Quibids vs eBay: Where to Shop for Discounts

Quibids vs eBay is a question that a lot of shoppers face especially during the holiday season. Both these websites are well established in their field and it can be a tough choice to make. Both eBay and Quibids offer some really great discounts and deals. So how do the two compare?

The auction models of eBay and Quibids are totally different. Quibids is a penny auction site, which is a bidding fee auction model. On the other hand, eBay is a traditional auction site which more people are familiar with. Every bid you pay in Quibids is charged at $0.60/bid. On eBay, the bids are totally free and you only pay if you win the item.



There are some main differences between Quibids and eBay. The most important difference arises in the bidding model as mentioned above. Also, eBay is much more general in that there are millions of more items on eBay. On this count, Quibids vs eBay becomes a meaningless question because you can literally find everything on eBay.

The items that you find on Quibids are quite limited. However, for the items that are sold on Quibids, you can get far higher discount on Quibids than eBay. Here, we are talking about discounts of up to 90% and not 5-10% that you might be lucky to find on eBay.

However, as expected, there is a catch. You will need to pay for the bids that you place, which means you can lose money even without winning. This is an impossibility at eBay. If you do not win the item, you lose nothing.

Thus to answer the question of Quibids vs eBay for the products that are sold at both the stores, it really depends on you. If you like taking some calculated risks, you should try Quibids. If you are risk-averse, prefer eBay. If you want to try Quibids, read my post on Getting free Quibids bids before joining so you can make some good profits right from the start.

Also, if you like Quibids, you should certainly try out the other penny auctions as well. This is because sometimes Quibids can get really competitive. The newer penny auction sites have fewer bidders and thus lesser competition, so your chances can be improved. Also, a lot of them give you free bids while joining, so you might just win something out of these free bids, which would be great - to win hands down without any investment.

The post talked about Quibids vs eBay and some differences that you should keep in mind. There are risks associated with Quibids, but the rewards can be sweet.

Quibids Free Bids on Christmas

Quibids gave away free bids on Christmas. There was however a catch: it gave those free bids only to some users and not others. It seems that neither the heavy spenders nor the rare visitors were the lucky group. Personally, I never received any free Quibids bids on Christmas.

However, if you visit the Facebook page of Quibids, you will see some people thanking Quibids for their free bids. This seems disappointing that only a few people should be given free bids while others are denied. I was hopeful that I would get something from them for the New Year but no gift. Nada. They did send out an email for wishes, but that's no good now, is it?

So how did Quibids decide who would get free Quibids bids?

Quibids Doesn't Want to be Identified as a Penny Auction

So I was just looking for penny auctions in general and not just Quibids and stumbled upon a very interesting thing - Quibids doesn't show up in Google if you type penny auctions!I find this quite interesting. After all, Quibids is perhaps the biggest penny auction site on the internet today. Quibids had the millionth auction recently, which is a great achievement. So why doesn't Quibids show up for penny auctions in Google?

There are many possible explanations for this. I assume that Quibids doesn't want to identify itself with the other penny auction sites. I assume this is because Quibids wants to stand out from the rest of the crowd. In addition, penny auctions seem to have a bad connotation attached today with so many of them, like Swipebids, turning into outright scams. Also, there are new penny auction sites opening up in every nook and corner of the internet. Perhaps Quibids doesn't really want to be seen in the same league as these.

What I also find interesting is that there is no Quibids ad showing up in Google for the keyword "penny auctions". Quibids is an aggressive advertiser and I have seen Quibids ads everywhere. In fact, I discovered Quibids through a similar advertisement a very long time ago. However, Quibids doesn't even want to advertise to people looking for penny auctions. This is indeed surprising because I am sure a lot of penny auction searchers can do with a far better version of Plundr and Beezid.

Quibids Details: Phone Number, Address etc

This post is just to provide more information like Quibids phone number and address to those searching for it. Quibids is a relatively open company as compared to tons of other penny auction sites.

Here is some information about Quibids. This is taken directly from their BBB page.

Quibids phone number: (405) 253-2038
Additional Quibids phone number: (405) 253-3883
Address: 1601 NW Expressway, ste. 1500
Oklahoma City, OK 73118
CEO: Mr. Matt Beckham
CFO: Mr. Jeff Geurts
Director of PR: Ms. Jill Farrand
Employees: 100

BBB Rating: A-
Total complaints received by BBB: 88

Quibids Trap Page: Different Auctions for Different Users

There are allegations that Quibids is using a trap page to direct different users to different auctions. This is alleged to be a Quibids scam and not legit by some. The reply that Quibids customer service agent gave to a user doesn't help matters much either.

So what is a Quibids trap page? Simply put, there are different pages for different users so that there are different auctions for different bidders. I think the way it goes is that Quibids collects the data from different users and classifies them in different categories. The bigger bidders who spend and bid aggressively are grouped together into one category, so that they compete with each other and not smaller bidders. So if you are winning a lot on Quibids, you will find it harder to win in the future.

The Quibids customer support reply says that they have different auctions for different people to maximize their winnings. This is obviously untrue because they want to have the aggressive bidders bid with each other, because otherwise they could win most of the items and leave others unhappy. This would also reduce Quibids' earnings. While I don't think this counts as a Quibids scam, it does seem suspicious. I think they should mention this somewhere on their website, because otherwise it seems misleading.

So how do we know that Quibids is actually using a trap page? Simple - clear your cookies and note all the auctions that are present on the page. Now log in with your account and you will find that there are different auctions present. Not cool. So you might see some auction when you are not logged in and then all of a sudden when you log in, this auction could disappear for you.

Is this a Quibids scam? There seem to be some legal implications but I am not really sure. There is only hype at this stage. I don't think there are any lawsuits filed. You can read the entire discussion on PennyAuctionsWatch article.

You can try this out yourself - clear the cookies and you will see different auctions than when you are logged in. I think Quibids saves cookies to determine how much you win and which auctions to show. Better still, if you have a friend somewhere else, you could compare notes on which Quibids auctions you both see.



So what do you think about this Quibids trap page? Is Quibids scam? Is Quibids legit? The penny auction watch comments seem to suggest otherwise, but certainly you cannot believe all the rant on the internet.

Quibids Featured Auctions

Quibids is rolling out new features and new auctions once again. This time, they are coming up with Quibids Featured Auctions. This is a weekly featured auction that will be a big-ticket item. For this week, Quibids has announced Samsung Ultimate 3D Bundle as their featured auction.



One good thing - Quibids is not holding this featured auction on a weekday. This is good for bidders because weekdays can be really busy at Quibids with lots of bidders and thus a reduced possibility of winning. Instead, they are putting up the Quibids featured auction on Thursdays. There will be a new auction every Thursday, so be sure to check this out.

