BigDeal

I just reserved an iPad 2 and I was just searching for iPad related things and this site popped up. I sat there watching an auction, realizing that these people were spending. 75$ for every bid and my head was spinning! I don't want to say people are stupid but COME ON! I almost registered on the site just out of curiosity to see what was going on but thought twice about that. This is crazy! People will do anything for a deal! A deal that isn't a deal! Seriously, if it sounds to good to be true, it IS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE! Go buy it at the store, where you have a reciept and a guarantee it's real. In the case of iPad2, it just came out! Who are these people that think they can get a sold out product for less than retail a week after its released? Like I said, go to the store and buy it, if you can't afford it save a few bucks a week until you can. I'm not trying to be mean to anyone. I truly feel for all of the people that were ripped off by this site but it's high time we all stop falling for this crap. Just because you saw it on TV (or in this case; online) doesn't mean it's true or legit.

I flatly was ripped off! Nowhere does it tell you that your "bids" are not worth the money you spend, nor that your money the you do spend to buy the "bids" is just plain gone. I wish I had read and known before I spent $75 trying to bid on an ipad that the auction could go on for 48 hrs. Or more, that their "BidBuddy" (my bid helper so I didn't have to sit at my computer for 3 days) was going to just help them rip me off... and it only took a little over an hour, at 1 cent increments, for BidBuddy to spend my $75. I "authorized" BidBuddy to start bidding at $42 and stop at $75 but when I checked an hour later all my "bids" and money were gone and the price of the item was only at $46! I will do whatever I can to help get this site shut down. I am disputing with my credit card company payment to them as well and hope that I get results. I wish that there was somewhere else I could post that would clue others to how they are scamming and stealing money from consumers.

I was tricked because they claim repeatedly that you cannot lose because they applying non-winning bids to special purchases, so their are no losers at thei site. What a joke!

I had $126 in these back-up bids. It turns out that they re worthless. They are to be applied to 5% discount for items that you pay full price for -I am going to try to reverse these charges with my bank bank, due to fraud. I have never done this before.

This site is a total scam! They do not have the rules explained very well at all. You pay 75 cents for each bid you make and the bids on the auctions only go up one penny each bid, so there is no way you can win or even get a decent price for an item on this website. They are making $750 for every $10 that the auction receives. They have bots that bid against you, so you can't win. Then they offer to sell you the item outright with the money you used to bid but the item is way overpriced. You cannot win on this website so beware!

I tried this website and it is a complete ripoff, I feel like a total bozo but that is what I get. I obviously did not listen to my intial insticts, but don't be a sucker like me and waste your time and money. I spent $75.00 and won nothing. They tell you that with every bid you earn a reward to be used toward a buy it now purchase, that is a total ripoff too, the discount you get is ridulous and could buy any of their reward bonus cheaper elsewhere. Beware don't waste your money, this lesson was costly, thank goodness I woke up.

Bottom Line the website BigDeal.com is a scam! Short overview of my experience. Bid like crazy to the point that spent over 300 dollars on Buy Bids. I am so far in now better just opt for the BUy It now, which i do. Go through the buy it now process all seems fine. Check my bank account on line. Transactions show pending, I receive an e-mail from Chris, saying something wrong with my shipping address, I reply with another address, check my bank account again online transactions pending, few banters back and forth with Chris about shipping address eventually says my shipping address is ok, and he will let the shipping section know along with accounts. I m think cool paid too much for the product but ok my mistake check my online bank account transactions have gone through but now my account it not showing transaction for the buy it now part only for all the money spent on Buy Bids. Product not shipped over 300$ dollars spent on nothing. And to top it off no reply from Chris, no answer their telephones and no answer to complaints. Does any one have a suggestion as to what I legally can do to reclaim my money and hopefully shut this site down!

This site is completely ridiculous as a shopping/auction site, unless you see it as a gambling site. I did some research ahead of time, watched other people play a bit and thought this doesn't look too terrible. However, I wish I had done some simple math before starting, and here is why -

First of all for all the $0.01 increases per bid in an auction, I soon realized that bigdeal.com is getting $0.75, so if an item goes for say $5.00 to a user, bigdeal.com made a profit of $375 just from the users' bids!

The Loyalty Bucks you can only use to purchase other items at a slight discount, they cannot be used for more tokens or to redeem your money.

Realized Savings / Potential Savings section isn't shown anywhere until you make an account. It appears that you can only win so much based on how much you spend either on tokens or in the loyalty store, so pretty much you can't win big dollar prizes unless you spend money even if you win extra tokens/bids at a low cost in an "auction".

The only way to win "auctions" is by pushing people around with a lot of tokens, which costs more money and I cannot imagine you will make back what you put in! In a couple auctions that once the clock initially turned zero it took over an hour to get to the final winner, and a few of the people trying to push everyone around spent nearly as many tokens as they were bidding to win and had to give up. This just promotes people being reckless bidding and bidding to get more turns to bid to try to buy this or that item.

