I find the activity on swoopo.co.uk no different to that of a gambling website. I gambled £25 and won nothing. Of the three auctions I took part in, the timer and bid button locked at just 5 seconds to go on two of them. I could not put in any further bids. I contacted swoopo and they obviously didn't blame any of their apparatus, they simply put it down to internet lag times:

"I'm very sorry your bid wasn't registered by the Swoopo servers in time. To be
absolutely certain that you avoid the problem of "Internet lag times" don't leave
your bidding until the last second, or better still, use the BidButler
to place your bids."

What a cop out!! On my final auction I used this infamous bid butler as swoopo recommended. What a great way to gobble up your bids and throw away your bid money and still there is no guarantee of coming close to winning!

My advice; save your money and stay away from the evils of swoopo!!!

Just google for: swoopo lottery
http://www.google.com/search?q=swoopo+lottery
-> 2000 search results

or: swoopo scam
http://www.google.com/search?q=swoopo+scam
-> 3600 search results

I was a bidder for 6 month. My recommendation: Stay far away.

Obviously the Auctions are cost effective for the winning bidder and the winning bidder alone. The actual money is made for Swoopo by the bids placed, this is why you'll find that the larger more expensive items are sold on 1p auctions and the less popular items have a fixed price to avoid disappointment.

Its definitely a good auction site for the individual, but be cautious with your bids and dont waste them.

Just a couple of weeks ago i won a Nnitendo DS Lite for £11.34 (I spent £7 on bids for that particular auction), I myself came off quite well but swoopo would have made their money back before i even won the auction.

Be aware and bid well and you cant lose :o)

Hi,

I have been on this site and had a little go at bidding. I bought £20 worth of bids (thats 40 bids). You buy the bids before you start.

I have decided not to go any further. Its one of those things that look like a bit of an addiction too. It kind of reminds me of those grabbing machines at the fair. You put £1 in and nearly win a teddy, so you put in another £1 and another £1 etc. By the time you win the teddy, you have spent £5 - and the teddy is only worth a couple of quid at the most.

If you look at the overall cost of some wins, the winning bidder has spent well over what the item is worth in bids - but they have to keep going until they have won!

Well done to those who have had bargains though - and good luck to anyone bidding. I just think its a bit of a con and the site are making an absolute fortune!!!!!

Yeah sounds abit of a con.

thanks so much

anna

One more interesting read...

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/relder/entry/httpwwwswoopocouk/

It also resets the countdown to 15 seconds if someone bids, so you can never actually just bid at the last second as there isn't a last second.

Very clever marketing and visuals, but a complete con for the customers.

I found this on another site, it makes for interesting reading before dealing with them...

This from a post someone left on another forum the site is worth a look, but make sure you read the rest of this first.

"Basically, swoopo.co.uk is a live auction website. I sat and watched it for a while, obviously cautious of it due to the shockingly cheap prices that it sells things at. I sussed it and am now the happy owner of a new 80gig PS3 which cost me all of £50.

First, if you don't want to be conned, you need to figure out how they make their money. You buy "bids" that enable you to physically bid on an item. This is where the website makes their money. Each "bid" is equal to 50p in value.

When bidding on an item, each bid (unless it's a special auction, read up on them on the site to see the different kinds) will increase the price of the item by 7p. Now, it doesn't take a genious to do the math, they make 50p from someone clicking "bid" and also increase the price of the item by 7p. So every time someone clicks bid, they make 57p.

Now, I got mine quite cheap (though not as cheap as the £14 that was sold this morning). But still, at £50 they had at least 700 bids. For those who don't understand this, each bid increases the price by 7p. 7p x 100 = £7. Then £7 x 7 = £49, so 700 bids. So by selling the PS3 to me for £50 they actually made £350 off people bidding, and then £50 off me purchasing the item, so they made £400 off it, while I got a PS3 for £50.

The trick is not to hammer away your bids as each time you click "bid" you essentially throw 50p away, there are things called "bid butlers". They will bid (normally) when the timer gets below 5 seconds. So save your bids until it hits the 2 or 3 seconds remaining mark.

At any rate, if you can figure out this site you can get things incredibly incredibly cheap. My friend also just purchased an Acer laptop in a "fixed price" auction, it cost him a total of £170 (including bid costs) and the laptop is RRP at around £1000.

Just a heads up for anyone who fancies a couple of new TV's or a new console, or laptop, or whatever."

So you buy buy bids, i got 20 for a 10 so that 50p each, just dont go bidding away sit and watch a few things to see how it works and you will figurte out. Some things go at an ok price so go at daft prices. The site obviously makes a fortune the more people that bid so, have a good read first.

Sorry thats my baby brain!

its actually swoopo.co.uk

Anna

I doubt it.

There is no such website as Swoopa.co.uk. The domain has not even been registered.

Hi I've just found an online auction site swoopo.co.uk the prices that the items are selling for is fab.

Has anyone used them before? are the really bargins?

Anna