If you are looking for Quibids strategies and how to win these big-ticket items, be sure to check out my posts on Quibids strategies here, here and here.

Good luck bidding people! And hopefully you can all win something good for Christmas.

How to win on Quibids 2: Worst Time to Bid on Quibids

I have already discussed the best and worst times in general in my post here. You can also find my Quibids strategies - just browse through the most popular posts on the right hand side.

Here, I want to give some details about the worst time to bid on Quibids.

The worst time to bid on Quibids is in the night, about 10pm-2am EST. However, this worst time frame is expanding. I would say, don't bid till up to about 5am EST. Here is why:

A number of people who bid on Quibids do so at night because that is the time they are free. Quibids does realize this and usually has more auctions during the night. However, there are almost never enough number of auctions for all the users, so the nights are very competitive. Now, I know many people are nocturnal like me and will stay up late to bid on Quibids.

Quibids has only a very few auctions of late during the nights - around 4-5am EST. Here is a recent screenshot of Quibids around this time. As you can see, there are only 6 live auctions on Quibids at this time. There are, of course, many users online, so they all tend to bid on a few auctions, making this time very competitive.

So I would say, avoid bidding on Quibids at night. This is especially the case when you are in EST. This time zone is at a disadvantage for this particular time frame. If you thought you can wake up till 4am, remember it is still 1am Pacific Time, so there would be many online. You cannot be late in EST but you certainly can be early. In fact, mornings are a good time to bid on Quibids. Thus if you are in EST, perhaps you can put the alarm in the morning and try your luck!

Quibids free bids on Birthday

Here is an interesting fact about free Quibids bids: You get 5 free bids on your birthday. This seems like a really cool feature at Quibids. This was confirmed by Quibids CEO Matt Beckham in one of his interviews. Just wanted to share this with my readers.

Quibids Stock, Quibids CEO and other information about Quibids

Is Quibids stock available? As of today, no it is not. Quibids is not a publicly listed company and therefore there is no stock of Quibids that you can buy on the market. Quibids CEO is Matt Beckham. He gave an interview to PAW about an year ago, which can be an interesting read for anyone interested. You can find the interview here. Quibids was launched in October 2009, so it is not a long time.

For Quibids stock to be available, the company will have to get listed. For this, first it should establish a good track record. Another problem is that many consider penny auctions to be similar to gambling. This is a legal gray area and I don't think there is consensus on this issue. Personally I don't think penny auctions are comparable to gambling, but then I am no legal expert. In the United States, online gambling is illegal. Obviously, this is an issue not just with Quibids but with all the penny auction websites in the market today. Still, Quibids has a long way to go before it gets its stock out and is traded on the market.

Quibids Review: Error with updates

This is my Quibids review regarding the Quibids error with updating auction information. The section Is Quibids scam discusses about Quibids in general (answer in a nutshell: Quibids is not a scam). Also, you can read my comprehensive Quibids review

I previously discussed an error with Quibids regarding display of double bids. The problem is not serious and hardly matters. However, today's error is far more serious.

Quibids is a penny auction site where every second matters. In fact, every 100 milliseconds matter because so many people bid at the very last moment. Therefore, it is very important that Quibids has a mechanism to handle several almost simultaneous bids without problem. However, this is not always the case.

Here is a Quibids review of the bidding process when there are multiple bids just when the timer is about to go to zero. See the image for yourself (you can click on the image to enlarge).


As you can see, this is an auction for a 250 bids voucher at Quibids. The information to the right hand side doesn't match the information shown near the bid! It is not very common but still it is a Quibids error that needs to be addressed soon and efficiently. So if the auction ends now, who is the winner - jthom19802 or dzrthart? I assume it is the one with the higher bid, but still, it can be confusing and misleading.

In Quibids and most penny auctions in general, the difference between winning and losing is everything. If you are playing the waiting game and looking to bid at the last moment, there are many who will do the same. A lot of bids at the same time is something which can be hard to handle.

In the end, however, I'll give it to Quibids that they are one of the most efficient penny auction sites I have seen in terms of handling huge bids at the same time. That being said, there is always scope for improvement and I hope Quibids corrects this error and I won't have to bring up another Quibids review for this purpose!

Get your Quibids free bids now!

If you are looking for Quibids free bids, here is how to get them.

Note: This is only for those people who do not yet have a Quibids account. I know not many of my readers are in this situation. For those who are already members and want some free Quibids bids, check out my post on Getting free Quibids bids.

For those who are yet to register at Quibids, here is how to get your free bids:

1. Log in at Quibids
2. Enter the code WINBIG during the registration process. Congratulations! You now have 10 free bids to start your Quibids journey.
3. Go to the Beginners Lobby. Here you can get some more bids through bid vouchers for very cheap. These auctions are only for beginners and not for everyone, so you have a very good chance of winning. Don't forget this method of cheap/free Quibids bids!

Quibids Review: Misleading Price Information

There are several posts where I talk about Quibids review. Quibids is a great penny auction site that is legitimate, which means they are not closing shop after robbing you, like so many other sites on the internet. However, that doesn't mean that everything they do is good. There are things I don't like about Qubids, which is the purpose of my series on Quibids review.

Here, I want to talk about Quibids price as shown for the items that are previously won. What I mean is, when you open an auction for say 100 Quibids bids, you will see, on the left hand side of the page, information about how much the item was sold for recently.


In the image above, you can see that Quibids 100 bids voucher shows for selling at $0.01. Wow, now that can be some misleading information! Of course, this is the lowest price it can go to, but as all Quibids bidders know, this is HIGHLY unlikely. Quibids wants to attract more people by showing cheaper prices for products. Of course they are not lying because there was an auction that did sell for so cheap - see the image below.


However, these events are extremely rare, and can easily mislead new Quibids customers into expecting this to be the price. Experienced Quibids users may easily see through this.

The average price, I am guessing, will easily be 500 times or more! Here is a typical Quibids 100 bids auction:


What I don't like is that Quibids changed this very recently. Up to a few months ago, they would never try to show the cheapest auction price in the 'Recently Sold for' section. This is a recent change. In fact, I remember at the very earliest times, they would deliberately put a very high price here! The reason I think was because if they put up a very low price, people might suspect it to be a scam. However, of late, more and more people seem to know about penny auctions.

I like Quibids because it is different from all the rest of these sites. However, by towing the line by showing the cheapest price as that for which the item was recently sold, Quibids is simply losing the tag being good and honest. There are many positive changes in Quibids too, which I like, but this is not one of them.

