A little while ago, I happened across a website called BidCactus, which bills itself as "new type of web-based auction experience that combines the thrill of real world entertainment with the efficiency and value of online shopping...born out of a desire to provide you, the online community, with a fresh approach to 'auction entertainment.'" The term "auction entertainment" should have been a red flag, but I was intrigued by what I was seeing on their home page. There were auctions being offered on brand new technology products like cameras and TVs, as well as gift cards to major retailers. People seemed to be getting these products for pennies on the dollar. Bidding starts at $.10 with no reserve for all items, and go up in 10-cent or 1-cent increments, depending on the item. Now, here's the catch, and what should have caused me to steer clear. Bids cost $0.75 each, and you buy them in bidpacks of 25, 50, 100, 250, or 500 bids. When you bid, the counter gets re-set up to a maximum of 30 seconds. An auction ends when there are no further bids and there is a winner.
It seemed reasonable enough to me, especially when I was seeing items like a digital camera go for 39 cents, or a Bass Pro Shops gift card go for 9 cents. So, I bought a 50-bid pack and set my sights on a Nintendo DS Lite that my son wanted to replace his original DS which was starting to fail. Let's just say I never even got close to winning one. Either I would hesitate too long in the waning seconds of the auction, waiting for "someone else" to bid it up again, or I would hit the Bid Now button, only to have it be too late or somehow not register. 50 bids later, all I had to show for it was a lot of time wasted watching auctions and trying to bid on them.
I kept seeing the same bidders winning item after item, by running the bids up ridiculously high (when you figured that each bid raised the item cost only 1 cent, but in actuality cost 76 cents). I honestly wonder if there are any real people winning these items.
My hubby and I came to the conclusion that this type of online auction is indeed "auction entertainment," or to put it another way, online gambling. Maybe they call the site BidCactus because you are more likely to get stung than win something.
