I am on facebook a lot lately. And one day, I saw the right side Ads about buying Mac Pro for 10.xx Baht. So, being a curious soul, I went to check out at bidpax.com. I registered it right away but didn’t spend any money yet. I was learning how it works.
The way it suppose to work is, you have to pay to bid. And everytime someone bid, the amount increase by 0.01 [insert your local currency] and the ending time extended by 10 seconds (a lot more if you count “Going” “Going” Going” and never “GONE” thingy if you are to win that item). So, at the end, the winner may pay less than the looser. And there will be many looser for any item thats auctioning but only 1 winner for each.
I have heard so many scam over internet and thinking this one could be scam. So, I try to google for site review etc. The first page only come up with various crap of site ranking from Alexa, or valuation of your website, etc. The real site review / comment / Blog are on 2nd or 3 pages of google search. But I totally missed them as I usually never click “Next Page” on google search or never needed to.
So, I come back to bidpax.com and thinking they could be ok. But there are many way the system could cheat to get money from its customer. We never know the winner are their own bid agents or bots. The site could be throwing the auction and let other bid and 99 % of the time, they will win the item back and keep all the bid money from customer. Buying bids will cost you average of 20 baht to 17 baht (depending on amount of bid you buy). So, if the item is closed for 10.00 Baht, it mean, there is 1,000 bid which will definately earn the site average of 20,000 Baht.
At the same time, right before my eyes, I see Sony 42 inch LCD gone for 3.00 BAHT. MacBook Air for 4.00 BAHT. I never trusted the site but when greed kick in, I was thinking, hey I might have a chance at this! So, after spending quite a lot of time and money, I realized that I got scammed.
There might be some real bidder for an item. But when the items is about to go to real bidder, the system’s bid agent (or bot) come in and bid you again there by extending 10 seconds bid time so that real user can bid agian. In the end, as long as real bidder keep fighting, system will come up with different bid agents to prolong the process and it goes on. When real bidder stop bidding, their bid agents will win the item and system got every bid money where the real bidder use to bid.
Isn’t it clever scheme? Bad thing is, I falled for it. Now, I am talking with their 3rd party payment provider, my paypal, my credit card company on how I got scammed and I want my refund.
There are many penny auction site but I have experience with only BIDPAX.COM and I dare say.. they are SCAM! Don’t even think of trying.
not trying at all LOL
Penny Auction Watch has written many articles on iPennyBid/which is BidPax and also bidvoo.com
read here and read the many negative comments from users : http://www.pennyauctionwatch.com/?s=ipennybid
penny auction watch – I found your page but it was still with ipennybid and didn’t see bidpax before I lost my money. Only after I went there to check 2nd time, I found about bidpax.
I let my guard down with this and got hooked straight away. I registered yesterday and bought almost $AUS1000.. I was bidding for a few hours for an Iphone, surprisingly the winner was a bidder I only saw once for the entire bid that went on for about four hours.. I spent so much money. I was still convinced that I wanted to make my money back and it is greed at the end of the day. Hoping to get something more for a lot less.. not an honest work put into it. Anyway I still have about $500 dollars left after this so I figured its only fair for them to refund me the bids I have not used.. I emailed them and I did not hear anything until I informed them that I will lodge a formal complaint with consumer affairs.
I also went to their office here in Melbourne, which was only a few blocks away from where I work, but when I got there no such address exist! What a scam! No contact details.. nothing at all to signify that their presence is legit.
I have had to cancel my credit so much hassle and stress because I lost a significant amount of money.
I have already logged a complaint with Facebook and my local consumer affairs office, that way the authorities are alerted and informed that such a scam has popped again. I noticed that bidpax was only established this year. Bidpax just changed its name but its still the scam it has always been. Please pass around.
I myself has 824 bids left there and I am not sure how can I refund for my unused bids. Even though I have some doubts, its all greed that made me buy the 1150 bids for about 500 USD. I even realized how they cheat you. I will post my finding in my next blog.
this is massive.. i hope they will all go away
I got scammed also by Bidpax. I wouldn’t mind getting in contact with the guy from Melbourne as I am from Sydney and would like to speak with him about possible legal options available to us.
I also want to know why he had to change his credit card details. I have only seen the legitimate transactions (ones I stupidly ordered!) against my statement. Is he suggesting that other amount were deducted that he did not authorize? This is very important for me to know.