Quibids Strategy - 4: Using Quibids Bid Vouchers

This is part 4 of my series on Quibids Strategies. You might also want to read Part-1, Part-2 and Part-3.

So this part of Quibids strategy is for a specific case: If you want to win the item but don't want to purchase it at the market price.

There are many Quibids bidders out there who do this - they don't want to use the 'Buy it Now' option. Please do note that this is an awesome feature of Quibids that you should definitely check out and use as often as you can. However, you might be there on Quibids just for fun and would want to win the auction without actually 'needing' the item. Thus you would not want to buy the Quibids Macbook for thousand bucks, but you might still want to bid and try to win this item.

If there is a such a specific item, then you should use this strategy of using bids to purchase bid vouchers. The trade off is that Voucher bids do not count towards 'Buy it Now' bids. However, since you are not that specific about this, you might as well try to optimize your overall bids as opposed to using only paid bids.

For this Quibids strategy to work, you need to know what kind of bid vouchers work best. Quibids currently offers bid vouchers of 15, 25, 50, 100 and 250 bids.

Aim: To win an X bid voucher for less than X bids.

This is not hard to understand: suppose you can win a 250 bid voucher by spending 100 bids. In effect, you are getting 150 bids extra. The price of course is that you used up 100 paid bids and got 250 voucher bids, so be aware of this trade-off at all times.

What bid vouchers work best? In my experience, it is very hard to win 15 bid vouchers for less than 15 bids. However, it is relatively simple to win 50,100 bid vouchers within 50,100 bids by using my Volunteer's Dilemma strategy. Thus, the best bid vouchers are 50 and 100 bid ones. The 250 bid voucher can get quite competitive. You can use my Waiting Game Strategy for this particular bid voucher.

The additional costs involved in the voucher bids is to take the final price into consideration and also the shipping and handling charges. For example, if the final price + shipping/handling comes to $3, you need to account that as 5 bids lost.

Thus if you decide to bid and win an item without any regard to Buy it Now feature, then you should definitely employ this Quibids strategy. This strategy will help you to get the maximum out of your Quibids experience. This is in effect a way to get free bids at Quibids, but it is not really free - you have to work to win the bid vouchers.

Note: Bid vouchers are relatively safe, because if you don't win it, you can always use the Buy it Now for the bid voucher! So suppose you are bidding on a 100 bid voucher and you place 100 bids but don't win it. Nothing to worry - by paying the service charge of $2, you can buy it just like you would purchase normal bids! This is the good thing with Quibids vouchers.

Quibids millionth auction winner

So Quibids has announced the millionth auction winner today in their newsletter. This was sent to all the Quibids members. Here is the winner - Mr. Josh Neifert. Congratulations!

Quibids announced this competition quite some time ago. For obvious reasons, the exact auction that was the millionth was not announced. Like with so many other things at Quibids, this dependent heavily on your luck :)

So what does the winner get: $10,000 in hard cash! Also, Quibids wants to donate $1,000 to a charity of the winner's choosing. I am hoping the winner reads this NY times article by Mr. Kristof discussing the truth about charities and steers clear of the scum.

I think this is a significant achievement for Quibids as a site and proving this to be a successful and sustainable business model. I also think that Quibids has a long way to go and many improvements to be made to the website with time. There are still issues that I will be discussing as I review different auctions at Quibids. However, Quibids seems to be the most promising penny auction site out there, and personally I think is way above the more famous competitor Swoopoo. It is only a matter of time that Quibids catches up.

Quibids also seems to be launching an aggressive Facebook campaign by enticing users with free bids. Perhaps a post is due discussing this.

Quibids Review: Problem with Bidding

Quibids review is needed periodically to check the site for bugs and errors. Quibids is one of the more famous penny auction websites on the internet. Quibids recently announced their millionth auction, which is quite an accomplishment.

A lot of people invest a considerable amount of time and money into the site, so it is important that Quibids be free of bugs and errors. Unfortunately, that is not the case as my Quibids review in this section reveals.

Today, I will discuss the problem with Quibids with respect to repeated bids. This is not very common, but that isn't the point - it is still a Quibids bug/Quibids error that needs to be rectified.

Usually, if you bid twice in quick succession on Quibids, the bid is still registered. Of course you would not ideally want to do that because you are losing a bid quite unnecessarily. But see what happens if you do.

The image below shows a screenshot of an auction that I was following for the purpose of this Quibids review: (you can click on the image to enlarge the picture)


As you can see, the Quibids user tomtomintx seems to have bid twice, but the price remains the same. This is not the rule - normally if you bid twice successively, the bid amount still goes up. Quibids has a problem with this, which is what I want to review in this post.

Quibids review is important because users need to be aware of any strange happenings on the website. This is because in any penny auction, the difference between winning and losing is a matter of seconds, which Quibids does realize. However, if such bugs are not corrected, it can be a problem for Quibids users.

This doesn't seem like a serious Quibids bug but it is important because Quibids has a problem with bids placed in quick succession. In my next Quibids review, I will discuss a more serious Quibids bug that I am well aware of and a lot of other Quibids users are aware of as well. That has to do with different winners at the same time!

Quibids Review: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Here is my first part of Quibids review for my readers:

Quibids is a penny auction site, which is unlike other traditional auctions. If you do not know what penny auctions are, you can read about it at Wikipedia. Remember, Quibids is not a traditional auction site.

For those of you who are looking to answer the question of whether Quibids is a scam or not, here is a simple one word answer: No. However, my Quibids review is not about whether it is a scam, which it is not. You can read my post here to see why Quibids is not a scam.

However, if you happen to try the site out without knowing that it is a penny auction site, you might think it is a scam. This is why, don't join Quibids until you are sure you know what you are getting yourself into.

All penny auctions including Quibids contain elements of luck and risk, and can resemble a lottery.

My Quibids review here is about what is good and bad in Quibids, assuming you already understand the risk in Quibids.

The Good:

• Not Scam!: This is the biggest good for Quibids review, simply because most penny auction sites are outright scams. Quibids has a sustainable business model. Quibids uses game theory and elements of psychology and economics and can make for a good business model, which it is. Quibids recently completed the millionth auction on the site. It is quite unlike sites like Swipebids/Swipeauctions that are outright scams.
  

• Real Auctions: Quibids has real auctions, which means the auctions are not all about bids and virtual products. By real auctions in my Quibids review, I mean that what you can win is real and tangible. You can win a Quibids macbook or Quibids iPad or something smaller, like headphones or mouse, but there are physical products that you use. Many penny auction sites only have points and coupons to win, which are seldom tangible. Thus they work akin to a ponzi.
  

• Fast Product Delivery: The product delivery from Quibids is fast. You will get what you win within a week or two. They are prompt with ensuring that the winners get their products well in time.
  

