Is DealFun.com a Scam?
I don’t think that dealfun.com is a scam but I do think that it’s a rip-off to the consumer. The truth of the matter is that once you sign up with them they get your credit card, that’s the only thing they’re after nothing else matters them. The reason why I don’t like dealfun.com and all the penny auctions for that matter is that they make so much money and if you watch most of these penny auctions online what do most of them do they make a bunch of money and then one day they stop shipping out items to their customers and then one day they close their doors. I’ve seen this happen plenty of times the biggest one to do this was wavee.com
My complaint with Dealfun.com and why I think people should stay away
Dealfun.com is doing exactly what a lot of the other fly by night penny auctions have done which is they have their bid prices at different rates. If you purchase a smaller bid back at $69, each bid costs you 0.60 cents if you buy their huge bid pack at $119 each bid cost .35. Now I’m not saying that dealfun will do this but the last time I saw a company do this it went out of business within a few months. It’s very easy to make and lose profits in a penny auction business. Another thing you have to take into consideration is the faulty penny auction business model.
A lot of penny auction websites have inflation problems which are caused by them having too many auctions for bid packs. Penny auctions usually do this when they’re low on money or on merchandise and need to keep the game a float. What happens is there will be a bunch of users that have a bunch of bids raised from bid packs which will enable them to win a lot of auctions for close to nothing. The truth of the matter when it comes to penny auctions is that most of the people who lose don’t come back. So the smart ones that are hoarding bids start winning things for cheap and don’t forget that penny auction has to keep advertising to stay afloat which in reality will in time drain it’s ‘treasury’ if the owner hasn’t done proper accounting.
DealFun.com is one huge marketing gimmick!
The whole penny auction industry is just one huge marketing gimmick personally I recommend staying away. I also don’t recommend buying your own because the penny auction industry is very competitive and unless you have the dollars to advertise you will lose big. On the buyers side in my opinion dealfun.com and all the sites like it are borderline gambling and should be treated as such. I can’t call dealfun.com a scam until they decide not to deliver the merchandise to the winners of their auctions. I don’t think you should join.
Please leave your comments
Hi,
I am an executive at Deal Fun and came across your comment here. We thank you for taking the time out to reviewing our specific site and would like to clarify a few points 🙂
We have a BuySafe, Authorize.net and GoDaddy certification. These are all third party certifications achieved after due diligence of our systems. There is no way we can use any of the credit card info without specific authorizations from the customer as we run the risk of losing our entire business.
We agree with your concept of having too many bid packs as auctions completely as a faulty business model, which is why we definitely try to limit the number of bid packs up for auctions.
We also do not believe penny auctions models are gambling because we provide a Buy It Now option. Eg. If a customer wants to buy an iPad, he can take the iPad home for retail on a worst case scenario (no risk), however, he gets a fun chance to buy the item up to 80% off retail.
In addition, we have worked very hard to differentiate ourselves through various strategies like providing top of the line customer support, ensuring timely shipment of goods, Buy it now functionality (risk free for the customer), Deal Fun Promise (“Our Promise”), BuySafe 3rd party guarantee among others.
We have thousands of winners daily, and you can see them on our winners wall “Deal Wall”.
We also take extreme pride in our customer service and have not had any customer who has reached out to us return dissatisfied.
Thus, very humbly and respectfully, we feel the subject of your article is misleading. Although you have shied away a couple of times in your article from calling Dealfun a scam, you would agree that most of the users do not read the article and go mostly with the subject itself. We respect your freedom to post an article on your blog per your understanding, but we thought it it apt to reach out to you and clarify some of the statements which we believe may not be true above. This is in no way implying you did not do your research on this article, as the language does seem well thought out.
My email address is registered above, you are free to reach out to me in case you would like to.
Most Humbly and sincerely,
Roger
i’m not misleading anyone i’m warning people on how your industry really works so they know what they’re getting themselves into. Also I called penny auctions “borderline gambling”. Also there are plenty of scams that have the BuySafe, Authorize.net and GoDaddy certifications. People have a right to know and understand the penny auction industry if you treat your customers right you have nothing to worry about!
