So How Does QuiBids Work?

QuiBids is a penny auction website which charges you to bid on items at a per-bid fee. The standard rate for bids is 60 cents per bid. Your initial sign up with Quibids will charge you $48 for 80 bids (more on this charge below as it can confuse some people). Once you have a membership, you can also bid on “bid packs” or “bid vouchers” as QuiBids likes to call them. Winning bid packs or bid vouchers is like winning more bids. For example, if you spend 50 bids on a bid pack, and win 200 bids, you are making progress.

In this example, I am going to use an average net cost of 25 Cents per bid. If you view my “How Do Penny Auctions Work?” page, I will show you how I calculated my 25 cents per bid figure, which I am going to use to evaluate costs of bidding in Quibids.

Things To Watch Out For

Quibids claims on their first page that they have “Free Registration”. This registration does not allow you to bid or login. You have simply agreed to the terms and conditions and also given them your email address so they may be able to email you in the future. When you Hit page 2 of this QuiBids “registration process”, keep your eyes peeled for what comes next.

quibids free registration sign

This is what you need to look out for, and this is common across many penny auction websites. This is where they ask you for your credit card number and instantly charge some money. QuiBids is actually more clear about this than many other websites, however its still something to look for. Ideally, they should have their final price within 100 pixels of the submit order button (an FTC guideline), however most Penny Auction websites hide it even more than this. The fact that they call step 1 a FREE REGISTRATION is a bit misleading and a lot of people wont notice this until it’s too late.

QuiBids Signup Charge $48.00

QuiBids actually does force you to accept their terms and conditions, which they make easily accessible. You REALLY should read these things so that you know what you are getting yourself into. Websites can disclaim anything they want in these things. When you actually have to check a checkbox, you really have no case when you try to dispute that you “didn’t know” you would be charged for something, etc… Buyer beware, you are entering into a contractual agreement that you have indeed read the terms and conditions. If you try to dispute something in the future, Quibids will obviously say “you agreed to that in our terms and conditions”.

quibids terms and conditions

All in all, QuiBids does a pretty good job of keeping the user informed of the charges they will receive, and they are mostly clear during the registration process, however they should not attempt to say that registration is free, and the final price really should be closer to the submit order button.

But are these QuiBids Penny Auctions Really A Good Deal?

To learn more about this, make sure you read my article on how penny auctions work. It looks good from the outside, but in that article I really break things down and explain all of they ways you are going to incur charges on these websites. This isn’t eBay, your money will be slowly sucked away quicker than you realize!

Quibids does not sell surplus or overstock items. This notion is just plain ridicules. The amount of money Quibids and other penny auction websites earn from people buying up bids pays for the items easily. Remember that each bid drives the cost of the item up one penny. So if something like an iPad2 (Which normally sells for around $500) is sold on quibids for $25.00, it means approximately 2500 bids have been placed on the item. At 25 cents per bid that means bidders spend $625.00 just bidding on the item which has easily payed for the ipad. Remember, only one person wins these items. You could spend $100 on bids yourself and still loose to someone who stays up later than you did that night, or worse, someone in an earlier timezone.

While it is 2:00am in New York and you are tired and bidding and about to fall asleep, its only 11:00pm at night in California. That person in California has a 3 hour tiredness advantage on you and will likely have no problem waiting you out.

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She explained to me the following:

They explained that what they do is, for $200, they take all of my ideas for my business and create a business plan for me.  I gave them my credit card information, but then I became concerned.  I checked their site out, but found no indication of it being a scam.  I can’t even find any complaints from other people on scambusters or any other sites like that.  I was just wondering if you knew if plentyoffinds.org was a scam.

After some investigation, this is what I have been able to find out:

I cannot find any information on this company ANYWHERE. I do know a few things about their website. It is hosted in Canada, and they bought their domain name “plentyoffunds.org” in November of 2010, so it definitely is not very old.

The membership to plentyoffunds.org costs $199. For this, they give you the following services:

In return for your membership Fee of $199 (one hundred and ninety nine dollars), Plenty Of Funds membership includes:
1. Access to Plenty Of Funds website and database of funding sources valued at seventy five ($75) dollars.
2. Business plan maker and corrections for one (1) Business plan completed from the answers to our 9step questionnaire (limited to three (3) corrections by customer service), an application maker for the Standard Form 424 Core form, (applications for federal assistance) applications completed from the answers to our 9step questionnaire (no corrections from customer service), and a proposal maker (no corrections from customer service), all valued at one hundred twenty five($125) dollars.

