BigDeal

I had 2 big deals: one with Metropolitan Repairs and the other with JW Home Improvements and was disappointed with both for different reasons. Metropolitan Repairs dilly-dallied too much and in the end informed me that Ms Santos Salvador left the country for family emergency and would not be able to do the jobs at my house. Big Deal tells me that it is outside of 30-day window and they cannot refund my money. Outrageous! It was Metropolitan Repairs that backed out and I have no interest in any other Big Deals. My request is simple: Give back my money and they have not since over a month. Their emails sound very professional, but I found them untrustworthy. I don't trust them anymore. With JW Home Improvement, all I wanted was to get the 200 dollar worth of work at my house, but the estimate they gave me was 1600 dollars. They can estimate what they think is the right value, but it was way outside my budget so I did not want the deal. I wanted my money back. Again, the Big Deals would not refund my money. Take my advise: Stay away from Big Deals!

I registered/subscribed to BigDeal.com on Saturday, May 28th, 2011, and requested a refund and cancellation of my membership the same day, as soon as I realized that this was a major scam. They refused.
BigDeal.com advertises itself as an auction site, but it is unlike any auction you have ever seen. First you buy a pack of tokens ($22.50 for 30, $37.50 for 50, etc.). Then you bid on items with these tokens, each bid showing as if it equals one cent. If you bid 50 times, it looks like you bid 50 cents, but you really bid $37.50 (50 x. 75 = 37.70). If you run out of tokens, you have to purchase more if you want to keep bidding so you invest even more.
Here is the big rip off—once you bid, that money is forfeited even if you don't win the item. To not lose your money completely, you must buy the item at full retail price (also called "buy it now" price) plus shipping and taxes minus the money you bid. This entire process is a scam to make you pay full price for an item you might not be able to afford. If you wanted to pay full retail, you'd just go to the mall and save yourself shipping costs. You even lose this option if you don't act immediately.
There is a second layer of rip off that they call "loyalty rewards." Again you spend additional money to buy an item you don't really want so that you can use your token $$ to reduce the price slightly. For example, you can buy a $49.99 coffeemaker for $39.99, using tokens for the other $10.00. You have just spent 39.99 more (plus shipping and tax) and still have $27.50 in tokens to redeem. You could end up spending an additional $150 in order to redeem all of your tokens.
BigDeal.com isn't running an auction; it is a bait and switch scam, tricking you into buying and paying full price. If you realize you've been had and try to get a refund, they refuse because all of the regulations were written for you to read, and you should have known better. The confusing instructions consist of pages of "How It Works" and "FAQs" but most of the content is devoted to claiming how great a deal you'll be getting. The warnings are buried deep in the misleading propaganda about how everyone is a winner. Almost at the end, they caution that you might lose money, but lucky you—you'll get Loyalty Bucks so you really can't lose!
In addition, I received a notice from them that I had reached their monthly limit of bidding on ten auctions and had to wait for a month to bid again. When I pointed out that this "regulation" is nowhere mentioned on their website, they emailed that it was a mistake.
I want my $60 refunded (#*******), but I'm not holding my breath!

Those of you who refer to "bots" bidding on auctions: every bidder has the option to engage an automated bidder to post bids for them. It's limited at 40 bids and, often times, several bidders on the same auction are using them. Using the auto bid system is one of the strategies of winning on the site. Big Deals makes A LOT of money, that's true, enough that I don't think they need to scam anyone. If you log in, buy a few bids, try to win a TV for $30, of course you'll be out of luck. There are strategies to winning items at a low price and it works for me. I've won a Kindle, a MacBook, several zip drives, etc. Like anything else in life, if you walk in blind and hand them your money, they'll gladly accept it from you. Here's a tip: if you want to win a $600 iPhone, make sure you have $600 worth of bids to fire at the auction. If you win, whoopee, you got a great deal. If not, you can buy the item for the cost of your bids plus shipping. Yes, the retail price is a little higher than regular web deals, but that's the trade-off for taking a shot at a 95% discount, which happened for me the first day I bid, here. PayPal has their revenue gates open to the site (and they've closed them to many penny auction sites). That lends some credibility to their business tactics.

You really can win some great deals on this, but you have to play smart. You have to look at statistics and only start bidding when you know its close to selling. The way u do that is by studying the average price that it normally goes for and then second watch bidder behavior. I have only seriously participated in 3 auctions. I've won 2 of those auctions by following the advice mentioned above. The last prize I won was an Apple Ipad 2,64 GB wireless, brand new, expected delivery date according to there system report is 6/16 - I'm Rebecca Lawson, look me up on the second to the last auction for the ipad 2 64gb black, on 5/31 - you can also look me up on Linkedin and Facebook. I'm legit.

