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

I doubt it.

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

Sorry thats my baby brain!

its actually swoopo.co.uk

Anna

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.

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.

Yeah sounds abit of a con.

thanks so much

anna

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!!!!!

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)

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.

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!!!

I just suffered the same fate!!

7 seconds from auction end (after spending over £40 on bids) my page froze and the auction ended while I was unable to bid.....great.

I'm closing my account and won't risk losing more money again.

Wait till the missus finds out! lol

I have been on www.swoopo.co.uk for 10 minutes and looking at the math. Bids cost anything between 38.5p to 40p in the UK. The WiiFit I was looking at went for £34.09 @ 7p per bid = 487 bids.

That’s 487 x 40p = £194.80 made on the bids + £34.09 for the WiiFit.

www.swoopo.co.uk made £228.89 for a WiiFit!

One thing that does concern me is that on the particular auction I was looking at Billie1958 was putting a huge amount of bids at 40p a time. So many that I decided to Google Billie1958 and found that he was also putting a huge amount of bids on other auctions around the world at the same time.

My advice to other users of this site would be look at who or what your bidding against, and keep away!

I have similar experiences to the posts above, took a punt and bought £25 worth of bids, didnt manage to buy anthing. Stay away better bargains elsewhere

i only regestered on this site to throw in my thoughts on swoopo.co.uk, or in my case, swoopo.com

i came to think that whis website is one HUGE scam. Here is my main reason.

Swoopo actually has the products that they are selling. Or do they....

i personally believe that they have people working for them to "bid" on the items that they are "selling". i personally think that they have nothing to offer. i dont know ANYBODY who has won ANYTHING from Swoopo. so in the end, If they have people working for them, they dont really have to have an end product to ship off "to the winner"

On Most legit auction sites, you know that the product will be coning from a user from their sites, not the site itself.

i could set up some website and say, "hey, Ive got this wii/ps3/xBox360/etc.. for sale, and ill give it to the highest bidder. but you have to buy your bids first." then i could sell these "bids" and then have my workers bid on these items too. it wouldnt cost them a thing since they work for me.

The should prove somehow that they are actually selling an end product.

I also just registered on here to post this (although I've been a lurker for a while) ;-)

Just wanted to add my thoughts...

I am one of those people who have won on Swoopo. For the skeptics, my auction number was 116533, and you can find it if you go to any item's detail page and swap the number in the web address for mine.

As some have pointed out, it's not an auction, it's gambling. But there are strategies. People who just blindly bid and bid are bound to get annoyed at swoopo.com and say it's a scam. It's not. It's just a business model that makes them a fortune from losing bids.

Tips for winning:

1. Bid when it's on 1 second

2. Bid in the early hours of the morning.

3. Wait until the first page of live "auctions" shows at least three of the item you want. Bid on the bottom one.

In the end, there's also a degree of luck. But again, if you look at my winning auction you'll see I followed my own strategy and only bidded twice to win the item.

Oh, and it's £10 off the first win price when you join, so I paid only £9 including shipping for my Wii...

Make up your own mind about the site, and follow the usual gambling rules (i.e. don't throw good money after bad, and don't gamble more than you can afford to lose).

Simon