• The 'Buy it Now' Feature: This feature of Quibids is unique and can be highly useful for bidders. If you fail to win a product, you can use the amount towards the bids to purchase it at the market value. This is a good feature that greatly minimizes your losses, especially if you are interested to buy the product you are bidding anyway.

The Bad:
My Quibids review needs to be balanced and neutral, so here are some of the bad things about Quibids that might change with time.

• Weekend competition: The best time to participate in penny auctions is the weekends when people are relatively free. However, it seems that there are just not enough products for the weekend, and so everyone bids on the same few auctions. This causes immense amount of competition, and thus the customers end up losing a lot. Quibids is naturally aware that far more people participate in auctions during the weekends, but I guess they just want to book profits above the user convenience in this case.
  

• Hidden charges: Let me be honest - I hate hidden charges and hidden fees everywhere, not just Quibids. They have a delivery cost that be totally unjustified. For example, they charge $2 for adding bid after you win a bid voucher from Quibids. This is ridiculous as there is nothing physical being transferred. The bids are added immediately to your account, so why the extra fees?
  

• Misleading Information: There are several things in this category. For example, a lot of advertisements seem to be showing very high discounts without telling the users about the risk. This is why so many think Quibids is scam. I don't think withholding information is the right way to go especially at this stage. I'll probably write a whole post on this topic soon.
  

So that was my Quibids review and I hope to hear from you - what you like and what you don't, so I can take those into account for my next review.

Quibids scam or not

Question: Is Quibids a scam?
Verdict: Not scam.

Quibids is a penny auction site, which is quite different from the regular auctions that you are aware of, like traditional auctions or even websites like eBay. Penny auction is a kind of Bidding fee auction, so each bid you place, you need to pay for it.

In spite of what the founder says, there are few parallels between traditional auctions and Quibids. Thus, you should know well the risks of Quibids before venturing to bid on the site. The simple fact is, it is a high-risk-high-return strategy. You might win big time or you might lose a lot of money without anything to show for. There are of course a few Quibids strategies that you can use (read my series on Quibids strategies on this blog) to maximize your returns, but the risk is still there.

That being said, once you understand the risk of Quibids, you will soon find out that Quibids is not a scam. They are here to stay and they have a successful business model. Quibids is not a scam because they will not withhold your winnings or not send you auctions that you have won. They also have plenty of cool features that are not aimed to scam you.

Bottom line: you can trust Quibids, but don't be so sure of your luck!

A number of penny auction sites have recently closed shop. One of the more famous group includes Swipebids/Swipeauctions. This was bad, but it wasn't surprising, considering the way the site was run. It was a totally unsustainable model and there was no way to make sure it was run profitably. I would say it was more like a Ponzi scheme, where all you do all day is to win more bids, which are essentially worthless.

On the other hand, Quibids has real auctions with real products, not just bids. People do win real here. In addition, I am amazed by Quibids in that it was able to come a long way since the first days. They do need to work on many aspects, including some better ways to advertise, but overall, I think Quibids is great and Quibids is not a scam. Quibids is legit company.

How to Win on Quibids: Part - 1

Learn how to win on Quibids before you spend money on the site. This is an extension post to my existing post on Quibids strategy-1: Volunteer's Dilemma. The purpose of this post is to make things simple and explain once more, in detail, how this works.

When deciding strategies or how to win on Quibids or any other penny auction site, it is important to consider 2 factors:
1. Economics
2. Psychology

People tend to ignore the last one, but it turns out that the psychology of the bidders plays a more important role than the economics of the situation. This is why, there is no universal Quibids strategy that will always win. However, you can maximize your chances depending on the auction at hand. Any person with some experience on Quibids or a similar penny auction site will tell you the same.

The Quibids strategy based on the Volunteer's Dilemma works because you are being aggressive. Highly aggressive. This tends to scare bidders, especially the careful ones. This is important to remember because most of the bidders at Quibids are simply looking to get lucky - place a bid and pray no one outbids them. This is ridiculous - Quibids is famous and has many people at any given time. You can easily beat most of the Quibids bidders this way by being aggressive.

When 2 people are being aggressive simultaneously, only one can win. The person who can remain tenacious longer will be the winner, as simple as that. This is how to win on Quibids - you have to hold your own against aggressive bidders. If you are looking not to waste bids, then you will end up winning almost nothing while spending a few bids on all auctions, thus losing a lot in total.

When you start out on an auction, you should make sure that you never quit. If you do, you will end up losing much more than what you bargained for. However, if your total bids exceed the price of the item, you can as well stop and use the "But it Now" option of Quibids. This is great so that your losses are limited but your profits are not.

I have a whole series on how to win on Quibids and Quibids strategies, so make sure you understand the rules of the game before going out there and winning. Good luck to all my readers!

Quibids Free Bids: Get yours now

For a long time since the start, Quibids free bids were never given out. There were only 2 ways in which you could get Quibids bids:

1. Buy bids directly from the site at the rate of $0.60/bid. This is the primary method even now. These Quibids bids are the ones that you directly pay for. If you request, you can always get a refund. These bids also add towards the "Buy it now" feature of Quibids if you do not win an auction.

2. Win Quibids bids as bid vouchers. Quibids bids vouchers come in different sizes. Initially, the sizes were of 25, 50, 100 and 250. They later introduced the 15 bid voucher as well. These are good for starters and beginners to practice their Quibids strategies and skills and understanding Quibids.
However, it is important to remember that voucher bids do not count towards the "Buy it now" feature.

For a long time, these were the only two options through which you could get Quibids bids. There were no Quibids free bids then, but now, things are changing. They are introducing other ways in which you could win or get Quibids free bids.

3. Quibids recently introduced Quibids badges. Read my post here about Quibids badges. Basically if you are active on the site, you can get Quibids free bids as rewards from Quibids. They seem to be generous with these bids at least when they introduced it.

4. Certain auctions were recently started that give free bids in addition to the product. Thus the auction goes like this: Product X + 5 free Quibids bids. By winning such auctions, you not only win the product but also some free Quibids bids.

So here are the ways in which you get your Quibids bids.

It is nice to know that bids still retain their value. If it is too easy to get bids, the site cannot function. This is what happened with SwipeAuctions, which turned out to be an outright scam. A lot of people could see why this had to happen sooner or later - the site was giving away too many free bids. Thankfully Quibids knows its limits.

Quibids Auction - Millionth Auction Winner tease

So Quibids is back to teasing all the users. They send out a newsletter, not with the name of the winner, but with an announcement of an announcement 2 weeks from now! Apparently Quibids will announce the winner in a couple of weeks.

