i think it is kinda like scam
1 bid will cost money and in the auction, it only raise RM0.01
it is not like lelong where u can bid infinitely up to a ceiling price..

i've did some simple calculation;
1 bid cost RM1.5 (cheapest! higher if u buy less)
the most hot item on the auction is the HP mini laptop which retail cost RM1499 and they promised 50% price from retail or they will refund the extra.. for example, if the auction raises to rm800 with winner, the winner will get rm50 money back excluding the fund used to buy bids..

so 1 bid raises rm0.01, to reach rm750 (example), they need 75,000 bids
since 1 bid cost rm1.5 hence 75,000 x 1.5 = RM112,500 is the profit they made on a sub thousand laptop

or do i understand the auction wrongly?

I'm sure they wont get that much money once people realize they should only bid on the very very last moment.

still , you get the item pretty cheap .. who cares about how much money THEY make...

but when u don't get the item, u would think of how much they are making out of the ppl who didn't succeed

not really, provided u have to buy 300bids @ RM450 in order to compete with others..
u already spend rm450 and u have to pay the price of the winning bid, lets say rm750

so basically u have used rm1200 to get that laptop

Yes but then people just might just figure out that it is wiser if they waited till the last possible moment to bid. This would drraaaastically reduce the time they have left to raise their bids .


You see, like 1 more minute to end bid , item still cheap cheap and you bid only once for it , but then someone else bids .. but you can still bid again and again to get the item in that 1 minute. I'm sure they wont have 7423947892389 people bidding in that single minute.

lolz, everytime a bid entered in last minute, a gap of 2minutes will be imposed.. means if 1 minutes left, u place a bid, u will have 3minutes left

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Added on June 27, 2009, 5:49 pmim not sure if i explained correctly but

"4.There is a countdown timer for each auction (30 sec – 5 minutes, depending on the auction), which resets every time a new bid has been made."


This post has been edited by imperialrealcs: Jun 27 2009, 05:49 PM

all boils down to luck babeh..
















but really , I'm going to try to get as much cheap stuff while it's still somewhat unknown to the general public.

i dont see how luck play in this game.. you see, if i had 300 bids and so u r, we will compete like fark and that is like RM6 (600 bids x 0.01) on the auction only.. this will make us buy more bids and fight with each other (provided no other person intefere).. in the end, we might used more than what it is worth lolz

You guys may read this blog, penny auction seems like a gambling.
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001261.html

This post has been edited by doinfinity: Jun 28 2009, 03:51 PM

I play Penny Arcade.

lol... look at the ended auctions...

http://www.pennyauction.com.my/ended_auctions/

so the winner only need to pay RM4 for Ipod Shuffle 4GB?

Retail price RM309.00
Bids (8) RM12.80
Price RM4.06
Savings RM292.14

but pennyauction will earn like mad due to many people bid

total is RM4.06, that means 406 people bid.. procided they all buy 1 bid at rm1.5, total cost for buying bid to spend on this item is RM609

the REAL scam is not this...

the REAL scam is that they purposely become the LAST bidder on items that they can re-sell

it happened on me, on Celcom last time they had something like that, and i waited until the very last minutes, and I mean it, and started bidding like mad

actually i won the bid, but they never contacted me, and when i call them they said somebody else won the bid

damn them to hell !

dont u have the prove which state that u actually won the bid?

yeah, there is a posibility that they will disguise as normal bidder to bid the price 9 9

the bid was by sms

the bid supposed to close at 12.00 midnite, but often the "last minute bidding war" goes till 12.13 am or so.

to ensure i get the very last one, i used 3 phones, all celcom line, to do bidding

one bid after another, giving others no chance to up me, and i do it until the last second, until the bid is closed

and for several times, i WAS the very last one entering the bid, i am sure, very sure

then... they got someone (their own people) to up the bid internally

damn cheat ! damn damn cheat !!!!

Such system will never lose. there will be internal mechanism that will kicks in to ensure they will profit regardless of the outcome.


its exactly like a casino.

yalor... that's why i stopped participating in such scams

How do we know whether PennyAuction involves in self-bidding or not?

Imagine if an auction never ends...PennyAuction will earn a lot from an item...

That's the magic. they will ensure we won't know.

I'm in IT line. such "AI" not hard to develop. Just continious monitor the auction intervals and calculate whether its time to "activate" a drone aka robot to auto-bid or not. Frustrated real bidder might continue to play along. And in the last minute when the minimum-value-that-ensure-they-profit is met, the system will just play nice and let the "lucky" user make final bid and win.

Seriously, it can be done...

lets say the autobid bot will automatically bid at 0.03 seconds before the auction ends.. it should be fun..hahaha...

But then, ppl wouldn't complain if they win the auction... the price is so cheap in the expense of those who lost the auction...