eXciteReviews 97

I keep seeing people posting tips for haggle.com. Many of them are saying that marathon bidding is the best way to go. I'm not convinced that is entirely true. It seems to me that the best approach is to get a general idea of how much a specific item is generally going for on average. When the auction nears that point and the bidding slows, I would suggest trying to sneak in some last second bids where you think the auction is most likely to end. Let the "marathon bidders" speed up the auction for you and allow you to conserve your bids! Your more likely to win if you do your homework first. If you jump head first into any auction you'll probably end up out of bids and out of money! Worst comes to worst, you wait and lose an item. The best part about haggle.com is that you will most likely have another chance at the same item very soon! Be smart and bid wisely!

I concur with the people here. I was bidding on a kindle and the same user kept bidding and it was immediately after the last bid which to me suggests automation. This person probably had like 100 bids which is more than the kindle was worth. Why would someone do that unless they werent paying for the bids. It is really fishy. Im also watching another bid with a christine99 who originally bid on a previous ipod and the final price was at 59 %. I would stay completey away from this site

I bought a small amount of bids to bid on one item for a gift. I soon realized that the looping that others described as people come in on the one second that adds time can go on for hours. I will use up the rest of my bids, doubt that I will win, and be done with this site. I want to use my time in a different way than watching bids and being charged for the opportunity to jack up the price and waste multiple hours of my time and other users to "win a great deal."

Someone said that they didn't want to give away any winning "secrets", so I'll do it for them. (The post below was taken from another site)

1.) This site requires marathon bidding. This takes constant attention, hours of time, and investment capital. The key to winning is being in the lead and showing total dominance with your bidding style.

2.) Marathon bidding requires investing in hundreds of bids from the start. Buying the lowest amount of bids is not going to get you anywhere as you will quickly run out trying to be the leader. You have to be prepared to bid to the point of always being the leader of the auction. This can end up costing way more than the auctioned item is worth.

3.) Everyone wants to be the leader at all times. I have personally went toe to toe with another auction participant for at least two hours. I simply could not afford to buy anymore bids because doing so would have meant that the auctioned item would end up costing more than it was actually worth. When I backed off, it became apparent that my main opponent quickly ran out of bids as well. From out of nowhere another auction member became the dominant auction leader. This cycle happens over and over and over for hours on end.

4.) If auction participants do not have enough bids to continue being a leader, they often lurk in the shadows and click at the 1 second mark to keep the auction going. This is the pattern I've seen for every single auction I've attended. It is this very aspect of haggle.com that makes it more like playing the slot machines than participating in an actual auction. There are potentially hundreds of people lurking and waiting to click at the last second.

It is my educated opinion that the only way to win an auction is if other bidders think someone else is going to bid at the 1 second mark but doesn't. You learn this after being one of those 1 second bidders for awhile. After you click hoping to be the leader you quickly find out that 4 or 5 others have done the same thing. After awhile you hold off on wasting your bid at the last second under the premise that there will always be someone else that will do it. That is not always the case. Once you understand this concept, you may actually have a chance of winning an auction. It is clear that others get this concept because I've seen them win multiple auctions.

My advice to anyone wanting to test their luck and gamble on auctions with haggle.com is to do the following:

1.) Research the actual price of the product being auctioned. The site seems to list the M. S. R. P, which as we all know is way more expensive that you can usually buy it at a store. Use this to determine whether or not it is feasible to begin bidding on an item. Also note the usual winning bid price on their most popular items. The average ending pricie that I've seen for xbox and ps3 auctions go for is around $80. Laptops and computers are typically ending at the $250 range. Ipod Touch's are typically ending at $80-$150.

2.) Prepare to actually pay the retail price of the item you are hoping to win. That means buying the maximum amount of bids possible. For instance, if if you are planning on try win a $1500 laptop, buy 600 bids for $330. You are going to need them to maintain bid leadership. Consider the average price of a computer being auctioned is $1500. If the ending price is $250 and you have paid even $660 in bids to get it, you only paid $990 for the computer. Not a bad deal if you have the time to spend as were actually planning on buying a computer. Just remember that there will usually always be someone else out there with the same plan.

3.) Write down what time an auction starts before it begins. Once the auction begins, you have no way of actually knowing when it started otherwise. This will allow you to determine how long a lead bidder has been blowing their money once the auction has been operating for awhile. Do the math. If they have been bidding every 15 seconds for an hour in order to remain in the lead, that is 240 bids. A pack of 300 bids is currently $195.00. I watched one bidder spend hundreds of dollars before giving up. Another bidder took the dominant role as leader. They lasted a few hours, which cost them hundreds of dollars. Another took their place and then another. This can last from a few hours to over 10.

I hope my observations and opinions about haggle.com help future participants. I suspect the person that asked this question is actually from Haggle.com. I've seen other loaded questions like this one on Yahoo answers. I encourage anyone else that has actual experience to chime in here.

