You’ve likely seen the commercial on television: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVPzfz27Vjw.
The site is an auction style site. The commercial claims that you can get an iPad on Quibids for $23.74, a fraction of the cost of the retail price of $699. But let’s do the math and see how this is possible and find the real deal about Quibids.
Quibids works by buying bids. As of today, a bid costs 60 cents. Each bid increases the price of the item by 1 cent. Not only does a bid increase the price of an item, but it also extends the time of the auction. If you are used to eBay where an auction ends at a specific time, you must rethink the game when bidding on Quibids. This of course prevents squatters from waiting until the very last second to play their bid and swoop in on an item… but it also allows the price to go up and up and up, without bidders really knowing when the auction will end.
Quibids isn’t a scam, but you should proceed with caution
It looks like most auctions start at a price of $0.00. Hey, I’ll take two! But let’s look at the iPad example from the Quibids commercial. If bids cost .60 and each bid increases the price of the item by .1 then the formula for figuring out how much it cost for all bids on the single item is this… (final price x 100) x .60.
So for the iPad
2374 bids x .60 cost per bid = $1,424.40 spent on the iPad… almost… the winning bidder on Quibids must pay the price of their winning bid! So add 23.74 for that and the gross amount spent on the iPad is $1,448.14! All for an item with a retail value of $699.
But the winner got a heck of a deal on Quibids right?
If you look at a single auction, then yes, the winner usually gets an incredible deal. But what about every other auction that they bid on and didn’t win?
Of course this doesn’t factor in the entertainment value of Quibids. It really is fun watching these auctions although I personally haven’t placed any bids.
If you want to play around with Quibids, at least you are now informed about the math, but make sure you check out these rules:
3. Only 12 wins are allowed per account over a 28 day time span
4. Only 1 win of the same product with a value price of over $285.00 is allowed over a 28 day time span (e.g. you can only win a certain Playstation once every 28 days)
5. Only 3 wins are allowed per day
6. Only 1 win is allowed per 28 days on items with a value price $1,000.00 or greater
The rest of the rules can be found here: http://www.quibids.com/help/rules.php