I do know one thing, I find it odd that some third party would be able to write a business plan for you for $125. As an entrepreneur and business man, I know that for someone to create a comprehensive and quality business plan, at least several hours of planning and work are required. Most professionals that bill for this type of service start at $50 / hour and move up from there.

For more information on building a REAL business plan, please see this free guide: http://www.inc.com/guides/start_biz/20660.html

Plenty Of Funds states that they take information you fill out in questionairres and they generate a business plan for you based on that information. Let me tell you, a business plan is not cookie cutter. You cannot take a generic business plan and find and replace terms and keywords for your business. Owning a business is all about differentiation and succeeding in a market by doing something better than someone else, or offering something that no one else offers. It is true that PlentyOfFunds.org customer service representatives do review certain portions of the business plan, however it is still no where near customized enough to be viable (In my opinion).

The other service PlentyOfFunds.org offers is access to their database of funding sources. They claim to help people locate the funds necessary in order to start their business. I do know one thing, government grants and other things they claim to help you locate are COMPLICATED! It is unlikely that sifting through this database that you are likely to easily stumble upon a pile of money ready for you to run off with to start your business. Talk with a financial expert and just perform some googling to find this information. If government grants and programs are available, they will be accessible on the internet free of charge. You do not need to waste your money on PlentyOfFunds.org services for this.

The amount of money you pay PlentyofFunds.org is not enough to cover the time required by a real professional to research your business and devise a real list of grant possibilities. It just is not practical. You get access to a list which you could spend some time putting together yourself for free.

If you are serious about starting a business and really believe it can succeed, a lot of hard work is required on your part to build a business plan, pitch it to investors and banks, and secure funding in order to get started. There is no quick solution to this process, and $199 will never get you everything you need to get started.

Save your money and research the entire process of starting a business. You will need to write your own business plan, after all, you know your ideas better than anyone, especially better than some “customer service” representative looking over a generic plan with your business name stuffed into certain areas.

Remember not to rush into anything and don’t be afraid to admit that it may not be the best idea. The worst thing you can do is wait until you are bankrupt to accept defeat. A strong competitive analysis along with optimistic AND pessimistic projections are required in order to determine if this is really financially viable.

I hope my opinions here have helped you form an opinion about PlentyOfFunds.org. I hope you put more thought and work into starting a business than coming up with an idea and expecting $199 to solve all of your problems.

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Sanders Collection Scam Sheets

You probably ended up here because you thought that these “Sanders Collection” bedsheets were too good to be true. They are advertised as anything from 800 – 1500 thread count “Egyptian Cotton” bed sheets. Well you’ve come to the right place as I am going to explain how and why they get away with selling these bed sheets at such a low price. It Is A SCAM!

Sanders collection bed sheets are not really cotton! I was shopping at a discount store in town called “Chapter 11 furniture” looking for a cheap couch for my new apartment. While I was there, I was reminded by someone I work with about “amazing bed sheets” that they had for sale, some crazy story about 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets for only $20. Of course, if anyone is going to believe that they can get 1000 thread count egyptian cotton sheets for less than a few hundred dollars, it would have to be at one of these sleazy ”discount / liquidation / overstock merchandise” stores.

Yes, I BOUGHT THE SHEETS! I admit it, I opened the zipper and felt the sheets, and they are very soft to the touch, almost silky. It was then when I got home and took them out of the package that I saw how much I was scammed… Read on and I’ll explain everything.

What is thread count? By definition, thread count is:

The number of threads contained in one square inch of fabric

The higher the thread count, the higher quality the fabric. Of course this is relevant to other fabrics constructed from the same material. A 1000 thread count polyester fabric is not necessarily of higher quality than a 200 thread count cotton fabric.

Thread count also has absolutely nothing to do with how soft the fabric is or how soft your bed sheets will be, (however, cotton sheets with less than 200 thread count will start to feel like sand paper, there is little difference in softness in most cotton sheets above 350 thread count, it has more to do with the quality of the cotton). A higher thread count sheet is thicker, more durable, and will last longer. Most premium cotton bed sheets are in the 500-600 thread count range. These sheets are very thick and rugged, they are difficult to wrinkle, and they will last you a long time. Again, softness has more to do with the quality of the cotton than it does with the thread count.