I just stumbled on this site and was hoping to find other haggle users. I have won over 30 auctions since november so I am one of those bidders you see winning a lot for 50 or 60 cents. I also beleive there may be what is called shill bidders on the site. I stay away from any thing they are bidding on. Some of the one's I've noticed are KUSHKUSH he has won far more than 20 auctions and has an endless amount of bids. Some of the others I would stay away from are: JALZ, Themickd, robkim123, lou, dirtyjerz, swpsai. These might be legit bidders if so my apoligies. I was told on around 12/6 that I had reached 20 wins. I was bidding with KUSHKUSH from the first to the 5th and he had far more wins than I and he is still bidding today, he just won 3 auctions about an hour ago. Here is something else interesting, KUSHKUSH wins are often not on the past auction list. I inquired why and was told that "it would be to kluttered" I find that interesting because at the time I asked the question all 23 of my wins from november and december were shown but only about 6 of kushkush's were there. I started downloading past auctions everyday and manually counting wins to compare and not even close for the names I mentioned. I will have to say that I am way ahead and will continue to use the site but it is a little scary. Here is one more interesting note, they charge for shipping on every item which would be fine by me if they were paying to have it shipped. I received several items via amazon from haggle and were shipped free 2 day super saver? I asked why i was charged for shipping and was given the lame answer that the final price did not include shipping? I am finding it hard to get a straight answer out of them. If you believe that this company is doing something wrong like using shill bidders you can go to the FBI website and report it. I would love to talk to some of the actual users. All of those screen names I mentioned above please don't be angry it just does not look quite right... Haggle users lets talk You can e-mail me at *******@aol.com. Dear Haggle, If you read this please don't suspend me I am just stating what everyone else has said. It is a great concept but you can blow through money in a heart beat if you are not careful.

I think this site is an absolute scam. Really... an I Pod for. 90 cents, no way, a Kindle for $40, double no way. I see the same people all over the place bidding on everything and winning. What a rip off! Look we should just go the casino and gamble. What a shame someones making money this way. That's all from the wife.
Now from the Husband, who found the site and bought $52 worth of (useless) bids... he is very disappointed (Ithink wife told him so... LOL). They advertise low prices in this economy to sucker people in and then take advantage. They #$%^)^ suck.

Anyone else notice that 90% of the user names bidding all have numbers at the end OR they have an actual name in them? Also, just about the same 90% have limitless amounts of bids. As some other folks stated it is the same user names bidding on several different auctions at same time, including an auction I might happen to have been in. I lost count after about 200-250 by 1 person who was also bidding just as much in other auctions. I find this site a scam but I have to say it is one of the best played out scams I have ran across. BEWARE! If you just pay attention to what is happening around you I am sure you will come to same conclusion :)

I have to agree with the other views. I used my free bid on a Wii Gaming System that was less than $20 with 2 seconds left as soon as I bid on it the time went back up to like 20-30 seconds. If you were the only one wanting the product it woud be an awesome deal, but I think they are getting your money throught you having to pay for bid, so the money you "save" on the great deal you are actually loosing through the bids you buy.

The thing you don't realize when you buy bids is... it gets down to the last seconds on an item and then you bid... the time goes back up. Don't count on being able to hit it quickly at the end of the time limit. You can spend all your bids on an item very quickly as the price escalates 10 cents at a time.

I think some people get good deals by chance on here, but you have to be really lucky. I am not willing to waste my time on luck.

Just do the math:
A bid costs between $0.55 and $0.75. Say on average users pay $0.6 per bid. Each bid is a $0.1 step.
A recent auction that ended was a $200 Apple Gift Card that went for $113.30. That are 1133 bids (at $0.1 per bid) they got for that card.
So 1133 bids times $0.6 per bid are $679.80, and then they get the $ 113.30 from the highest bidder. So the total "money in" for them is $793.10 - "Money out" is $200 for the gift card. So they made a nice $593.10 on a $200 gift card. They print money with that site, a lot of users all lose a little bid. Stay away.

I work for Haggle LLC.

I've noticed a lot of swirling misinformation out there on various review sites, so I thought I'd try to clear some of it up with one long post:

1. Our contact info is:
601 108th Ave NE
Bellevue, WA 98*******521

That info is also available on the website.

2. Company policy forbids employees, affiliates, and families from bidding on Haggle.com. We periodically run an internal site that employees can use to "get their bidding on". Although Haggle.com is a great site that thousands of customers enjoy, our employees prefer staying employed to bidding on the public site. It's great fun, but in this economy, no one takes his or her job for granted. Of course, the only way to "prove" that would be to show all users the names of all the bidders in the system and the names of all the company employees, but that would be a gigantic violation of personal privacy, which we take very seriously. Rest assured that, from the beginning, we have had a policy of no employee bidding because we want the site to be a delightful experience for our customers.

3. The bids themselves do pay for the discounts on the merchandise. Everything about how the site works is transparently described in the FAQ: http://www.haggle.com/Home/Help

Finally, to the competitor marketing troll who keeps spamming sites likes this - please, please find something better to do.