the item I got from BidRivals and you can see it by clicking this link —> http://marcusnilsson.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/bidrivals-win.jpg
My auction at Biddu on the other hand was won on the 20th of February and I still haven’t received my Kindle.
Regards,
Marcus
Well Marcus I disagree, I tried Bidrivals and they are a real cheat. First of all they charge you for shipping, even for “bids”. Second of all, they overprice the goods (ie Canon 600D camera 639 GBP??? come on) and this is the biggest cheat. Let’s say in the end of the “business” you “save” 50 GBP. If you consider that they overprice, in the end you actually pay much more of what is worth. I can’t speak for Biddu as of yet, but they seem more genuine, even though they also use tricks with percentages(saved 90%, when the actual winner might have saved 80% with the bidding). They also lock you down with Biduwatch(you can’t remove the bids you committed to biduwatch unlike bidrivals) and they also don’t show how much the winner have bid for the item unlike bidrivals. But on their favor, they offer really good items, unlike bidrivals who mostly offer stupid items and rarely with good ones. Biddu also offers free shipping in Europe and its good if you consider that Bidrivals almost charge you 20 Euros for a top item.
Hi Makeover,
I think you are looking at this from the wrong perspective. All of the things you have mentioned as negatives when it comes to BidRivals I actually see as positive things. Let me tell you why….
I do realise that the buy it now prices are higher at BidRivals than you are used to when shopping at eBay or Amazon. But you have to keep in mind that this is a penny auction site and not an online store so there is really no reason why they would need to keep the prices down. It’s not like lower prices would drive buyers from eBay to BidRivals. Having competitive prices on the products they are selling is not something they are focusing on. What I like about this is that it makes them more legit in my eyes. It’s not as if they are trying to hide their prices or anything, they are all there on display.
I also don’t understand how you can say you prefer Biddu without their buy it now option.
If we make an example of an auction with an item worth €250 (but priced at €300 at BidRivals) I will show you why this is silly. Let’s say you have spent €250 on bids on an auction at Biddu.net and didn’t win. Now all you are left with is a deep feeling of dissatisfaction and regret. If you would have spent the same amount in bids on BidRivals and lost you would have a €250 discount towards that product with the option of buying it directly for an additional €50. Sure the prices are a bit higher but I would like to compare this to taking insurance when playing blackjack in a casino.
When it comes to the fact that they charge you for shipping I can agree that it’s quite ridiculous. But it doesn’t seem to stop people from bidding at their site so I don’t see why they should stop charging those fees from a business perspective.
Well from a business perspective since new competitors pop out every now and then you have to adapt. In the end people will go to the competitor, who doesnt charge shipping fees lets say, and your clients will decrease with time. It’s not about getting only money, the most important is to keep your customer happy so that he/she will keep on coming on your site or products.
On the other note about the “insurance”, I don’t go to the bidding site to buy the product on its original price, I go to buy it in a bargain price. Yes in the end I will regret for spending 250(even though I will never put so much money in one item), but at the same time I will know this is the risk I have taken to buy this product on a bargain price and I will just forget it. The real point I wanted to make is that in the end of the auction they say “saved 30″ when you actually lost even when you think you took it on a “bargain” price! Comparing to the real market you lost, so this is why it is a “scam”, in most of the cases even if you win in the auction you actually spend more than what you could actually spend on the item.
Almost all of the big items I have seen in Bidrivals people don’t save THAT much money to say they took it on a bargain price. In the end you are ripped off winning or not winning the auction, unless you are really lucky.
On the contrary in Biddu(as I have played yesterday to see what happens there), you can save LOTS of money but you need to have a good strategy. I didn’t win because I was not hardcore and the auction got higher than usual, but there were a lot of people bidding on it. On another occasion, I was bidding in a very late stage and I noticed that all the rivals stopped bidding except one who got in also late stage and put his mode on Biduwatch and we were the only people bidding for the item. Apparently I didn’t have much so he won after I stopped bidding.