Another thread count factor to take into consideration is the actual size of the thread itself. Thinner thread leads to higher thread counts. A sheet made with a thick cotton thread may be just as high quality and dense at a lower thread count as a similar sheet set made with a thin cotton thread with a higher thread count. However, it is almost impossible to find any legitimate cotton sheets above a 600 thread count where the marketing team isn’t just pulling your leg by using extremely fine threads of cotton.

Label on Sanders Collection Scam Bed Sheets

So what about these sanders collection bed sheets? They claim, depending on the package that you buy, anywhere from an 820 thread count – 1500 thread count 100% Egyptian Cotton sheet set. Is this even physically possible? Possibly if they have ultra fine cotton threads to use, but cotton as an organic substance is usually very susceptible to breaking or being damaged at such a thin scale. So what are these Sanders Collection bed sheets made of?

THEY ARE NOT EVEN REALLY MADE OF COTTON!

Their label actually does not state what they are made of, just that they are made in china. When you open the package, there is no label that states the actual fabric that they use. There are a couple of options, based on physics… But it all boils down to the following. The only fibers that can be manufactured small enough to have this high of a thread count (often referred to as a microfiber) while still producing such a thin and flimsy sheet are nylon, kevlar, nomex, trogamide and or a conjugation of polyester and polyamide. In essence, these are

Synthetically Created Fibers Derived from Petro-Chemicals!

When you take the Sanders Collection sheets out of their package. You will notice that they are extremely thin, you can see right through them. Even a 300 thread count cotton sheet will have 2-3 times the density of these thin flimsy sheets.

They may be soft, but you are now spending 8+ hours a day sleeping on a petro-chemical cancer hazard… and they will fall apart probably within 1 year if you wash them regularly. You are being completely fooled into thinking you scored a super bargain, but if you think these are really premium sheets, well, just look at them.

How Does the Sanders Collection Get Away With This?

So you may be wondering how they can even get away with selling these sheets as Egyptian Cotton when they are clearly made of synthetic microfibers. The answer lies in the fine print on their front label that almost everyone will overlook. It reads:

[Sanders Collection Sheets] are made of high strength micro fiber yarns that will stay soft and wrinkle free for years to come with the soft touch as 820 Thread Count 100% Egyptian Cotton Sheet Set

Yes, it says as soft as 820 thread count 100% Egyptian cotton. Key words here are “AS SOFT AS“… It might as well say as soft as a babies bottom because they are still not saying its made of a babies bottom just as they are not really saying that these sanders collection sheets are really made of cotton.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. I returned my sheets and bought some organic cotton Ralph Lauren bed sheets at TJ Maxx for only a bit more money. I hope you return your sanders collection sheets as well.

Did you buy these sheets too? Tell me your story!

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These Penny Auction websites keep re-branding themselves over and over again when the press for a version gets too bad. First it was called Swipe Bids, then they changed the name to Swipe Auctions, now they are up to their third iteration (Since I have started writing about them). This New penny auction website’s name is Wavee.com… however it is essentially the same as the older versions of the website with a few changes.

OK, SO Is Wavee.com A Scam?

Well one thing you really need to watch out for is the registration page, particularly when they ask for your credit card. A LOT of people simply miss over this section because the registration pages are deceptive.. this causes people to end up shelling out a LOT more money than they were expecting to. See The Pictures Below For Details (Click To Enlarge):

Wavee.com Registration Page 1

Wavee.com Registration Page 2

Believe it or not, I get a LOT of comments saying that people simply didn’t notice that area where it says they will be charged $179!

And this is a trick Wavee.com uses on their end, by causing you to scroll and scroll to get to that section (The scrolling causes you to get distracted), as well as using large flashy graphics, combined with the fact that it almost looks identical to the first registration page, it really can be easy to not notice where it says you are being charged.

And this directly goes against recommendations by legitimate United States based payment processors as well as guidelines set by Visa and Mastercard. These entities state clearly that flashy graphics should not be used to distract users from the total amount they are paying, or the terms and conditions. They also state that the final price the user is paying should be within 100 pixels of the submit button.