I personally am glad that I only spent $22.50 + $0.02 on 40 tokens, realized what a scam this is and how dangerous it is and deactivated my account. I feel a little stupid that I didn't think "if it sounds too good to be true than it probably is" before I spent any money at all!

Use bigdeals.com with caution and don't blow your money on this site, even if you win, think of all the people out money and how much bigdeals.com made on your win - it is just stupid!

THIS SITE IS NOT FOR INEXPERIENCED "TRADERS/HAGGLERS/BARTERERS/BUYERS" now i WILL agree, this site is pretty much a legalized way of "cheating" the average person out of their money, but only because the site does not have some type of page that fully explains how the site works and breaks down how much you will actually be paying for items, HOWEVER, the site is somewhat legitimate, ive only been using for a few days, but i have already won 3 auctions, and saved literally hundreds... i won 200 bids, valued at $150, i spent a total of $50, i bid on it 40 times (75 cents per bid = $30) plus the $20 it actually cost, i got a Macbook for a total of $310, its valued at $900, i spent $225 on the 300 bids i used, and paid $82 for it out of pocket, the other item i won was 10 bids for about $1 total... the site is not FULLY a scam, or a fraud or whatever you want to call it, yes i do believe the site may have "bots" or its own employees "running" up the prices on some items, but if you arent prepared for this before you sign up, then youre an idiot for signing up in the first place and have no business being on this site, this site is about being smart and VERY patient, it took me over 8 hours to win the macbook, the key to winning items at this site for a "decent" price/discount is knowing WHEN to bid and paying attention to how many bids another user has already put into it, always keep in mind, A. Each time you bid on an item, youve already added 75 cents to the cost of that item for yourself, 25 bids and youre already at an extra $20 spent on top of what you have to pay if you win, and B. Always pay attention to how many bids someone else has placed, if you see someone has spent 300 bids ($225 JUST FOR THE BIDS) on an item, be prepared to battle it out with that person, like i said i agree the site more than likely does run up the price on some of the higher end items, but honestly i don't think a majority of people "KNOW HOW" to win items on this site AND save money at the same time, don't be mad at the site or its cretors/owners... be mad at yourself for not fully understand how the site works, and for not teaching yourself or learning how to use the site effectively

I have been monitoring BigDeal.com for the past two days because I wanted to jump in and begin bidding to see if I could pick up an iPad really cheap. After watching just three auctions, I'm convinced they employ either bots or people to keep the bidding going and take your money. Here's the only example I need to give you. I just watched a "user" spend over 7 hours of their time spending over $820 of their own money on 75 cent bids (yes, over 1000 bids) for an iPad that they DID not win when they could have purchased one in 5 minutes for $729.00 from Apple or eBay. So, do you believe someone is that stupid? I don't either. The fact is, someone or somebot is bidding in order to keep the bidding going. Bigdeal.com is obviously a scam site. I have the screen shot of the above example if you want to see it.

This site is essentially a gambling site to see who wins the item. It is slightly better than that, as any "bids" spent on an item that you did not win are credited toward a purchase at the retail price of the item.

The basics of how it works have already been described, but essentially each bid costs $0.75, and each bid on an item typically raises the price of the item $0.15, however depending on the item each bid may raise the item price by less, down to as little as $0.01 for each bid.

For example, I just watched a bidding war on a Kindle DX Graphite. Each bid was worth $0.01, and the final price was $7.94. That sounds like a really good deal, until you realize how much money was spent to get the price to that point. $7.94 at $0.01 per bid means there were 794 bids made. Each bid cost $0.75, which means a total of $595.50 was spent on the item, well above the $379.00 retail price, but it is not actually as bad as it sounds.

In a worst case scenario, there were only two bidders and each bidder spent $297.75 bidding on the item. Whichever bidder won gets to buy the item for an additional $7.94, for a total cost of $305.69, or about $73 less than the retail price.

In all practicality it's not the 90+% off they claim by a long shot (closer to 20% off), and I believe it is a very dishonest tactic, but it is still a good discount for the winner. I think it is ok as long as you fully understand the rules.

For the loser, they get the opportunity to recover their loss by buying the item at retail minus the cost of their bids. That means the person who spent $297.75 in bids and lost can purchase the item for an additional $81.25.

There is a catch though - not all items allow for a retail buy. If an item does not have a "buy it now" option, STAY AWAY! You will not be able to purchase the item at retail, and you will lose your money if you do not win the bid. The chances that you will be the one who actually wins on a bid on a popular item are very low, so you will almost certainly be giving your money away to bigdeal.com.

I think the site can be useful if you cannot find anyone who sells the particular item for any cheaper than retail, AND you are absolutely sure you want to buy the item, even at retail prices. In that case you have a chance to get a big discount. I frankly think you would need to be daft to bid on an item on bigdeal.com that did not have a "buy it now" option. There is no way to recoup your losses in that case, it is sheer foolishness.

If you did not understand what I wrote above DO NOT USE THIS SITE! You will in all likelihood lose a lot more money than you save if you do not understand what is going on. If you did understand what I wrote, then good luck to you.