Hi Travis,
Thank you for your response. We as a company are absolutely in favor of ensuring everyone has the right information. I agree, people should know about whatever they are using, and as we do treat our customers as kings, we have nothing to worry about 🙂
Most Sincerely,
Roger
I’m not here to argue, just to read the article. After seeing Dealfun on Facebook, I felt I should investigate whether or not Dealfun is just a scam or worse, a phishing, just to get the credit card info or my ID…most people, of course, are very leery of the “Get something for next to nothing…” concept…you’ve heard the saying, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!” Well, I have lived with this wisdom up to this point in my life and it seems to be working! That is why I used Google to see what kind of hits I could get on Dealfun, to see, if its a criminal activity. Well, I don’t get that feeling, but I do suspect its like a pyramid game…that is my opinion on just reading because only a few people out of thousands who bid actually win the right to buy something like that out of how many???? I see how the penny auction sites raise huge cash just on a single item!
Then, I asked myself, HOW does Dealfun know about this blog UNLESS they specifically are doing a Google like I did – looking to see if they can find comments like this blog – and then leave, “friendly” but “threatening comments like above – so as to put the cabosh on anyone who might raise an eyebrow? Obviously, Roger, you are watching and leaving notes that seem to imply you are gonna sue. Is that the deal above, or was it just an innocent reply?
You see the problems we get into in this world when we try to tell people they can get something for next to nothing? Who believes it?
I’m not sure what to believe, and frankly, I am very skeptical about it. I think I will just leave Dealfun alone because I don’t like the friendly statement from them to the blogger here. It means, they are looking to see who is keeping an eye on them.
It is all a SCAM!!!
think about it. It costs you .60 cents to make one bid. the cost of the item increments .01 cent for every bid. It the item reaches, say, $50.00, that’s 5000 bids at .60 Cents each they make 3000 for selling you a 100.00 item for 50.00.
My account was constantly “missing” bids. For instance, I would start with 35 bids, log off and log back on then the balance would show 25 bids remaining…WITHOUT ME BIDDING ON ANYTHING!!!
When I complain, they send an e-mail showing “You bid on this and this and this..” OK, that’s what YOUR records show….BUT I WASNT BIDDING ON ANYTHING!!! I just loged off and back on a short time later!!!!
Also, “BID BUDDY” will show you automaticaly bid ONCE but your bid balance would decrement by TWO or sometimes THREE BIDS at a time!
If I didn’t pay attention I’d have Never seen it!!!
They do not provide a service…They are greedy theives….PLEASE do not use their service!!!!
I’m not the only one, do a google search for dealfun scams…..Too bad I didn’t see this first!!!
I was doing some checking on Dealfun trying to see if it is legit or not, and happened upon this review. I am not sure yet myself if I would feel OK participating in Dealfun, but @Jim’s comment made me laugh:
“…HOW does Dealfun know about this blog UNLESS they specifically are doing a Google like I did – looking to see if they can find comments like this blog – and then leave, “friendly” but “threatening comments like above – so as to put the cabosh on anyone who might raise an eyebrow?”
In this new world of social networking, it is only an idiot businessperson that doesn’t “google” his or her company’s products to find out what the market is saying and also to identify customer dissatisfaction at an early stage. Read Gary Vaynerchuk’s #1-selling ground-breaking book “Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on your Passion”, which emphasizes doing exactly what Roger did. Kudos to him, he is spot on.
Still don’t know about Dealfun, but if they are legit then I wish them every success.
dealfun is a scam and they take 7 weeks for shipping
With so many penny auction sites popping up, it’s difficult to find a reputable one. However, making a profit on the sale of bids is not a scam. Charging a customer for a winning auction and not shipping the product is a scam. The point of every business is to make money. Even charitable organizations can’t fulfill their purpose if they’re taking in less than their operating costs. If there is a legitimate penny auction site out there, then their business model is a win-win for everyone. They profit on the sale of each unit with the bid prices and the winner of the auction still gets the product at less than retail.
Thanks for posting this up Travis, saved me doing it!
