The company operates in a competitive penny auction space, attracting mixed reviews from customers. Positive sentiments highlight the excitement of the bidding process and the potential for significant savings on various products, with some users reporting successful wins. However, a substantial number of reviews express concerns about the business model, likening it to gambling, with accusations of misleading practices and potential insider bidding. While customer service is generally described as responsive, the overarching sentiment suggests skepticism regarding the fairness and transparency of the auctions, indicating a need for clearer communication and improved trust-building measures.
This summary is generated by AI, based on text from customer reviews
Fun site! You are on your on insofar as how you bid but the site is straightforward so far. You can get carried away and loose your shirt if you start bidding without having decided clearly how much you are willing to risk for any item. Customer service has been pretty quick and mostly helpful. It is not a scam and since we live in a free world bidder beware...
DO NOT USE THIS THIS SITE IF YOU DONT BELIEVE ME GO TO THIS WEBSITE THAT I POST IT WILL TELL YOU ABOUT HOW BIDFIRE HAS BEEN TELLING PEOPLE TO MAKE GOOD REVIEWS PLZ G OT OTHIS WEBSITE I POST: www.paulthology.com/blog/?p=423
I believe Bidfire uses bot bidders. If the "bot" wins, then they do not lose the money on the item auctioned. It is simply never sent out! Therefore every legitimate bid on the auction is pure profit.
I recently bid on item, watched the clock end on zero with my bid as the top bid, and as the winner was announced, it showed the only other bidder as the winner! The clock did not reset to 30 seconds as it was supposed to. Very fishy indeed, so I am suspecting the "bot" algorithm had an error. Even if the other bidder was legitimate and not a bot, the fact that the auction ended with my bid as the top, and yet the auction was given to the other bidder is not right. I am extremely suspicious. In addition, they acknowledged the error, but did not honor my win, instead refunding me some bids. I feel they should honor the win, but I'm not holding my breath. I will update this review if they do.
Yes, you CAN win items, but if they are really using bots, which I suspect they are, you are nearly assured of losing money or losing the auction.
I ran numbers and though the site charges way too much per bid, if they have bots, they would need to double the amount of bids to break even. This is NOT a sound solution based on the retail rates. I think then when people post reviews about bots-scams, they are usually due to lack of insight and not based on any real intelligence about what they are talking about. Kinda like our government
This site has fraud written all over it! It claims huge saving by showing you that the customer has just won an item for $9.50, in fact the bid was $950.00 US dollars. Each bid is ONE US DOLLAR not one cent as it shows on there website. Also the "30 second rule", you'll love this. Just watch the bidding get down to the last 30 seconds or so. This could go on for hours. My advise to ALL, this site is very misleading and almost criminal
Another site that makes it seem like you can win a $400 item for a bid of $0.20. The claims of costs are very dishonest. They are making tons of money on people's desire for things that dozens of other people want too. Only one winner and dozens of suckers per item.
I have bid for and won an ipod nano, 25 bids, and a fuji film digital camera for all under $100 including the amount I payed for the bids! This site has saved me a ton of money. There is no way I could have gotten these items new for that price. You just have to pic your items wisely. If you don't have a lot of money or bids, don't bid on the expensive stuff, just pick the smaller items. But if you have a couple hundred dollars to spend on bids there is a good chance you could get a $500 Ipad for $200.
Bidfire and other penny auction sites are at best no more than gambling sites masquerading as auctions. Unless you are in the mood to lose your hard earned money, I would look elsewhere for deals and entertainment.
There is no set time for auctions to end. If someone bids with 10 seconds left till the auction ends an additional 30 seconds is added to the auction time.
Considering the fact they sell you the ability to place bids, they are in fact just ripping you off as your bid is wasted when there is not set end time for the auction.
The only winner is the people running the site. I think it is a loophole for getting away with gambling and it should be stopped. Yeah one person wins an item, but here is how it goes. I'm watching a bidding right now for an Nintendo Wii valued at $199.99. The current bid right now is $33.00 and has not stopped yet. Now $33.00 in. 05 cent bids is 660 bids. Lets say it ended here right now. For the last half hour I only seen 3 people bidding. It also was pretty consistent that all 3 people were bidding at the same time equally bidding. That means each bidder had to bid 220 bids. In order to do that each person would have had to purchase the 100 bid package that gets you 15 free bids for $100.00 and they would have had to purchase 2 packages. That cost each person $200.00 right for 230 bids. Now that the bidding has ended the last person supposedly won a Nintendo Wii. Wow isn't that great it only cost them $200.00 in bids, plus the $33.00 for the item for a total of $233.00. Remember earlier I told you the item only cost $199.99. Now they paid $33.01 more than the item cost. Now back to the people who run the site. Each person paid $200.00 for the bids. $200.00@ 3 people is $600.00 + the $33.00 for the Nintendo Wii. They made $633.00 less their cost for the Nintendo Wii which is probably about $100.00 plus lets say $20.00 in shipping cost to the winner. That is a profit of $513.00 for them. It look to me it would be better to start your own site. Happy gambling, I mean happy betting. I hope you win something far less than what it is worth.