For those who do not know, Quibids is celebrating the million auctions since the site started. Quibids is giving away $10,000 in cash to the millionth auction winner, the auction remaining anonymous and for the moment, the winner too.

This is a great achievement in my opinion, at a time when other Penny Auction sites like Swipebids and Swipeauctions turn into outright scams and few others like Swoopoo are just unable to compete with very limited products. Quibids has emerged a clear winner in the battle of the best Penny Auctions on the internet, and its prospects only seem to be getting brighter.

If you are looking to win at Quibids, you can read through my posts on Quibids strategies. I have a 3 part series so far, but will include other strategies as well.

Quibids Strategy 3: The Waiting Game (exposing some Quibids Myths)

This is Part 3 of the series on Quibids strategies that I want to publish. These strategies are not conjured up from thin air. They are written from personal experience, but more importantly, personal research. Most penny auction strategies, like Quibids strategies, are to do with Game theory and probability.

You can also find Part - 1 and Part - 2, which deal with different strategies.

Theoretical Efficiency Vs. Practical efficiency:

To understand Quibids and indeed any other Penny Auctions, you should first understand that the theoretical best Quibids strategy need not be the best practical strategy.

To illustrate, consider a typical Quibids macbook auction, as shown below:

The cost of the Macbook, finally, was $426.65. This was a 1 cent Quibids auction (see the top left hand side of the image). This means each bid incremented the cost of the macbook by 1 cent. Thus, in all, there were 42,665 bids placed. That's quite a lot of bids!

Now, consider the time it takes for placing these many bids. This is a really hard question to answer, as anyone who has followed the Quibids auctions knows. There could be 2 people bidding in tandem, in which case things can move quickly but usually people only place their bids when there are less than 5 seconds left.

As an average case, I am assuming it takes 2.5 seconds between bids (I think it is a good number for an average in this case. Other smaller auctions usually have larger average time between bids).

So the time required to complete the auction is 42,665 * 2.5 seconds = 106,662.5 seconds. This comes out to 29.6 hours. That is a huge time interval of over 1 day!

Now, let me ask you - how many people can sit non-stop in front of their computer looking at the auction process for nearly 30 hours to choose their best strategy? Not many.

This is why the theoretical best Quibids strategies will differ so much from the practical best Quibids strategies.

Best Theoretical Quibids Strategy:

Here is the best theoretical Quibids strategy: Wait for the last moment to place your bid. This means, bid on the Quibids auction when the timer is 1 second.

This seems simple enough and most people intuitively do use this for their bidding - let the people fight it out and I'll come in when the time is right.

This is a simple strategy and people are easily deceived by its applications. Let me expose the myth that this is THE strategy to apply to penny auctions. In fact, all the videos on Youtube that claim to show 100% Quibids strategy wins simply use this basic technique, which turns out, isn't the best practical strategy after all for all Quibids auctions.

The problem is, this isn't always the best practical strategy. For example, in the above Macbook auction, can you sit for 30 hours non-stop in front of your computer to see when the timer reaches 1 second? Well, I don't think so.

When to use this Quibids Strategy:
The waiting game strategy should ONLY be used for small Quibids auctions. By small, I mean auctions that usually have less than 200 bids placed on them. In such cases, you can win Quibids auctions by using this Quibids strategy of waiting till the timer goes to 1 second and bidding.

Word of Caution:
When you are using this waiting game Quibids strategy, it is very important that you never quit! This holds even if there is an aggressive bidder, using a strategy I described here (who uses the volunteer's dilemma problem).

The reason for this is simple: If you quit, you will be left with nothing at all. This doesn't hold for all strategies, but in this instance, you must not quit.

Why People Fail?
This particular Quibids strategy seems intuitive - you wait till the last moment to bid, thus saving your bids and ensuring they are not wasted when someone else is placing his bid before yours.

So why do people fail? Simple - they quit!
When someone is bidding aggressively, they will quit. The problem with this strategy is that it appears to reduce risk, while the truth is it can practically be a very high risk Quibids strategy. The reason for this is what people practically do - they get intimidated by aggressive bidders and never win. They lose a few bids in hundreds of auctions and thus they end up with nothing to show for their efforts and bids.

Therefore, this seemingly simple Quibids strategy can backfire and you need to ensure you know exactly why, when and how to use it. Do not try this on big auctions like Holiday trips, cars and macbooks.

What Auctions Can I win this way?
Try out the smaller bids: 15,25 bid auctions are ideal for this. Also, anything with a price of less than $30 can be a good start. Once you know how never to quit and understand how Quibids auctions work, you can proceed to slightly bigger auctions (but never on the heavyweights!)

Good luck Quibids bidding!

Quibids Badges: New incentives for the Website

It has been a while I have written about Quibids, and in the meantime, there have been a number of improvements. You can read about Quibids strategies in my previous blog posts if you are serious about winning at Quibids.

In this post, I want to cover how you can win a little more with Quibids and effectively improve your winning chances.

Quibids has just announced special 'badges' for the members. There seems to be a badge for everything. The good thing is, you get free bids with your badges (I am no fan of virtual badges as such anyway).

In order to get your badges, you will need to claim the badges by logging into your account. The bids are not added by default - you need to claim them.

How to claim your badges?
You will need to log into your Quibids account. There is a new tab titled Achievements. You will see a list of badges that you are 'eligible' for. I don't see any reason why you should not accept a badge - after all, all badges come with free bids. You just click on 'claim' to claim your badge and also your free bids, which are then added to your account.

What kind of Bids are added?
Unfortunately, you will again see virtual bids and not purchased bids added to your account. I am not a big fan of Virtual bids and that is one thing I would like to see disappear from the website. I would consider both virtual and purchased bids should be at par. But well, different people have different opinions about it.

I suspect one reason for still persisting with virtual bids is that Quibids allows you to reverse your purchase and get back cash for the bids that you purchased. It would not be fair to allow monetization of virtual bids. However, I would still like to see virtual bids being counted towards the price of an auction if you don't win.

Here is a screenshot of some of the badges that I have won. You can also see how many free bids are given with each badge in the picture.

It would be great if my readers can share their own badges and their stories. Do you like the concept of badges?

Quibids: New items, new promotions

Quibids has been actively churning out new products and deals for its customers. This is natural, because with the hype, Quibids can make healthy profits off just one item.

For example, a few weeks ago, Quibids had a promotion offer selling a car. That's right, it is a big deal! Quibids put its market value at $20,000. The car was Honda Civic Coupe LX. This is the auction page screenshot after the winner was declared.


As you can see, the item sold for $1740.78, which is a significant saving for the winner. Unfortunately, there is only one winner and everyone else loses. In any auction, there are only two winners - the auction winner and Quibids!