I don’t know if he was a Biddu agent or not, but I do know that after a stage all the people stop bidding and there are two or one who is willing to pay more than the average. This I think is the strategy to go about in Biddu. Even so the 11 euro you said about Kindle, I’ve seen it many times (won at 11 euro) and its actually again half price of the item(considering your bids), so its much better business than you can ever make in Bidrivals.
So what is left is to see if you will get the item. If you get it, it means there is no scam, you just need to have the right strategy and willing to pay over the odds to make sure you will win the item.
Funny how the most popular one-cent auction site in Europe always has about 4-5 people bidding on one item at any given time, with a new group of names being chipped in every 2-3 minutes.
Also, every time I tried to bid, I’d have put in a decent amount of bids and then the timer jumps from 2 to 0 seconds in an instant and the bid is won by “someone” else.
Last point – the best way to point out a scammer is that he goes around checking websites critiquing him and making every effort to persuade others that his website is legit. I know, I surf a lot of forums and every time some dodgy websites show up, its administrator/s is the one who’s participating the most in the posts. If you’re really the best auction site in Europe, surely you have better things to do rather than posting on here, such as making your system more transparent.
Just wanted to make a quick update here to let you all know how it’s going with my won auction at Biddu.
According to the email I got from Biddu on the 24th of February the Kindle should have been shipped. Today is the 13th of March and I have still not received anything.
Considering it’s been over 3 weeks since I won the auction and I still haven’t received anything it’s probably safe to assume that nothing will ever be sent and we can once and for all write off Biddu.net as a scam site.
Hi Marcus
It is sad to hear that you didnt get what you won …i am sure if they read this they will send it to you just to avoid to say it is scam …..where are you located …may be you are so far from Cyprus
…i am planing to be in cyprus may be next month or after …i will try to visit their addressed office ….i will be checking this blog from time to time to know what happen with you but you can email me if you like direct to mz_2002_sa@hotmail.com ..
Regards
Moe
Hi Moe,
Thanks for the offer of going to their offices but it’s not going to be needed. I actually received my Amazon Kindle today on the 15th of March. That’s close to a month after I won the auction so I’m not too impressed with the delivery time but at least they did actually ship me the item I won.
I also got a paper where it said I would be able to get 150 free bids for posting a testimonial with a photo of me and the Kindle and a video testimonial would give me 300 free bids. I’m not going to do that though because there is no way I will endorse a site unless I know it’s 100% legit, which is impossible to know in this case.
I’m a bit busy right now but I will post a picture of the Kindle and stuff in a couple of hours when I have time. This picture is for use on this blog only though, it’s not for Biddu to use as a testimonial or whatever cause I’m not interested in the free bids.
Regards,
Marcus
This blog was super interesting, thanks so much!
My query is, how much money did you really spend on the kindle, considering you had to pay for the bid-bundles they were selling.
Considering 200 bids go out for around 60 euros I’d say the thing is a massive scam since you’d still be paying for the object when you pay for bundles themselves.
If you had to place 180 bids for the kindle I’m guessing you got the 200 bid bundle.
Many thanks,
Hannah
Hi Hannah,
Thanks for the compliments!
Just like you guessed I did buy the 200 bid package for €65.95 and then the Kindle cost me another €11.03 which makes for a total of €76.98. And all of that for something I already had
The only reason I ever bought any bids at Biddu was so that I could write a fair review of their site.
Regards,
Marcus
Same things happened to me.. bidded on 3 items..
first i bidded on a “100bids” package.. usually they were going at 1.70e-2ish.. with a couple of 3e something… i won mine at over 5euros and i lost money there from bidding instead of taking a bargain.
2nd auction.. ipod nano… they were going at anything from 4e to 12e… my auction went over 15e and VERY stangely.. as soon as all my bids finised (was using their sniper) there was another bid (just one) and the bidder won the auction… how strange… to add to the “strange” factor.. since i was watching the auction.. the auction ended BEFORE the timer went to zero.. it went from 8 seconds left to “bla bla bla won the auction”..