Think of it just as: you giving gifts worth hundreds of dollars to people you don't know. The site sells an item that is worth $200,30 people bid an average of $10 each = $300 for a $200 item, they make a $100. If you loose it's like you have paid for somebody else's computer or ipod... cool.
Bidfire is a fraud they use bots that are shill bidders! User Marmour is on every bid the last second! You will not win on this website. I have bid on many different things last second and every time user marmour is there to raise the prices and make it impossible to win. I wouldn't be surprised if this User MARMOUR was made by this site. DO NOT USE THIS SITE
I thought it to be impossible to win but not so. I'm a winner of a 64GB ipod touch for just a few dollars
I discovered this website before Christmas on a link from eBay. I decided to purchase bids (for $25 I got 27 bids). I decided to play around on the site - I figured the worst that could happen was I'd lose $25. To my delight I won a Kindle DX for $42.15 (+ $9.99 shipping). At the time, I had only used 2 of the bids I had bought. I had them send me the shipping info. I saw that they received my Bidfire payment, then someone from their company went to amazon.com and bought a Kindle DX, which they paid for with an American Express credit card. They then listed my shipping address as the "Ship To" address. They also sent the tracking information. I received the Kindle DX about 10 days later directly from amazon.com, in its original packaging. The following week, I won another Kindle DX for $1.55, which I gave to a friend for Christmas. Since that time, I have won 50 bid packages on two separate occasions (for approximately $8.00 and $6.00, respectively). They also gave me 25 bids for submitting a video of myself with my product. If you become a fan of them on facebook, they play games where you can win free bids for guessing the price an item will sell for. I won 25 bids that way, as well. Plus, if you follow them on twitter, they give you 3 free bids! This site is great. Yes, there is some risk involved; you could use all your bids and never win anything. But I figure I'm around $1000 ahead thus far. Also, they have rules in place to make it more fair for everyone - you can't use autobidders and you can only win 3 auctions per week (people do report if you go over). It is definitely not a scam. My user name is ddavis13 if you want to check to see if I'm legit.
Thanks, Bidfire,
Deb
BAIT AND SWITCH CON...
The administrators claim that they don't use bot bidders or software to ensure that ON CERTAIN AUCTIONS, no human bidder can ever win (us the customers). But because there's NO TRANSPARENCY, there's no way of backing up their claim other than their own word.
HERE'S THE KICKER... THEY LET HUMANS WIN SOME OF THE TIME IN ORDER TO KEEP CUSTOMERS COMING BACK, BUT THEY ARE KEEPING RECORD OF THEIR LOSSES AND REVENUE AND WHEN THEY NEED MORE REVENUE, THEY USE THEIR OWN BOT BIDDERS WHICH THEY "SAY" THEY NEVER USE.
Sure, they do let human beings (us the customers) win SOMETIMES (I myself have won a few items), BUT just enough to keep Bidfire's bottom line in the black. But then when they need some more money, they make sure that their computer bidder always has the last bid.
This goes directly against their claim that they NEVER use their own Bidfire bot bidders. They do. Just watch an expensive item being auctioned, and you'll notice some very fishy bid patterns and VERY suspicious delays in the clock when the time expires, and *presto*, literally 3-4 seconds after the clock hits 1 second left, and the auction is seemingly over with a winner, the auction mysteriously continues conveniently with a bot bidder suddenly bidding that had stopped bidding several hours prior. Of course there's no way to prove this unless the federal authorities get involved, but SEE FOR YOURSELF re: the strange bidding patterns and mysterious auction extensions.
Again, yes, some humans do win, but only enough for Bidfire to point to them and say, "see? We are legit." Bidfire, you are not legit because you claim you NEVER use bot bidders, yet, you don't provide ANY bidder identity transparency at all for your paying customers to verify your claim.
Maybe I'm just lucky, but I've won 50 free bids and a very cool set of Altec Lansing Headphones! And I still have 22 bids sitting in my bank! Sit back and watch before you bid and learn about how it works. It's not a scam and you really can win! I did!
The only thing I have to say is I one a wii fit for $2.85. My friend won an X-box 360, wii, and several other items all for under $10 a piece. There is no way it's a scam. Each item has one winner and then there are several people that didn't not win. Those are the people that are saying it is a scam. Thanks onie.
I love this website! I have won once and constantly keep an eye on the products I am looking for on this site. I would recommend it to anyone!
I am a Bidfire winner. My daughter found the site looking for a Kindle for her mother in law for Christmas. I wound up winning me one. My daughter has one a Garmin and an IPod and her best friend has won a WII (or whatever it is called) and a computer. I was skeptical at first, but we received our winnings and they have all worked out great. I have recommended this site to my preacher even...