In this case, Wavee.com also does not say “place order”, they simply say “start bidding” which is another deception on its own. It really is relatively easy to miss the area where it says you will be charged $179! So Does That Make Wavee.com A Scam? Well I’ll let you be the judge. I feel it is very deceptive.

Where they have made an improvement over older versions of the website are where you actually have to check a box to agree to terms and conditions, which really helps them only on their end. It does make consumers do a double take, and they might read them, but most of the time, consumers still skip these… And because they checked a box, its harder for the customer to argue that they did not agree to anything the website wants to do.

More About Wavee.com Terms and Conditions

1. “You will not have the right to a refund or a redemption, for cash, or Credits.” - This is self explanatory
2. “we may allow Credits, used for an unsuccessful bid, to be applied to the purchase of the same item as was the subject of the auction in which the Credits were used or, at our discretion, similarly priced items in the same auction. The purchase price will be the same as the “retail value” of the item, as posted for the auction.” - This is something you need to watch out for! Wavee.com claims these retail values seemingly randomly… On most penny auction websites, if you loose, it’s all money down the drain. On Wavee.com if you loose an auction, you can apply the amount you spent in bids towards buying the item for their “retail price”. But this retail price can be 20% more or higher than what other websites like Amazon.com would sell the same thing for… So you’re not necessarily still getting a deal. They say they “guarantee” the lowest prices but this simply is not the case at all (see number 3).
3. “Retail Products do not include any items sold on other auction sites, items sold open-box or during clearance or liquidation sales” - So they match “Retail Prices”… And apparently things that are on sale are not “Retail prices”.. So If amazon.com and every other online retailer is selling it for 20% less than Wavee.com… It doesnt matter because they don’t have to price match clearance or “on sale” items.
4. “Wavee reserves the right to limit the number of auctions a user may participate in or the number of his successfully finished auctions at its sole discretion.” - Have you been winning too much? If wavee.com think’s you’ve been winning too many auctions, they can just keep you from bidding at their sole discretion.. Maybe they let you bid they just keep you from winning, who knows? They say they can limit the number of successfully finished auctions at their sole discretion. Seems very fishy to me.
5. “The right to use any Credit expires, if not used within 180 days of the date purchased or otherwise obtained from us. Wavee reserves the right to expire Credits acquired with a discount of more than five percent off of the regular posted price at any time after 90 days from the date purchased or otherwise obtained from us.” - Better use those credits because they expire!!
6. “Buy-now offers will expire within 24 hours of the end of the applicable auction.” - Not only does it expire after 24 hours, if you are interested or want the price lowered to match somewhere else, you have to contact them and hope to hear back within this 24 hours! Not very likely!

So Is Wavee.com A Scam? I’ll leave that for you to decide now that I’ve shown you the areas you should be concerned about on this particular penny auction website.

Want to know more about the inner workings of Penny Auction Websites In General? I have written a long article that goes into the entire process of how penny auctions work, the bidding process, the users, the fee structures that are similar across all penny auction websites. Visit the link below to learn more.

Penny Auction Websites EXPOSED – WHAT YOU REALLY END UP PAYING!!

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You might be here because you are wondering if SwipeAuctions.com (Swipe Auctions) is a scam. Well you’ve come to the right place.
I am going to divulge a lot of information about the inner workings of Swipe Auctions through out this entire article. Buyer Beware. Armed with this knowledge you will be able to make an informed decision regarding Swipe Auctions as well as any other Penny Auction website.

At the end of this article, you can find many comments from other readers who have had direct experience with Swipe Auctions that I hope you will find useful. Feel free to add your own opinion and knowledge of Swipe Auctions if you have any.

Now to the Topic At Hand:

Swipe Auctions is a penny auction website that promises savings of up to 90% and unbelievable deals on EVERYTHING! And their registration page and home page makes everything look great… You might even say, too good to be true? You might even considering googling “Swipe Auctions Scam” or “Swipe Auctions Reviews” to see what other people have to say about such fishy (perhaps fraudulent) claims. Also be careful, this same company operates several websites with different names, and there are many other “clone” websites out there that are all the same.
Keep in mind, Swipe Auctions also operates the exact same site under the name Swipe Bids.

