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The Auction casino.
I was looking up online scams (I enjoy looking at ingenious ways to swindel people out of money, and it keeps you in the know) and found swipeauctions.com (dont even bother going there, unless you want to feel dirty).
I thought what they do was rather novel.
basically they advertize by being able to win auctions for ridiculously low prices. Like a 2010 Honda Civic for a 1000 dollars, or 2000 dollar computer for a hundred bucks, or an XBOX for 20 bucks (they actually arent lying at all).
Basically what you do is BUY bidding points (no idea how much they actually cost I think each bid point is worth around 50 cents(considering to open an account there they want to force you to buy 300 bids for 150 or so bucks)). The website provides all the products (considering what ive read the delivery times are, they probably wait until they have made their money then purchase the product themselves then send it to you).
this is where they make their money, its like gambling to win an auction, or buying alot of raffle tickets to increase your odds of winning a raffle.
If you lose the auction, you dont get those bidding points back, i.e. say someone won a laptop for 100 dollars worth of bidding points, but you only bid 99 dollars worth. that money is gone. Its what keeps the prices generally low, and makes the company money.
a scenario:
latop worth a grand sells for 200 dollars, but there were 20 bidders in total that bid close to that amount in bids (heres where the gambling kicks in, when someone bids, do they want to just throw away money? no they want to keep bidding so they didnt just waste money) so the company could end up making around 4000 dollars for a 1000 dollar laptop (their profit margin is most likely far more ridiculous than that, I saw an example online where a canon camera worth 700 retail, had over 13,000 bids, but sold for like 200 bucks) each time someone bids, for the auction company, they are just raking in dough.
Now in my opinion there is nothing illegitimate or illegal about this. in fact I think its a genius gambling idea(without calling it gambling). if everything you bid on you want and CAN afford the retail cost (and were going to pay the retail cost otherwise) you can probably win every single auction you enter and it could be your personal discount store. Most people that are looking for these bargain bin prices though probably cant afford the retail cost (maybe cant even afford a fraction of it)and are likely to be hosed.
Here is where they hit scam territory. While this hasnt been substantiated, its something that would be difficult for someone outside the company to know. It is believed that they have bid bots on the site, they will bid on items that wont end up being lucrative to them (i.e. a piece of software that scans current auctions and when an auction is about to end they wont turn a profit on, they bid on it in an attempt to generate more bids. So in the end they cant lose period, at worst if they win their own auction they keep the item, and all the money the bidders lost from bidding.
Its possible they do this, I dont know why they would though, even a casino loses sometimes but will always win in the long run. If they ever got investigated and something like that was found they would be fucked beyond all recognition.
I was looking up online scams (I enjoy looking at ingenious ways to swindel people out of money, and it keeps you in the know) and found swipeauctions.com (dont even bother going there, unless you want to feel dirty).
I thought what they do was rather novel.
basically they advertize by being able to win auctions for ridiculously low prices. Like a 2010 Honda Civic for a 1000 dollars, or 2000 dollar computer for a hundred bucks, or an XBOX for 20 bucks (they actually arent lying at all).
Basically what you do is BUY bidding points (no idea how much they actually cost I think each bid point is worth around 50 cents(considering to open an account there they want to force you to buy 300 bids for 150 or so bucks)). The website provides all the products (considering what ive read the delivery times are, they probably wait until they have made their money then purchase the product themselves then send it to you).
this is where they make their money, its like gambling to win an auction, or buying alot of raffle tickets to increase your odds of winning a raffle.
If you lose the auction, you dont get those bidding points back, i.e. say someone won a laptop for 100 dollars worth of bidding points, but you only bid 99 dollars worth. that money is gone. Its what keeps the prices generally low, and makes the company money.
a scenario:
latop worth a grand sells for 200 dollars, but there were 20 bidders in total that bid close to that amount in bids (heres where the gambling kicks in, when someone bids, do they want to just throw away money? no they want to keep bidding so they didnt just waste money) so the company could end up making around 4000 dollars for a 1000 dollar laptop (their profit margin is most likely far more ridiculous than that, I saw an example online where a canon camera worth 700 retail, had over 13,000 bids, but sold for like 200 bucks) each time someone bids, for the auction company, they are just raking in dough.
Now in my opinion there is nothing illegitimate or illegal about this. in fact I think its a genius gambling idea(without calling it gambling). if everything you bid on you want and CAN afford the retail cost (and were going to pay the retail cost otherwise) you can probably win every single auction you enter and it could be your personal discount store. Most people that are looking for these bargain bin prices though probably cant afford the retail cost (maybe cant even afford a fraction of it)and are likely to be hosed.
Here is where they hit scam territory. While this hasnt been substantiated, its something that would be difficult for someone outside the company to know. It is believed that they have bid bots on the site, they will bid on items that wont end up being lucrative to them (i.e. a piece of software that scans current auctions and when an auction is about to end they wont turn a profit on, they bid on it in an attempt to generate more bids. So in the end they cant lose period, at worst if they win their own auction they keep the item, and all the money the bidders lost from bidding.
Its possible they do this, I dont know why they would though, even a casino loses sometimes but will always win in the long run. If they ever got investigated and something like that was found they would be fucked beyond all recognition.