Lets us calculate how Quibids rakes in the money through these auctions by doing a simple calculation from our side.

The auction is a 2 cent auction, and the total value the car sold at is $1740.78.
Thus the total number of bids placed by all Quibidders is 174078/2 = 87,039.
Total revenue for Quibids from this auction = 87,039 X $0.60 = $52,223.4
Total profit for Quibids from this auction = $52223.4 - $20,000 = $32223.4

From a single auction, Quibids has made over $30,000 in pure profits! Quibids claims a small revenue, but really, I am sure they rake in the moolah. The company wants to be open but is surprisingly closed like most other penny auction sites. Quibids is not an outright scam but if a company makes so much money at the expense of its customers, it is something to pause and ponder about.

Now, let us see how much all the Quibidders except the winner, merkmerk, have lost.

Total number of bids placed = 87,039
Bids by the winner = 2,044
Total bids lost = 87,039 - 2,044 = 84,995
Total value of lost bids = 84,995 X $0.6 = $50,997

Thus, in this single auction, all Quibidders combined lost over $50,000! Unbelievable, but true. Quibids and other penny auctions seem to be worse than gambling, where even compulsive gamblers will have a limit to their losses.

Quibids Strategy - 2: Best Time for Bidding at Quibids

This QuiBids strategy is as much valid in 2013 as it was in 2010 when it was originally written. Like with any other penny auction, low competition is the key to winning at QuiBids, and if you know the best time to bid on QuiBids, then you know the least competitive times to bid at.

QuiBids is a penny auction site that helps customers shop for items in a penny auction model. Thus, by its very nature, the ease of winning and the cost of items depends on how many people are online at a given point of time and how many auctions are simultaneously going on. Using the right Quibids strategies, you can win some items for really less, like QuiBids Macbook for less than $100. This is not a QuiBids scam, though QuiBids does rig the model in its own favor (who wouldn't?)

Since the guys at QuiBids are smart people and they have access to tons of user data relating to times, they try to ensure that the bidding process is uniform throughout the day. This means by bidding at one point of time, you should ideally get no advantage when compared to bidding at another point of time. Another way QuiBids tries to make auctions more 'fair' is by restricting some auctions only to certain users, depending on criteria that are not public. This has caused some outcry in the past, but those are the rules of the game.

However, as I would have suspected, the QuiBids guys are not that smart after all :) No, the process is not as smooth as it ideally should be. QuiBids strategy of trying to have an average of similar users/items for bidding doesn't seem to work practically.

Here is a list of times that you should bid during and some times that you should avoid bidding. This is from my own personal experience as I follow QuiBids auctions very closely and see how they work. If you think these aren't accurate or you have a different experience with your own QuiBids strategy, please let me know in the comments below.

Do note that this QuiBids strategy for bidding is not universal and you are NOT guaranteed to win auctions. Penny auctions depend on a million factors that are beyond your control. Worse, it depends on the behavior of other users, which is totally unpredictable. Therefore it is impossible to have a QuiBids strategy that will always work, and anyone who claims the contrary is simply a sham. There are no 100% guaranteed wins at QuiBids or any other penny auction really.

Here are some tips that will help you get the right QuiBids strategies with respect to the bidding times.

Best Times:

• Days: The best days to bid are Wednesday, Tuesday and Thursday, in that order. Some of the cheapest Quibids auctions have been won on Wednesday, somehow. There could be many reason for this. People are generally occupied with more important things during the weekdays.

• Times: The best time to bid in Quibids is around 2pm-5pm, EST. If you live in different time zones, convert it accordingly. This time there are few people bidding and lots of Quibids auctions to bid on. The ratio of users/live auctions is usually highest during this period, which is what determines the best time as Quibids strategy.

Worst times:
It is important to avoid these times as there are just too many people who are bidding on a given auction.

• Days: Weekends are the worst. Try to avoid them. There are just too many people who are free on the weekends and have nothing better to do than sit in front of their computers. You can see this yourself. Sunday evenings are perhaps the worst time for Quibids auctions from the user's perspective.

• Times: The worst time to bid on Quibids is somewhere around the night. In EST, this comes to about 10pm - 2am. This time has too few auctions and too many users. Try to avoid these times.

Demonstration:
This is a recent addition to this blog post to demonstrate exactly what I am trying to tell in this blog post.


Cheap Plasma TV for $4.10, bidding on a Wednesday during 2-5pm EST


Costly Plasma TV for $170.36 bidding on a Saturday night:


So now you know how important it is to bid at the best time in QuiBids. The competition on a Saturday night is going to be huge. Don't just look at the final price. Think of how many people had lost hundreds of dollars on this day trying to win this item. I am sure you can understand how relevant this QuiBids strategy is in order to help you win.

Let me know how your QuiBids experience goes after following these QuiBids strategies.
Also see QuiBids Strategy-1: Volunteer's Dilemma

Quibids scam: Why no Paypal?

Quibids scam propagates in multi-directions and there are several issues with this. In this post, I am going to discuss the Quibids scam with respect to the Paypal issue.

There are many customers out there who want Quibids to accept Paypal. But Quibids always refuses Paypal. Why? The reason is not difficult to understand - Paypal has a policy of return when the goods are not delivered. This means if I buy something from Quibids using Paypal and they scam me into it, there is a way for me to get my money back using Paypal. Unfortunately, this is not the case with credit card transactions. Because Quibids is scam, it doesn't allow Paypal.

I will retract my words if Quibids is able to allow Paypal transactions. I know this is not going to happen because Quibids strategy is not really a win-win but simply a win-lose where it is the customers that ultimately lose. It is like a giant casino where the house always makes money no matter what. And a few lucky customers might make a few bucks, but really it is nothing compared to what the casino makes.

If Quibids is not scam, they should start accepting Paypal. I know Quibids scam and got suspicious the moment they said no to Paypal. All respectable online businesses use Paypal. If Quibids is what it claims, then it should do the same. Quibids should start accepting Paypal if it is legitimate. Unfortunately for the customers, this is not the case.

Quibids scam doesn't allow it to use Paypal. This is one of the Quibids strategy to keep trouble at bay. For example, if you lose a lot of money out there and want a refund, Quibids ensues that there is no way for this to happen. This is why it doesn't allow Paypal. Quibids macbook might be selling for $200 but in the process, Quibids makes a whopping $11,800 profit. This is for just one Quibids macbook. There are thousands of items listed each day. You do the math.

If Quibids claims it is genuine and honest, it should start accepting Paypal. If Quibids is scam, then it should not allow Paypal. The answer is there to see for everyone.