Well actually, I don’t necessarily feel as negative towards these penny auctions. I participated in an Australian one when it was young and did get a bargain compared with the dollars I put into bids.
However, I do believe it’s a mild form of gambling. Dealfun compares itself with eBay. At least with eBay, if you lose the auction, you DON’T lose money. With these penny auctions and reverse auctions, you could potentially place hundreds of dollars worth of bids and still come away empty handed. So I treat it as a bit of fun gambling. If you don’t win the auction, you lose some money. If you win, you MAY walk away with a bargain. (“May” because it depends on how many bids you sank in)
I don’t think it’s a scam if they are up front about what’s involved. The bone I have to pick with Dealfun is their advertising, which is why I Googled “Dealfun misleading” in the first place. I came across a Google ad in my Gmail which read: “Overstock iPads: $30.93 – DealFun.com/iPad – Get 32GB Apple iPads for $30.93. Limit 1/Customer. Australia Only.”
That link took me to a specific landing page which did not mention any pricing, only examples of all the fabulous bargains and encouraged me to sign up. It was only after I entered my email and name that it asked me for my credit card number and mentioned all the packages.
Through each of the landing pages, there was an Australian flag icon with the text, “Proud to be Aussie”. It seemed odd when there was also the notice “fast shipping to Australia”. When I found their contact details tucked away in the Terms and Conditions, I discovered that they were based in Canada.
Furthermore, they claim that they can sell products so cheap because the buy overstocked or liquidation items. An iPad 2 overstocked?! At $30 for an iPad, that represents 3000 bids, which if the bids were an average of only 50¢, that represents $1500 revenue (iPads have sold for over $40 on that site).
So, none of their claims seem consistent. Overstocked iPads for $30.93? Even the Dealfun executive who posted here said you would be able to buy the iPad for certain at normal retail price. Limit 1/customer? What? You can’t bid on an iPad again if you win? Australia only? Don’t they ship to other countries?
C’mon, pull the other one.
I’m not saying bad things about penny auctions in general, I’m sure some are legitimate businesses. Just find Dealfun’s advertising deceptive.
And I would willingly listen to Roger from Dealfun’s rebuttal to that and gladly apologize if I am wrong.
ad that got my facebook click reads
” Apple iPads Only $23.71
Today Only: We Are giving
away 1,000 Apple iPads at a 97%
discount. Click HERE to get
yourself an Apple iPad for only $23.71! ”
so i clicked.. theres no buy button for a ipad for $23.71 anywhere on the site, so i googled “dealfun sucked me in” and found a lot of pages/blogs
asking about them. There you go, misleading ads on facebook – whats the go there?
DealFun is really not a scam everyone! I can not allow this clear deffamation of a totally legitimate and to be honest, cool company continue without my say. Shipping is free, i got my item within 2 weeks. I got an ipad for about 140 bucks, which is amazing and i emailed the customer support team, and they responded within 24 hours. All this rubbish written is just awful and there should be laws against it. It is unfair. I am sure some idiot will write something along the lines of “James works for dealfun.com” well all i can say to that is – YOU DAMN IDIOT! DealFun.com is fine.
I agree… I read a comment just now saying there was no BUy button… Are you stupid? lol… I am on the site right now and am clicking the buy button? Maybe your computer has a virus, or your brain? Such dumb people out there. Love dealfun.com
For the record Cindi Baker and James O’Connor share the same Ip. address which means they’re either living in the same house or they’re the same person. This is not the first time this has happened, typically I mark these messages as spam but this time I wanted people to see and judge for themselves!
Thanks for the blog post, I was not really planning on registering at all (I live by the adage that too good to be true very likely is) but I was curious about how the whole business model worked.
