Penny Auction REVIEWS – Which Penny Auctions are the BEST Bargains?

Recently it was reported to Penny Auction Investigator better know as “PAI” that our members had participated in and observed an obviously manipulated auction being conducted by Beezid.com. “I Immediately took  a screen shot and forwarded it to Bill Weinstein” an auction investigator with “PAI”. After the initial e-forensic investigation it was determined that the auction did in fact transpire and that there possibly was  Auction Malfeasance on behalf of Beezid.com

There were 3 different beezid bots running, here are the names:

combatvet68
marcoislandqn
baltimore7

Auction ID:288664
Retail price * $200.00
winning price: $1,003.78
7-22-2011
11:51:34 EDT
Winner Is:
combatvet68

Calls were placed to Beezid.com, they have not been available for comment.

A lawsuit was filed on February 11, 2011 against 6 major penny auction websites- Swoopo.com, OohILove.com, BidCactus.com, Quibids.com, Beezid.com, and BigDeal.com. You can view the lawsuit document here in PDF.

According to the document, these penny auction websites are violating US gambling laws.

“This action alleges that Defendants operate illegal Internet gambling websites, by permitting persons to play games of chance for money and/or make a wager upon the result of a game or contest.”

Also quoted from the lawsuit document-

“Defendants conduct of charging consideration for the chance to win prizes (or something of value), violates all 50 state laws prohibiting unauthorized gambling.”

Currently, both Swoopo.com and OohILove.com (both owned and operated by Entertainment Shopping, INC) have shut down their websites. Although Swoopo claims it’s down due to technical issues. Swoopo also has another class action lawsuit filed against them in California, Hernandez v. Entertainment Shopping, Inc. The California lawsuit was filed March 21, 2011.

What do you think? Should penny auctions be considered illegal gambling?

In this video, “carmelcoco” talks about her experience on Beezid.com, including failing to read certain unfair rules in the fine print, and not receiving any of her won items. Beezid is one of the industry’s biggest penny auctions, but before you go there, watch this review first.

(71 votes, average: 2.54 out of 5)
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Other Reading See:

Beezid Scam

Beezid a newcomer to the penny auction arena, has a very clean and inquisitive looking site. On November 13th, Beezid auctioned off a Toyota SUV for 26.56 to Howard, we anticipate on seeing the lucky bidder soon, as we are sure many people in the penny auction community are curious as to who was the successful bidder, Beezid has an up and coming mustang auction which we are sure will have all bidders glued to there screens. Beezid offers a european style bidding platform similar to Swoopo, Although they do not have as many items or bidders as Swoopo, they’re traffic rankings suggest that they do have a large volume of visitors, we will soon know the extent of the user experience at Beezid and will be able  to report back to you with those findings, All Members/Users are encouraged to share there experiences on http://www.beezid.com

Update 4/04/10:

For a newcomer to the realm of online penny auctions, Beezid has an impressive roster of prizes up for grabs on their site. In November last year, a certain bidder on Beezid going by the name of Howard won a brand new Toyota SUV, with the heated auction ending at $26.56.

Beezid is set to give away more impressive prizes like the new Apple iPad and a 2010 Ford Mustang GT. Other prizes on the site include the usual electronic items like HDTVs, iPods, mobile phones, gaming consoles, and more. With the variety of prizes Beezid has, it’s no wonder the site is one of the highest rated in the penny auction arena.

The website claims that their bidders get 60-100% off on some of their items – after doing some browsing on the site, we found that Beezid has kept this promise, at least for the smaller items. Competition for the fancier products like HDTVs is incredibly intense, with Beezid raking in around $7,000 for a television set that normally retails at $1,000.

The cons you might ask? Of the many complaints circulating around the web about Beezid, the most prevalent one would have to be the issue of winning bidders never getting their prizes delivered even after months of waiting. Another common complaint from bidders is that the site is said to have “bots” that bid against users in order for them to bid some more. This is a fairly common issue among other online penny auctions, but Beezid has been the subject of this issue on a number of forums and blogs.

As a way of showing new bidders that the site is legit, Beezid has a “Recent Winner” page that shows pictures of winning bidders with the items they’ve won. We’d prefer to have this page updated every now and then though to make it more convincing.