Seems like a penny auction site is being reviewed almost daily here, so I thought I'd chime in. First off let me say, I think a lot of these reviews are being done by competitors or paid for. Who signs up for SiteJabber to review one site out of billions? Shady is all I'm saying.

I hear a lot of complaints about people spending so much in bids it doesn't make sense for them to do that and that the site must have "bots". Or that they use all their bids and win nothing. Well, some people do know how to game these sites. How? Well instead of going right for the shiny consumer electronics, they spend all their bids and money getting more bids. They concentrate on "bid auctions", that is, gettiing bids for cheap. Swoopo and Beezid do 500 and 1000 bid pack auctions. So when it comes down to a person who has 30 bids at a buck a piece and a guy with 500 that he paid less than $100 for, guess who is going to feel cheated, and guess who is going to be watching his HD 3DTV in 2 weeks? If you are going to use these sites, bid horde! Bids are the most expensive part of the game, use them wisely. If they didn't send products, or scammed you, you need to get in touch with law enforcement.

What is good about BigDeal is that you can buy it now using the bids you used if you lose the auction. So basically you paid for a chance to get an incredible deal. If you did win, you got something for a great deal. Claim it, pay it. However I will say that for the amount of money these sites make, they go to very little effort to explain to their users how it all works. It's not a scam, it's not equivalent gambling. If you can find a way to game them, go for it. According to Swoopo they lose money on about half of their auctions. But the big auctions make up for the losses. To be fair, I'll say the same for the other two auction sites mentioned here. I would say Beezid, Swoopo and BigDeal have the best products and the best sites in this industry. If you're going to try out penny auctions, bid horde, and use one of these three.

How to get your money back from bigdeal.com (maybe)

I have the tenacity of pit bull and I also work in the health care industry, so I'm constantly dealing with denials and bs.

I was refunded every dime I spent on bigdeal.com.

Here's how I did it:

I filed a complaint with the BBB (http://goldengate.bbb.org), the SF DA (*******@sfgov.org) and the California Attorney General (http://ag.ca.gov/consumers/general.php) as another person posted.

Then I submitted multiple tickets online at bigdeal.com. In fact, I think I had 6 different complaints open at one time. Each time I did not get the resolution I was seeking, I would copy that complaint into the response on each ticket and then emailed the following people on each and every rebuttal:

*******@bigdeal.com
*******@bigdeal.com
*******@bigdeal.com (this is George Leimer, Vice President of Operations and co-Founder BigDeal.com, Inc. His office phone is *******817 and his cell is XXXXXXXXX*)

You can also go to www.linkedin.com and send a message Nicolas Darveau-Garneau, Founder and CEO at BigDeal.com.

ALSO, bigdeal.com has added the names and photos to employees and board member on their site - write to as many people as possible - their email format is easy enough to figure out - it's the person's *******@bigdeal.com.

This took about 3 days before I think they got sick of me. Plus, I doubt they want any more negative press, since they seem to be backed by legit venture capitalists.

I would also recommend emailing all the local news stations and www.sfgate.com with your story and copy as many people from bigdeal.com on those emails.

Good luck!

*[Personal information removed by moderator 1/7/11]

Waste of time and potentially a lot of YOUR $$

Do not use this site unless you are absolutely willing to pay full price for the item you are bidding on! Otherwise you will lose money. AFTER you do not "win" the item, the site claims you can use your "loyalty bucks" to save money shopping on items, but don't forget you paid for those "loyalty bucks" in REAL money.

Seriously do not get sucked in and think your gonna nab a deal. You are bidding against other people who actually think they are gonna get a deal too. Greed in contagious! Like I said, only use the site if you actually going to pay full price. You can use your bid money toward the item. This means the money you spent on tokens is actually going to the full price of the item, thus, you will not lose money, just pay for the darn thing with Buy it Now if you don't win. Remember tokens cost. 75 cents so don't buy more than the item is worth!

Read Read READ the rules of the site. (genius business plan for BigDeal) They are making a ton of money on other peoples desire to get one deal. Remember if it seems to good to be true, it usually is!

Won a Sharp Aquos TV for ~$10.00 + shipping, a Kinect for about the same, an XBox 360 with Halo and extra controller for $240 (buy it now). It is addicting and can cost you money if you are not careful, but you can absolutely win auctions and get great products for dirt cheap. Customer service is great, Fed Ex lost my tv and BigDeal reshipped another one on expidited shipping to ensure I got it by Christmas. I do recommend the site, but be careful because it is a bit like gambling. The best route is to bid on items you were going to buy anyway.

Wow... I played for just little and then ran some stats on my probability of winning and the bennefit this program has over consumers, I realize its by choice but these folks are banking $75 for every dollar that is bidded. At a penny a bid, I was looking at a Ipad and realized that it was at $184.82, in bids, this translates to $13,861.00 that has been bidded. My gosh, with these type of programs, we will definitely be in a recession.