Whenever I look for potential scam in companies (like I did for example when receiving free cruise tickets in the mail) and find blog posts about them, there always seem to be a bunch of random people with 1 post all supporting the company and often pretty bad grammar/spelling (for some reason) that look like they rushed their post. It’s so obvious that they are simply working for the company (yes James O’Connor, I am a DAMN IDIOT) and that it’s part of their marketing plan, to just try to spread these messages anywhere where someone is exposing them for what it really is. And funny to see 2 people with the same IP address sending a message 2 minutes apart from each other, the 2nd one “agreeing with the first”. Geez, talk about lucky timing if it was not the same person! Not to knock your blog at all but it’s not like you’re CNN.com, you don’t have thousands of people looking at it every minute, posts are pretty much always spread out in this kind of blog.
I agree it’s not necessarily a ‘scam’, but it’s pretty much gambling. Saying that it’s risk free because you can click the “Buy Now” button… well if an iPad really gets to 140$ (which say with a 50c average bid is 7000$ cash coming in) and someone presses “Buy Now”, well there is still close to 7000$ of money that other people loss in there, how was it risk free for them?
Either way, thanks for the job Travis.
Haha! Then that makes me a “DAMN IDIOT” too! I guess everyone’s a DAMN IDIOT except for James and Cindi. Same IP and within 2 minutes of each other.
Cindi’s obviously avoiding the issue mentioned by Bob Jones: “theres no buy button for a ipad for $23.71”. He never wrote nor meant that there was no buy button at all. You’re not Damned. Just an Idiot.
Um………..this is kind of off topic, but I was hoping i could get ‘Rogers’ (the guy that works at dealfun)attention. You see I have a question. I would like to try dealfun but do not have a credit card. Is there a way I can send money through the mail and have it added to my account?
@travis, here are several problems I see with dealfun.com. First, the web ad I saw for dealfun said “OVERSTOCK DEALS” and proceeded to list 4 products: a 32GB iPad, a 32GB iPod Touch, a 16GB iPhone 4, and a Sony Bravia 55″ LED HDTV. I don’t know about the Sony Bravia, but I am certain there have been absolutely positively no overstock deals for the three Apple products. On the landing.dealfun.com page, you see similar claims of “overstock surplus” and “warehouse closeouts”. WTF are they talking about?
dealfun.com did not buy these products in any sort of overstock clearance. Even if they had, that fact would have no bearing on how they were sold on their website. The use of the words “overstock deals” on those ads appears to be solely a diversionary tactic to entice newbies to their website. The statement is deceptive advertising.
Second, “Roger” from dealfun talks about their “Buy It Now” program. Other penny-auction sites have had programs like this; none of them ever seem to spell out exactly how the programs work. I couldn’t find a page on the dealfun.com website saying how Roger’s program works. Some auction sites discount the price by the cost of the bids you have placed on the item. Does dealfun do that? Roger says that you can get the product “At Retail” if you don’t win the penny auction. What exactly does that mean? Where are the “Buy It Now” prices for items listed? Why can’t I see them clearly and up front on the website? If I buy an item at full retail from dealfun.com, do I get the normal conveniences that I would get buying at full price any other retail operation? Since dealfun is essentially being a retailer, what states would I have to add sales tax to my purchase? All of these questions and more would have to be spelled out on dealfun’s website before anyone could possibly know if “Buy It Now” was a good deal.
Please e-mail @Roger about these items and ask him to address them. Thanks.
One more issue: look at the dealfun.com promise (http://www.dealfun.com/ourpromise):
“1. We will always be available to help you at anytime of the day. With the very best of customer service & an average response time of 15 minutes. E-mail us at [email protected]
2. We will always do our level best to go the extra mile for our customers. Your consumer experience is our primary concern.
3. If you are not satisfied, e-mail us and we will go the extra mile to ensure you are happy!
4. To present our customers with a risk-free environment where they always win. You can use your bids towards Buy It Now option and never lose money!
5. We will always do our level best to keep the excitement levels at Deal Fun , Super high! Thousands of deals get taken home at up to 99% off retail at Deal Fun daily. This is our commitment.”
What exactly are they promising there? The only real promise I see is that you can “use your bids” towards a “Buy It Now” full-price sale and never lose money. But the mechanics of the “Buy It Now” program are never ever spelled out on the website. Not much of a promise.