Well This is How Swipe Auctions Really Works

YOU HAVE TO PAY EACH TIME YOU PLACE A BID!!!!

And each time you bid, the auction’s timer increases just a little bit, by about 12 seconds. So you’ve gotten your camera bid in, you’re about to win a $1000 camera for $124 and there’s 3 seconds left on the clock, right? Wrong, someone else just bid extending the action another 12 seconds and increasing the price by another PENNY …. and this can go on for HOURS.

Gee, how much do these bids cost? Well this is the thing overlooked by most people when they sign up for Swipe Auctions penny auction website. They instantly charge you $150 to your credit card to buy 300 bids. This is only shown on the second registration page, after you have already typed in a bunch of personal information… And they make this a little sketchy because the second page looks almost identical except for where they slip in this wording telling you about the $150 charges to your credit card, Its not like a shopping cart with a checkout. A LOT of people don’t notice this part, nor do they notice where it says “no refunds”.

OK so this far it isn’t technically a scam, its just misleading and a little slimy. However, this is where we expose the SCAM part of the process. Swipe Auctions has the power to shill their own auction’s bids. In other words, behind the scenes Swipe Auctions may at the last second bid on their own auctions to extend them a little longer to keep things from selling at either

1. Too low of a price
2. Before enough people have spent enough money on bids for them to make a profit on the auction

You see, that’s how they make money selling things so cheap, the bids cost money therefore subsidizing the cost of the actual item, and with each bid, its like a SWIPE of your credit card… Get It LOL. Any one auction may have hundreds or even thousands of bids by the time the auction is finally won, and those bids are what pay for the auctions item and put money into Swipe Auctions fraudulent pockets (OK, so this isn’t technically fraud yet but read on). Take this example… What if an auction is ending too early without enough bids? Swipe Auctions can step in and bid themselves to up the anti and force you to spend more bids and extend the auction a little longer… And who is going to be able to stop them or monitor this process? Swipe Auctions wont even give away their location if you ask!

Sure there are some winners, some people do in fact win very cheap items… however for every one winner, there are SEVERAL losers. Everyone has to pay for their bids, regardless of whether they win the item or not. And in order for Swipe Auctions to actually turn a profit, the odds need to be stacked highly against you – the bidder; so that you will actually, in the end, not save any money at all… If everyone actually saved money, If EVERYONE actually won things for 90% off, the website would be bankrupt. This is the same way casino’s work, the odds are stacked against the gambler. OK OK, casinos are not a scam, people know how casinos work and the house NEEDS to win a majority of the time, however Swipe Auctions has the ability to hide behind the internet and can pull all sorts of nasty tricks on you if they want to.

You see, all auctions on Swipe Auctions are started by Swipe Auctions themselves. They control everything, and if they plug an auction into a mathematical formula and see that their product’s auction is about to end without turning a profit, their software can easily place it’s own bids to extend the duration and force people to buy more bids for the item. HOW ELSE would they be able to operate with such a low volume of customers? I mean this website is NEW and its not well enough known to have an enormous volume of bidders across their pages of listed items, I mean its got nowhere close to the traffic of Ebay, comparing Swipe Auctions to Ebay would be like comparing a SkyScraper to a grain of sand in traffic size…. On top of this, they are unlikely to get a lot of return visitors because each auction needs to have several losers, each of whom can waste in excess of $100 in bids on just one auction.

• By the time the auction ended (5 hours later than the first image at the top), the camera in the Swipe Auctions auction pictured had had another 13,105 BIDS!!
• At using an EXTREMELY conservative estimate of 5 cents a bid (you can bid on bid packs to win more bids, the cheapest you will ever see is around 5 cents per bid, usually closer to 10 cents per bid), people still spent $1,283 on bids alone (probably closer to $2,500 in reality), and the guy who won had to buy the camera for $256 on top of whatever he spent on bidding.
• Only 1 person won that camera auction, and only after spending several hundreds in bids
• Several people lost this auction and threw their money down the drain and wasted several hours of their lives
• There is no way to know if Swipe Auctions extended the auction superficially on their side in order to make more money (is it a coincidence that it ended so abruptly so early (11:00pm), but right after they cleared over $100 in bids (AT LEAST) over the MSRP of the camera?)

So do you still want to try Swipe Auctions? What are your thoughts?

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