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Thread: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

  1. #1
    Stupidity feeds my children blueonblack's Avatar
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    Default Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Ok, this website has been mentioned on the forum once before, but not *nearly* in enough detail. I and my partner in crime here at my place of employment have been getting loads of entertainment from this site and I had to share.

    Here are the basics. This is an auction site. All of the auctions are for brand new items, usually tech related. The auctions are usually short, like minutes long, though some are hours. On a standard auction the price starts at 15 cents. There is no reserve. That's right, a 73" television on auction for 15 cents with no reserve. Here's the fun part: it costs you to bid. You have to BUY bids beforehand, in increments of at least 30, for 75 cents each. Every time you bid, the price of the item goes up 15 cents. Sounds simple so far, but toward the end of the auction, say the last 20 seconds or so, every time someone bids it resets the clock to 20 seconds.

    Let me lay out the economics here, for simplicity's sake. They also have what they call a "penny auction", which is the same as above, but the price starts at 1 cent and each bid raises the price 1 cent. In one auction they sold a Nikon D90 digital SLR camera with a 18-105mm lens kit. Runs $1150 at Newegg. The winner of the auction paid $158.96 for it. Wow! Sounds great. What you don't see at first is that to win that auction he put in 1096 bids. At 75 cents each, that cost him $822. Total he's out: $980. Still a fair deal for him, but when you see the cost that auction ended at, that means that there were 15,895 bids placed total. At 75 cents each. Total income to Swoopo? $11,921.25. Subtract the cost of the camera and they still cleared ten thousand dollars. They could give it away free to the winner and still clear ten grand.

    It gets better. They also auction off "free bid vouchers". That's right, you can spend the bids you paid for to bid on more bids that you get for free. *IF* you're the winner. Again, great deal for the winner, even better deal for Swoopo. Bad for everyone else.

    These guys are even selling money. I can't find it now, but I saw an auction for 80 dollars in cash. It works exactly like the others, so the winner ends up paying less than $80 for the $80, but Swoopo makes a huge profit and everyone else is just out. "Hey! I know a place where we can buy five hundred dollars for seventy-five cents! Follow me!"

    I'm not complaining. I've read a lot of blogs and posts calling this deal a scam but it's not. They are up-front with everything they do. I don't see a lick of dishonesty at all. I say if they can get this many people to throw this much money at them, more power to them. As Larry Niven said, think of it as evolution in action.

    Go to the site sometime and just watch the money roll in to these guys. It shows a bunch of the ongoing auctions live and every time a bid is made the price flashes red. That's another 75 cents into these guys' bank accounts. Just look the site over, watch it for a while and see what absolute pure distilled genius it is.
    Last edited by blueonblack; 01-05-2009 at 07:40 AM.
    “Do not trust people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible, and when I leave you will finally understand why storms are named after people.”

  2. #2
    Sunshine Flavored Lollipops Zephik's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Interesting...

    I can't see anything wrong with this either. You are essentially paying for each bid, or in other words, each time you make a bid you are actually paying whatever your bid was. So, I guess I should rephrase that. There isn't anything illegal about this, and technically there is nothing wrong with it either so long as you know how it works from the beginning. But it must really suck to be one of the many losers. Like you said, its great for the winner, great for the company, but totally sucks for everyone else. But you know the stakes getting into it, so you can't complain really.

    It actually is pretty genius. I'm not sure if I would ever participate though, seems pretty foolish if you ask me. I mean, you can't win EVERY time. You are almost guaranteed to lose quite often in my opinion. But you know what they say; Another fool, another dollar. ...actually, I don't know if that is even a saying, but it totally should be. lol

    EDIT:

    Oh wait I get it now. I was close to understanding how it works, but not quite. You don't pay whatever you bid, you pay a fee TO bid, which is 75 cents. I think I like that much more. lol
    People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

  3. #3
    Stupidity feeds my children blueonblack's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Quote Originally Posted by Zephik View Post
    EDIT:

    Oh wait I get it now. I was close to understanding how it works, but not quite. You don't pay whatever you bid, you pay a fee TO bid, which is 75 cents. I think I like that much more. lol
    You pay the fee TO bid, and then if you're the winner you pay what the ending bid was also. All the losers don't get anything except the joy of paying for the bids they just threw away. (And they're paid for up front)

    It is in fact pure genius. I mean, how can you distill genius down any further than selling money that's not even yours yet and making a profit at it?
    “Do not trust people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible, and when I leave you will finally understand why storms are named after people.”

  4. #4
    Sunshine Flavored Lollipops Zephik's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Its eBay in slot machine form. You have to put in money to make money. In this case, instead of a lever to pull, you push a button instead. Just like in gambling, not everyone is a winner. Although I think you have a better chance at the local casino than you do here, but then again the payout seems to be generally higher here as well, so it makes sense that the chance is greater as well.

    Gambling and auctioning combined together as one. It should almost be illegal just for being so damn clever. lol

    I mean, this is basically the same way Casinos make so much damn money.
    People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

  5. #5
    Stupidity feeds my children blueonblack's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Indeed it is. I'd say it meets the American Heritage Dictionary definition of gambling, but I think it's outside the legal one. Regardless, I just spent like two hours just watching this Perpetual Income Machine pull cash into these guys' pockets and loved every minute of it. I am truly humbled.
    “Do not trust people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible, and when I leave you will finally understand why storms are named after people.”

  6. #6
    Custom Title Honors BuzzKillington's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Ya, I posted this site a couple weeks ago curious about it's legitimacy... no way in hell I'd take part in a bid unless it was some completely off the wall item that no one wanted.

    Like many have said... it is a great idea but the way they present it is even more genius. Just a look at the site makes you want to participate... almost without caring about the stakes. Honestly, if I would have thought up this idea, I would have forgot about because in my mind, it sounds ridiculous that people actually participate.

  7. #7
    Measure once, curse twice nevermind1534's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    I see ads for them all the time in gmail.
    ><Sponsored LinkNintendo Wii for $27.90 - www.Swoopo.com/Nintendo-Wii - The hammer fell at $27.90 this time Don't miss our bargain price!
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  9. #9
    Practice random acts of generosity Omega's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    So what they are, according to this website, is essentially a website that gives people the items they got for "cheap" after they collect the money for it (and go buy it from a store).

    So in essence, they're making stupid amounts of money because people like the idea of winning something for "cheap".

    Clever. I bet they rake it in.



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  10. #10
    Custom Title Honors BuzzKillington's Avatar
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    Default Re: Swoopo!!!!!! (.com)

    Quote Originally Posted by Omega View Post
    So what they are, according to this website, is essentially a website that gives people the items they got for "cheap" after they collect the money for it (and go buy it from a store).

    So in essence, they're making stupid amounts of money because people like the idea of winning something for "cheap".

    Clever. I bet they rake it in.
    I still can't get over how stupid it is taking that big of gamble... taking a chance of literally throwing away 800 bucks so you can save maybe 300 or so off of a tv or something. Just spend the extra 300 for a 100% chance of winning.

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