One more little thing: if you go to http://dealfun.com, you are on the dealfun.com website. But if you go to http://dealfun.com , you get forwarded to http://nomorerack.com. What the heck is going on?
I would like to thank both, Travis and Bones, for their comments and knowledgeable input. I clicked on the same ad that popped up during one of my Google searches and decided to read what others are saying about the company. I recently answered an ad similar to DealFun.com, a company named First Step Equity that took my money and promised the world up until the moment they had processed my credit card. I should have done the same research then as i did now about DealFun.com
Thanks again.
I am a fan of DealFun. I got good deals and it was fun. I probably should mention that after doing the math, I haven’t been bold (or crazy) enough to bid on the larger items; but I have bid on and won lots of the smaller items. I got some really great deals; an mp3 player that I paid $0.82, I paid $0.63 for an iced tea maker, a personal space heater for under $2. The heater sells at Sears for $90.18 ($105.14 with est. tax & shipping). DealFun has always paid the shipping charges for the items that I “won”. (The prices that I mention, .82, .63 etc. are the absolute totals of what I paid for each item.)
Trying to be an informed consumer, I decided to Google the items that I wanted to bid on; I always got a great buy on the items.
The only problem that I’ve noticed with the DealFun auction site is that their descriptions of some of the smaller items could be better. I had bid a single penny on an LCD cleaning kit, when no one else bid, I won the auction for a total of $.61. When I received the item in the mail (shipped First Class), I noticed that the cleaning kit bore the prestigious “Monster Cable” logo. If the DealFun auction site had listed the item as a top of the line (brand name) cleaning kit, I’m sure there would’ve been more people bidding on it.
I would absolutely recommend that people look into the DealFun website for themselves. Research the items and start small. If you purchase a cheap BidPack and later decide that it isn’t for you, then you are only out a few bucks. Just remember that every time someone bids the cost of the item goes up a penny… but every time YOU hit the bid button it’s costing you sixty cents. Those bids can add up pretty fast.
Dealfun just pissed me off. Yes, I am the same Chris that was earlier singing praises to the auction site, but something changed this morning.
I was browsing through their closed auctions, and noticed that a lot of cool new items have been sold; items that I hadn’t seen on DeadFun before. When I went to the Live Auctions page, I didn’t see ANY of the newly won products listed, so looked farther into the future auctions… nothing new there.
There was a time that I would open the “Winners” page to see the items that I had won with my member name and the amount of $ that I had saved had I paid retail prices. Now I see a lot of cool stuff sold to people without names that live in Abu Dhabi or Derbyshire.
It looks to me as if DealFun is experiencing problems and is trying a last ditch effort to keep their heads above water.
I did not fully understand what I was getting into with Dealfun I wish I had never seen the place and watching the bidding I see the same people bidding over and over on different items and never winning just pushing the price up then pulling out before a winning price is reached and I did look at this for six hours.
If you’re into gambling have a look at it but if you’re into saving money stay away.
When I think about it how stupid I was for paying to bid at an auction site really really stupid
I wanted to add to the discussion the fact that once you signed up with them, you agree to give away some of your privacy. See below information directly taen from their terms and conditions:
“Publicity. DealFun™ reserves the right to publish the name, region address and photograph of any winners. This rule is one of the conditions of participating on the Website, which allows DealFun™ to provide the public with proof of the auctions won by users. This constitutes a fundamental transparency issue.
As a winner of a major auction, you may be asked, depending on advertising needs, to take part in a photo session and a brief interview about the circumstances surrounding your win. The following rules apply to the photo session:
The face must be uncovered
DealFun™ might require photo ID to confirm the winner’s usual appearance. If a winner refuses to comply with these rules, DealFun™ reserves the right to suspend payment of the prize.
The information gathered may be used to write a press release sent to the media. Your win will also likely appear in one of DealFun™’s commercials, including but not limited to, television and radio, as well as on the Website.”
“For you to actively participate in DealFun, We do need some of your personal information, however. Once you provide us with your required personal information, you are no longer anonymous. In providing us with your personal information, you consent to the transfer and storage of such information on our servers.
