Comments on: Pure Profit: A Look at Swoopo

By: noshi

noshi — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:45:11 +0000

You guys act as if someone could easily win even with preparations but swoopo is not much different than Lockerz. Get a bunch of greedy fools to pitch into a pool of money then pay out less than what you collected and reap the profits. Both are non-zero-sum. Both are evil but only one actually drains you financially.

By: noshi

noshi — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:43:33 +0000

You guys act as if someone could easily win even with preparations but swoopo is not much different than Lockerz. Get a bunch of greedy fools to pitch into a pool of money then pay out less than what you collected and reap the profits. Both are zero-sum. Both are evil but only one actually drains you financially.

By: 1harry2

1harry2 — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:28:05 +0000

As with all new services, educating consumers and arming them with appropriate expectations is key. Much of the criticism penny auctions receive stems from the fact that few people win and everyone expects to get a great deal without much effort. Noone can fault the auction sites for channeling these human needs. It’s called business. It is up to consumers to educate themselves by doing their homework, such as checking out review sites like http://www.pennyauctionguide.com. It’s just like everything in life: luck favors the prepared.

By: Cathy Saar

Cathy Saar — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:20:11 +0000

Many Penny Auctions sites out there are failing. Whether it's poor planning, lack of tech skills to run an efficient site, or all the above, the rate in which old ones die and new ones start is staggering. It is a good idea to research these sites and see which ones have been up the longest. A good way to find out if the penny auctions are good are to contact the customer service and see how fast you get a reply. If it's within a few hours you're probably on your way to finding a great penny auction site! Regards, Cathy Saar Penny Auction

By: Jackie

Jackie — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:10:46 +0000

Hi Mr.Wesley,

Do you have any hard evidence for this? Or is this there any way that we can meet in person to discuss the management at Swoopo?

Regards.
Jackie

By: Zoozle Penny Auctions

Zoozle Penny Auctions — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:31:04 +0000

If Jon Wesley’s comment above is true, then that would open Swoopo up to a class action lawsuit since it’s against Section 2 of Swoopo’s terms and conditions for employees to bid on any of their auctions. Not only that, it is straight up fraud.

Regardless, it seems that more than half of the penny auction sites out there bid up their own auctions via “bots” or shill bids, so buyer beware. My company, Zoozle.com does not use any shill bids or fraudulent methods, it is an honest penny auction process. As the owner I can personally guarantee this. I feel there should be some government or 3rd party oversight to audit these sites from bidding on their own auctions.

http://www.PennyAuctionWatch.com is a good venue to read and post experiences about the various penny auction sites popping up and read the dirt on the scam sites.

I believe the penny auction concept is a fun activity, similar to a carnival game. The definition of “gambling” is very broad, and I feel that it really just comes down to a matter of opinion and ultimately what the gaming commission decides. Already, gaming commissions in several countries declared it not gambling.

By: Jon Wesley

Jon Wesley — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:37:37 +0000

Your absolutely right! I’m glad to see an article on the evil that is SCAMO. Swoopo is a complete scam with a touch of legalized gambling. I worked with Swoopo’s “Sales Monitoring & Web Specialists” department for Six months before I was “let go” for not reaching my weekly quota. We specialize in profit management as they call it. I went into the job because they wanted “highly motivated individuals with good computer skills to work in a fast paced environment” which sounded like me, except the highly motivated part. Anyway.. My job specifically was “profit management”. They trained us to look for auctions with a lot of people bidding on them, high-profile popular/expensive items, basically anything that had the potential to make money. Every item has a set “profit quota (PQ)”, which is the minimum amount of money/bids were allowed to let an auction end. During my shift I would control no less then 20 accounts at one time (though we were encouraged/threatened to do more) while simultaneously biding (“monitoring”) on 8 auctions per account. We were trained to engage bidders with various techniques specifically designed to trigger an emotional response. Causing bidders to spend more money, whether logical or not. So basically my job was to snipe auctions, meet the “PQ”, and keep the game going as long as possible. They do that with 50%-%60 of every auction, every month. So you may get lucky and find a deal, but most likely your gonna end up in a bidding war with someone with no limit. And Scote, Your dead wrong on that profit margin. Swoopo covers 100% of their overhead from the first 25-30% of sales, They are brilliant evil genius’s of this modern corporate world.

By: Steam

Steam — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:27:54 +0000

Ingenious and brilliant. This bidding scheme may give you what you wanted for a long time but you just don’t have the money to buy them. That is if you’re lucky enough to have no competition for that particular item. Think of it as shopping with a little twist.

By: ian

ian — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:20:46 +0000

Thanks, for the explanation. Neat little business venture to get money out of folks. Glad my internet warning lights came on as soon as I saw the site, just needed some clarification on what it is they are actually doing. Thanks again.

By: mike

mike — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 09:27:56 +0000

Sorry, I take back that question… I went back to swoopo and realized that you could not get the butler to do this.