Update: Quibids is now accepting Paypal! That is good news. Quibids scam can be in many different ways, but not through this route! Read my Quibids review to learn more.

P.S. Update: I had a few complaints that they are still having problems with Paypal. I contacted Quibids support and here is their reply:

Hi Sid,

We do indeed! You can use (and inform your followers to use) this link for PayPal: https://www.quibids.com/store/firstbuy.php?paypal=1

Please let us know if there is anything else we can do for you and have a great day!

Sincerely,

Kera
QuiBids Support

Quibids Scam: Stay Protected

Quibids scam is important for all the Quibids users and the truth is, it is not a scam in the traditional sense, which makes it hard to detect. For example, if you win on Quibids, they will not scam you by not sending the item. However, like all other penny auction sites, Quibids sure can scam you in a number of other ways. Quibids scam can destroy users if they are not aware of it. I have seen users lose hundreds of dollars and end up not winning the item. Is this the great Quibids scam? Well, not really, but as users, you need to stay protected for your own good.

For those who are unaware, Quibids is a penny auction site that charges you for each bid you place. In addition, you cannot bid any amount that you want: You MUST bid in increments that are fixed for each auction. Quibids scam works essentially like any other penny auction site - they bring in great money to the website, a single winner might make some profits and ALL the remaining bidders will lose money.

Quibids scam is not obvious to many users. Firstly, you should be aware of the bidding model and the business model of the site. They make money when you lose money, it is as simple as that.

Do I hear you shout "Insane!" Well, it is true. Quibids scam works because there are people out there ready to lose money. Are you wondering how?

It is simple. Irrespective of the number of bidders, there will be one and only one winner. This means the more the bidders, the more the website makes. Thus if it is a 1 cent auction (not at all uncommon at Quibids) and the price goes to $100 (again quite common), the website has made a cool revenue of $6000! Unbelievable, but true. And this is just for one auction. Quibids scam runs hundreds of auctions each day. Do the math and you know how they are rolling in money. Their costs are small and negligible - the price of the product will at most be a hundred dollars. Heck, they even charge huge money for shipping!

On the note of shipping, it is outright funny that Quibids charges $2 for shipping for simply crediting bids if you win a bid voucher, which is done immediately. That's right, for something that takes place automatically, charging $2 is sure a Quibids scam that is insane in my opinion.

To stay protected, read my blog entries about Quibids strategy, which explains how to better your chances of winning an auction. Note that these are not at all foolproof and you can still lose a lot of money, but the probability of a win will certainly increase.

And readers, do keep me informed about your progress. Good luck and steer clear of Quibids scam if you don't want your fingers burnt. Instead, go to eBay and find some great deals out there! If you want to gamble, go to Las Vegas and spend an awesome night there. Quibids scam can be costly beyond imagination.

Quibids Strategy - 1: The Volunteer's Dilemma

Quibids strategy is nothing straightforward or simple because the strategy is also dependent on the actions of other people. In other words, there cannot be the 'best' Quibids strategy because the best will depend on the other people. Therefore there is no golden bullet that will ensure you get your Quibids Macbook for $50!

However, there are certain instances and patterns that you can catch, and these will give you a good head start. The main point to note is, the Quibids strategies that I discuss here are probabilistic, which means you are NOT guaranteed to win. However, I will try to demonstrate my strategies with examples.

I plan to make a series of different Quibids strategies to help my readers, depending on the response. I hope something will be useful to you as well.

Understanding the Volunteers dilemma as relevant to Quibids strategy

So the first strategy I discuss is to do with the famous Volunteer's Dilemma of Game Theory. Let me first present the explanation of this as relevant to Quibids. If you want to know more about these concepts, please follow the above links to Wikipedia.

In Quibids strategy, a volunteer's dilemma occurs when two or more competing players are bidding for an auction and then there is another person who steps in. Seems simple enough? Well not really. Read on!

Let us consider a simple case first - say players A and B are competing for the prized Quibids macbook. Both their strategies are simple - bid at the last moment before the timer runs out. Each one follows this strategy, so that when the timer is about to go 0:0:0, they hit the bid button so they are the current winners. This is a fairly obvious Quibids strategy but not of great interest here but may be I'll discuss this in more detail some other time.

Now suppose a third person C comes in and bids. What should you do? Who among you, A and B, is supposed to bid? Let us see the thought process. A says, "If I bid now, B will anyway bid again after me, so I don't want to waste my bid. Let B bid and then I'll bid after him." Seems logical right? Well the problem is, B is thinking the exact same thing! This creates huge problems for both because each one wants to save their bid and in the result, neither of them bids and C becomes the winner!!

Does it sound too far fetched? No, it is not! Volunteer's Dilemma is a common occurrence on Quibids and if you want to know about Quibids strategy, this is a very strong one. One immediate advantage to you, as C, is that with only a few bids you can win a great deal. Therefore if you are lucky, you can get your Quibids macbook too, as is demonstrated in my real example below.

Example

Ok, so let me convince you this great Quibids strategy that I discussed actually works. Here is a real example from Quibids on an auction that I was following but not participating in. Here is a screen-shot of the example. Remember it is taken from a real Quibids auction.



See the screenshot? A Quibids Macbook for $30! Seems too good to be true, right? Well, even the winner would not have known that his Quibids strategy for this win was actually the volunteer's dilemma that I discussed here. Let us understand in more detail.

The main players in this auction here - rhazdra, Ithackery, and billcristina. The others were secondary players. Now they were battling out the auction among themselves when all of a sudden some new player Lalig comes along. What do they do? Each one thinks about saving a bid and assuming some other person from the remaining 2 will bid, and neither does. The new player walks away with a brand new Quibids macbook for $30!

I hope my example has shown you how powerful my volunteers dilemma Quibids strategy is.


The Quibids strategy: Step by Step

Here is a step by step guide to help you maximize your earnings on Quibids. I am sure it will be of great help if you are looking to win Quibids auctions or a steal.

• Choosing the auction: This current Quibids strategy that I discussed works best for smaller auctions, so reserve the other strategies for your Quibids macbook. Instead, try these out for smaller items like cameras or earphones or anything within $150 ideally.
  

• Following the auction: The volunteer's dilemma Quibids strategy should not be applied immediately as the auction begins. Instead, it works best when an auction is in progress and you should wait for the right moment. Sometimes it never comes, but don't worry - you have to move on to another auction. This is better than losing a lot of money, right.
  

• Understand the auction: As you follow the auction, look for a situation wherein two or more players are battling it out by staying till the last minute. This is important to note because otherwise the players will know that they are locked in the volunteers dilemma and therefore bid accordingly. The trick is they should both be confused - should I or should I not bid.
  