In connection with your registration and use of DealFun, We may collect and store the following personal information:
email address, physical contact and personal information including but not limited to your name, address, date of birth and telephone number;
all transactional information based on your activities on DealFun;
shipping, billing and other information relating to any purchase or shipping;
any correspondence sent to us or by us;
financial information, such as your credit card information; and
other supplemental information from third parties.”
@Rick, thanks for pointing that fact out! For other sites, using your identity for promotion is normally optional and with your consent afterwards. Here, it sounds like you don’t get to win if you don’t comply!
I’ve participated in before and they offered me a few free bids in exchange for a photo and testimonial which I happily offered.
But the more we look deeper into DealFun’s marketing and policy, the more insidious it becomes…
Hi Roger,
The problem here is that consumers are aware of identity theft and the consequence of it. It is very devastating when you are a victim of it.
It is a great idea if you offer “PAYPAL” on your site because NO CREDIT CARDS INFO is stored on your server in case it is hit by hackers. Do ya agree with me?
Let big brother “PAYPAL” handle the payment processing because they know what they are doing. And they are doing just that. And you are doing just BIDDING. How’s it sound?
Give us more payment options.
Tommy
Hi Roger,
Anyway, my friends and I will join if you have “PAYPAL” offered on your site because we will feel safer.
Thanks.
Tommy
Thank all of you for the advice. I was thinking about joining being an avid ebayer. Jim your comment was very helpful in choosing not to join. thanks
I am very concerned about buying “too good to be true” goods on the Net because I don’t want to finance the drug dealers or terrorists.
I just saw a show on TV, Crime Inc. where crime rings steal billions each year from 18 wheeler tractor trailer trucks and sell the whole truck load of goods to online fences who sell the goods on the Net for cheap prices. These goods are real name brand products headed to stores. The consumers buying these goods are financing terrorism. No cheap priced iPod is worth that to me.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11 we all had better think about what we are buying on the Net. You give them your full identity info and your credit card info. Just that data is enough to finance terrorism.
If something really good. is really cheap, it’s probably been stolen. If you buy that stolen product then the blood and the curse of the murder of innocents is on your hands, and your WILL answer to God for it.
I do so love reading these forum discussions / rants. It doesn’t matter to me whether dealfun is a scam or not really – whatever happened to the concept of ‘caveat emptor’? However the real joy is in reading the cretinous comments of those people who have no evidence of the things of which they speak but just a well developed capability for bigotry. For example Ari above – “The consumers buying these goods are financing terrorism”. How does this work? Any evidence for this? Except of course a TV show and we all know how reliable these are. And the wonderful Travis whose tiny brain could not encompass the concept that two people might be sharing the same internet connection and mailing a comment about the same thing because they both want to make a comment. What a surprise eh? And Tom who is very unhappy because a company is making a profit out of other people’s cupidity and greed. Perhaps I could remind you all that taking part in these things is optional – nobody is forcing anyone so to do. I save the best ’till last though – Ari again – “if you buy…… the curse of the murder of innocents is on your hands, and you will answer to God for it. Obviously we should invade their country and waterboard their people to find out the truth. Toodle pip
I don’t normally post on anything on the web, but I just have to throw my 2 cents in here. Not about Dealfun.com, I don’t even know them, they popped up this morning in an ad on my computer, so I too was doing my due diligence on them when I ran across this post and comments.
I want to comment to “Bones” who said the following: “First, the web ad I saw for dealfun said “OVERSTOCK DEALS” and proceeded to list 4 products: a 32GB iPad, a 32GB iPod Touch, a 16GB iPhone 4, and a Sony Bravia 55″ LED HDTV. I don’t know about the Sony Bravia, but I am certain there have been absolutely positively no overstock deals for the three Apple products.”
Bones, I hate to tell you this but I actually went to a “Live” auction last weekend, you know, one with an auctioneer and runners and bid sheets, etc. Well the reason I went was because of some of the computer stuff they had, 2-64gb iPads, a 21.5 iMac, 2-Acer All in One Touch, an Acer Laptop Touch…and just a whole lot more computer products and big screen TVs. This was in a big warehouse and you could see pallets of merchandise stacked to the rafters. So I just wanted to let everyone know, they are liquidating/overstocking/bankruptcy iPads as well as other Apple products. So I figure if real live “Auctioneers” can purchase pallets of electronics…then places like dealfun.com can too and so could you if you were a business.