3rd auction i decided to stop beating around the bush.. watched the market for a whole week… and kept an eye on the canon cameras.. they were going at prices from 29e to 39e.. with a couple of 40′s but.. litterally one offs… i bought 600bids and when the bidding went to 34e i started to bid… i did not win the auction… what a surprise .. but more surprising is that at 3am in the morning.. there were enough “people” (yeah sure) like me to bump up the bidding to a staggering 60e+!!! nearly double the price..
conclusion? .. i don’t have the proof to say whether or not there is any scammy/shady practices done by biddu.. what I CAN SAY is that.. given my experience.. and the experiences mentioned in this blog that are pretty MUCH similar to mine.. there ARE some strange coincidences going on against the bidders..
I will never ever go back to biddu or anything that has anything to do with them…
Hey, was the Kindle ever delivered or not?
Hey Luke,
I received my Kindle on the 15th of March so they do deliver the goods once you have won an auction.
It should be mentioned though that I was never really worried about not getting my item delivered. That’s not the main issue here. The main concern of mine is that I’m almost positive that Biddu.net are using shill bidding bots to keep their auctions running because the amount of visitors they are getting to their website is not matching the number of active users on the site.
I would advice you to take mine and other peoples advice and stay away from Biddu. They might deliver when you win but it’s very doubtful that their auctions are legitimate.
Regards,
Marcus
marcus tider deletant fuq daw lafarijiet vera worthit tithol go fijom tibidja dawn il websites bhal bidrivals uek tifranka hafna jew cucata kul ma tifranka?
I find it interesting that if you click on your link to BidRivals it turns out that you are affiliated with them, IE get cash from them if you get someone to sign up with them through you. Im sure Biddu is a scam but YOU ARE ALSO A SCAM. And I am sure you will delete this comment anyway. Gris.
Hi Emma,
I would never delete, moderate or ignore any comment on this blog. I’m not here to censor the Internet.
I don’t understand your reasoning here. Why would it not be OK for me to make money from recommending a penny auction website that I think is legit (now it turns out they are in some kind of trouble but that’s another story). I went through a lot of trouble and made loads of research to write this post about Biddu and I event spent close to 100 Euro testing the site so that you and others won’t have to.
I would understand your point if I had a big disclaimer on the blog saying “This is a Non Profit Blog” or something along those lines but I have never made such a claim.
Thanks for calling me a Gris (pig in Swedish) btw, I almost broke a rib laughing at that bit.
Feel free to leave another comment if you would like to elaborate on how I’m a scam.
Regards,
Marcus
Im sorry if biddu isn’t legit neither is in my opinion Bidrivals.
So some days ago I decided to bid on a particular Item and I started watching it. Instantly I noticed that the battle was between 2 particular bidders ( I know their username but i dont think it is really necessary to include them here). Amazingly the item that i was interested in ended up closing at more than 45e, where as normally they end below 20e.
However what strikes me the most is that one particular bidder started bidding from the very beginning and stopped bidding when it reached around 40e, having spent about 2000 bids ( thats more worth of bids than the buy now price of the item), he pulled out and someone else won the bid at 45e. Amazingly though I saw the same bidder bid on an other Item the following day and the story was exactly the same. Started bidding from the beginning and pulled out almost at the end. Why would you spend so many bids to pull out….with the price if the bids he/she could have just bought the items from ebay and be sure to have them.
One might argue “they might have one some bid packs”. Sure, you can only win 2 bid packs per day, so it would take a Hell of a long time to get such a huge ammount of bid packs, more so if you don’t win every time
I’m sorry but to me there ARE shill bidders in Bid rivals too. In my opinion all penny bidding sites are a scam..
Nice…bidrivals seems to have vanished. What happens if my remaining bids now eh?
Hi guys,
Today I bought around 200 euros on Biddu and spent almost all on Iphone 4s. At the end of my single bids and automatic watch bids, the site just went down. I even wrote to them, got no answer at all. Can’t log on him almost for 30 mins now. I think this site is really scam.
Hi Marcus,
I am Biddu the music composer and producer and I have had the .com name since 2000 as mentioned in your article. I came across this site by accident. It has nothing to do with me. Thanks for your diligence
Cheers!
Really appreciate the review Marcus I will not be bidding at biddu!