• Repeat if needed: The volunteer's dilemma Quibids strategy that I discussed is no foolproof method and you might have to wait and repeat. However, if you are looking for the really cheap goods you can get through Quibids, then you wouldn't mind waiting would you?
  

Let me know your success with this Quibids strategy and leave your comments.

Quibids Review: Everything you need to know about Quibids

Quibids is a Penny Auction site that allows you to bid on items and get them for cheap. Many have asked me to write a QuiBids review for their benefit, so this was long forthcoming. Of course, like so many things in life, the seemingly cheap way might turn out to be mindblowingly costly but hey, that's life!

If you want to know about Quibids, please check my Welcome post here. To directly visit Quibids, Click Here. To see a Video explaining QuiBids (the official video), Click Here.

The question I get asked often is "Is QuiBids scam?" and the simple answer for it is ... well ... depends! Yea, I know that's not the simple answer you are looking for, but "it's complicated!" That's why I have decided to write this QuiBids review for the benefit of everyone.

QuiBids is a penny auction, which means it might at once appear to be a scam to some people. For the sake of those who do not know about penny auctions, here is a simple description:

A Penny Auction allows you to buy items apparently at a very cheap rate. The way it works is users place a bid on the item like a traditional auction, but they have to pay for each bid they place. Also, they are not allowed to place any bid they like - they can only place a bid slightly higher than the existing price, usually in steps of 1 or 2 cents. This allows the Penny Auction site like QuiBids to rake in money through the bids, which enables it to sell items for cheap

Your expenditure on the site is the sum of what you pay as the item price you won at the auction at QuiBids and the amount you spend in bidding. Make no mistake, this amount can be extremely high! They charge you $0.60 per bid, and you might have to place hundreds of bids to win an item, so you can never be sure how to even out. I will put up some strategies later on for my readers in any case.

As for whether Quibids is scam, they will not scam you as in if you win, they will certainly get you the product at the right place. However, the penny auction model is not well suited for everyone, so it might apparently appear that it is a scam. If however you consider penny auctions worth your time, here are my thoughts on Quibids Review -

The Advantages

QuiBids has several nice features compared to other Penny Auction sites. Here are a few of them.

• Number of Auctions: This is certainly a big plus here at QuiBids. There are literally hundreds of auctions every day here, as compared to a a few or a maximum of tens of auctions on other sites. This naturally translates into a more enriching experience and you have more choice for what you can buy. You can also choose your own convenient time to visit the site since there is something or the other of interest going on all the time.
  

• The 'Buy It Now' Option: So here is a wonderful option that QuiBids has for their customers. If you are losing too much in the bidding process, you can have that amount counted towards buying that item at the full retail price. This is a great feature if you are bidding for something that you would even otherwise want to buy. Of course it would end up costlier than the best deals you can find, say, on eBay but at least it reduces your risk. Use this option wisely.
  

• Customer Service: They are still a new site, so they retain some sense of customer service. You can see their representative answering questions posed at their forums and blogs, which is a good sign. I did contact them on a Saturday and didn't hear back from them for a couple of days. Perhaps they might improve a bit here?
  

• Honesty: Now this is a tricky part. I cannot be 100% sure about this because I have never been to the company or talked with the CEO or their employees. However, from what I see around at the site and also at the interviews of the CEO, they look like an honest bunch of people. For one, there do not seem to be any automatic bots playing in the bidding process, which can cause significant losses to the honest players. This is a great step for the penny auctions industry.
  

• Promise for more: The site keeps changing and introducing new features, which keeps the excitement level high - something important for a penny auction site.

The Disadvantages

Nothing is perfect in the world and neither is QuiBids. There are several ways the site can improve and here are a few drawbacks/disadvantages that I see.

• You can lose a LOT of money: Which is another way of saying, you can lose a ton of money for nothing. I have seen people bid unsuccessfully for items costing $15, upward of $50, which is just a sheer waste of money. Be careful and wise while bidding. I'll put up a strategies post soon enough.
  

• Higher bids: As the site grows in popularity, I have seen more and more people coming here for the same items. There is no proportionate increase in number of items at the bid. This means increased competition among the bidders and a VERY high profit for the site, which of course means a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money here.
  

• Hidden fees: I am no fan of hidden fees but QuiBids takes it to a new level. You have to pay a varying amount for delivery of the item, which is aboslutely hate, considering the site makes thousands of dollars selling items costing a few hundred bucks. What's worse is the fees keeps varying - I don't suppose a gift card worth $200 takes more for delivery than a gift card worth $15, but QuiBids seems to think otherwise. I HATE this.
  

• Site Delays: I have not experienced it personally but people do seem to complain about site delays. In a penny auction, each second counts and if you are unable to place your bid at the right time, you can lose significantly. A lot of people seem justifiably pissed-off with this.
  

• Virtual Bids: This is another aspect I absolutely hate. When I PAY for the bids, they say it is virtual because I used the 'Buy It Now' option and I don't get them counted towards future 'Buy It Now' options. This needs a serious revision if they want to make any logical sense to be around.
  

• Too many Limits: They prevent you from winning more than 3 auctions a day, more than 8 auctions a month, more than 1 high costing item a month and you cannot win the same item twice in a month. These limits seem too stringent. Penny auctions are also for fun, which means they can relax the limits for some cases at least - perhaps the smaller valued gift cards or the auction for bids packages.

I will be updating this section as I think there are many other advantages and disadvantages here. If you have anything to contribute, please be free to mention them and I'll include those appropriately.

Welcome

Welcome to QuiBids! Wondering what QuiBids is? Read on!

QuiBids is a Penny Auction Site launched in October 2009. QuiBids is open only to US residents as of today. The CEO of QuiBids is Matt Beckham.

What distinguishes QuiBids from other Penny Auction sites is that they are honest and not here to rip you off. They are here to build a successful business model though like all Penny Auctions, you might lose a lot of money if you are not careful. However, if you understand the risks associated with Penny Auctions and want to try your luck, then QuiBids is the right place to start.

A wonderful option with QuiBids is they allow you to buy the item you lost in the bidding price, which covers for the lost money during bidding. Such a feature is greatly helpful to all those who are not looking to dig gold at the site and who genuinely want the item they are bidding for.

In addition, as of today, they have a great customer service support. Hopefully it will remain so in the foreseeable future too.

QuiBids also has one of the largest auctions available at a time, which means you can have loads of fun and great deals throughout the day and night. This is unlike many other penny auction sites and also speaks about the confidence they have in their business model.

Let's keep discussing about QuiBids and penny auctions in general. Follow this blog to know more about QuiBids and penny auction and if you have anything to share, please feel free to do so. I shall be very glad to hear from you guys.