This site is NOT a scam. Im not to sure why i am telling you this, (all the negativity limits the competition on the site) but im sick of reading people B***h and moan. They are a legit company who offers EXACTLY what they say. Everyone who files a "complaint" to the BBB are a bunch of sore losers who manager their money poorly. There is strategy and skill involved. You can't just hop on and through bids around. You thought u could just walk away with a ipad for 26 bucks easily? For those who pay 75 bucks and expect to win something big, then goodluck. I have invested $1200 on this site so far. I have recieved a brand new 3d 47"TV (that im watching right now), two iPad 2's, over a dozen video games, and a bunch of other 50-80 dollar items.

I signed up for BigDeals.com and I think that they should have named it BigScam.com.

After watching some bidding I realized it would take some patients to bid and win. I only bid on item I wanted. Researched what other auctions closed at and used a plan on bidding that worked twice for me on the two items I won (Kindle and IPod). Both items would have cost me $229 and $139. I guess if you figure how to bid and win a couple items they cancel you with no chance for review. See the e-mail I received below.

Oh yea, try and contact them, that is a joke. No customer service number to call and since my account was canceled I could not go to their website and submit a question. They do not want your questions or feedback, JUST SEND THEM YOUR MONEY.

Much to my surprise I received an e-mail (shown below) saying that my account had been canceled due to their terms of service agreement. What I did other than deploy what seemed to be a winning approach to bidding is beyond me. I take it that if you win a couple times you will be canceled. I have yet to hear back from them on what it was I did to cause them to cancel my account.

They did note that they would send a refund, will see how long that takes. I can bet it takes longer for me to get my money back (if I do) than it did them to get payed for me purchasing their tokens.

Hello,

Our goal at BigDeal.com is to add a bit of excitement to the shopping experience. While we want to provide access to great deals on popular products to all of our users, there are occasions when we are unable to extend a relationship as outlined in our Terms of Service.

After careful review, we have elected to permanently close your account.

We enforce our Terms of Service to level the playing field as much as possible and make the bidding process transparent and fair for all of our users.

All orders on this account have been cancelled and a refund in full for these orders and bids purchased, in the amount of $243.62 has been issued.

Feel free to contact us if you have any further questions, however our decision in this matter is not subject to further review.

Rachel

Account Verification Department

BigDeal.com

One last note, I do realize how they make their money and the ugly profits that they make on some of their products so I approached this with caution and a plan for bidding. Had they not canceled my account and I had received the merchandise my thoughts would have been different.

I was researching the iPad, when there was an advertisement at the bottom of the screen. At first glance I found the deals very enticing. However, I have seen scams like this before. After researching bigdeals, I came across this website. I decided to dig further. If you go to their winners page, there is a list of people and if they are on facebook. I searched for every single individual and guess what. THEY DON'T EXIST! THIS IS A SCAM. I'm glad I found this website before I gave them any information.

You need to be really carefully spending your money here. This website pretty much just like SaveBig.com where...

I've won $15 LOWE's gift card for 31 cents. NICE indeed BUT...

31 cents is actually stands for 31 bids. It cost 60 cents per bid.
31 x 60 = $18.6 (this is how much the company actually make)...

Indeed I win a $15 gift card for 31 cents (YAY!) and lucky for me I just bid ONE TIME. But what about those people who bid against me like 10 times?. They lost 10x60 cents = 6 bucks...

Think about it. It's all depend on ur LUCK!
Coz I tried it again. Bidding another gift card. I bid 25 TIMES. I lost it all.
And I cannot even use it for a credit deduction to buy the item at retail price. (coz I was bidding using voucher bids NOT purchase bids).

Overall this company is pretty smart... I wish I am the owner LOL

I won two auctions for 'e-certificates' two months ago. I have received only two 'e-mail codes' that they state can be exchanged for GIFT CERTIFICATES of my choice from a list furnished by them. I selected a firm on that list only to have them remove that firm from the list! They say thet their 'e-mail codes' can be used on third party sites but that is not true - they are not accepted! Their 'e-mail codes' cannot be used by third parties and are useless as gifts. BigDeal will not allow me to file any 'problem reports' any longer. I have been unable to find any phone number where I can discuss this problem with a live person. They just refuse to ship my won items and close all complaints filed as'problem solved'and refuse to permit any new problem complaints!

Total bull$#*! site. A pure scam/lie. They misinform the consumer by mis-stating the discount percentages when each bid token cost $0.75 cents. Example: Product retails for $10, you bid 10 times and got lucky and won, total number of bids was 20. The site will say you paid ($0.20 cents for the auction price + $0.10 cents for the bid price) = $0.30 for the $10 saving you 97% when in reality you paid 0.75 x 10 = $7.50 + 0.20 auction price = $7.70 which is a savings of 23%! Check the math on the site. The site needs to be shut down!