Anyone heard of this auction site (bidcactus.com)

[mailman187666]

https://www.bidcactus.com/

It shows people getting 55" 1080P TVs for under $50.00 and all sorts of other electronic devices for next to nothing. I think its too good to be true. Anyone know anything about this site?

[jb143]

I've seen a few commercials on TV. Don't know much about it though other than I think the "catch" is that you have to buy your bids in advance.

Edit--
Yup...just looked it up on their site.

Bids cost $0.75 each and come in packs of 30, 50, 100, 150, and 250.

So to even bid, they've made at least $22.50 off you. Not sure about selling though, it's only new stuff.

[Damaniel]

These are all known as 'reverse auctions', and they're as scammy as they sound. Essentially, you pay for the right to place a bid (usually 50 cents to a dollar, with bulk discounts), and bidding continues until a certain amount of time has passed with nobody making a bid. Each bid raises the price of the final auction by a very small amount (usually a penny).

They're a goldmine for the operators: Consider that $50 55 inch TV. With a starting bid of 1 cent, 1 cent increments, and 75 cents to place a bid, that means that the auction company makes a total of:

(4999 * 0.75) + 50 = $3799.25

All for a TV that might cost $1500 - $1800 on a bad day. This gets even more magnified when people are bidding iPads to final prices in the $30 range. Those $600 iPads can result in more than $2200 in revenue each.

People buy into this idea because they think they must be getting a good deal. In a way, it's more like playing the lottery, and the game is rigged very much in favor of the house. On days that I'm feeling less ethical, I find myself wishing I had come up with the idea first!

[mailman187666]

I knew there had to be a catch. Thanks for the info guys. I thought there was no way to get those items for the prices they are being sold for. If I could have bought those items for those prices, I'd be rich just reselling them on ebay, or in a store of my own.

[jb143]

I think a reverse auction is something completely different but that's beside the point. If the auction ends after a certain amount of time has passed with no new bids then that makes it a big turn off for me. That opens it up to shill bidding scams. If they're not going to make the amount they want then place a shill bid to keep anyone from actually getting it for that price and repeat until an acceptable profit is made.