I too am doing my due diligence in research after i saw the ’30$’ ipad thing.
However, a point for Ari & Dave..
It is likely NOT crime or terrorism that is responsible for low prices such as these, when you legitimately encounter them.. but rather, and i think perhaps worse, it is almost always , assuredly, someone’s misfortune, that is being profited from.. such as bankruptcy or, death or illness,
It could be perhaps, instead, the product of sweatshops, with indentured servitude..
The reasons may be diverse, but they all have in common one thing.
Somebody’s real misfortune.
Otherwise, who is going to sell ANYTHING at a loss?
I tend to be nervous buying ultra cheap items , unless I know the source, such as a going out of business sale of a store perhaps, which in itself may in fact be someone’s misfortune, but it’s an acceptable one as it’s not proceeds of a repossession or bankruptcy or sweatshop..
And yes, it IS possible, that other factors such as ARI said are also there, but they’re not the most common ones…
As I stated, it was doing research on the ad for these DealFun folks that brought me here
.. However, i do not gamble on prices, like online auctions, theres no point for me, if I need something, I know i need it, so i’m not going to gamble on an auction so that I *might* get it cheaper, or not at all.. If i don’t get it, what then? I’m out something that I need and am going to have to get elsewhere.
So as it appears that one must be willing to do so in order to get these cheap ipads, i will have to pass. If someone has experience with these folks where they have something such as a ‘Buy it now’ button for the CHEAP price, i’d like to hear about it.. provided these prices are due to overstock, and not misfortune.
That’s my 2 cents…
Thank you all!!! Really, you guys saved me a lot of money! I have almost signed up on dealfun, but thought I’ll do some research before giving out my credit card#. I’ll rather ebay, at least I know what I pay for I’ll get it, and my bid’s are free, and most of all I can pay PayPal 🙂 WHat a scam is to pay for bids and earning thousands on items sold for cheap!!! Come on…Everybody’s bid pennies come to my account and I buy and Ipod on retail price for a winner and even ship it, still I cash in 1500 bucks. This is a really good real fun deal fun. What a scamm!!!
i am warning everyone not to join the deal fun for me this is a huge gamble u gonna lost ur money right away this is not dealfun for me this is scarry. i lost my money right away n didnt get anything so stay away guys…
Well i just read through all the comments above. Some make good points some dont. I mean geeze terrorists?
But my conclusion is that These guys dont work at a loss. They, yes, hide the real cost of an item, but the money is made through the loss of people bidding on something and didnt win the item. So say 50 people bid on an Ipad, only one is going to walk away with a $20 Ipad. all the subsequent bets can be added up for a general profit margin. The business risk for them, is that they will go under if the dont have a large supporting customer body. So thus the advertising and dreams and promises. I used to do a lot of work on Forex scams and can tell you the inflation on this site is just sugar coating compared to forex scams. At least you will get a product that works at the end of the day (considering you win).
My conclusion is that, if you can play smart on penny auctions, you can definetly save heaps. That is to say, go easy on your bids and wait until late in the auction.
I will come back and post a reply if i go through with it. At this stage im willing to give it a go.
by some reason i was allowed into their shop without buying any bids. I gotta say all their advertised stuff is crap. just a few watches, jewelery and odds and end that could easily be picked up from ebay. i was mainly after a tablet of some form and of the two ipads i saw, they were still going at $200+ US dollars. I was mainly after the galaxy tab, but couldnt find any. This was going to be a risk as is, now im like theres nothing i want to buy on there after 40 pages of searching. So i dont think i’ll give this penny auction thing a go.
For the record, the strategy seems to be wait until the item get to a minute or so then bid on it. However other bidders have 15 second, plus whatever was on the clock, to outbid you. the clocks start at around 24 hours and count down. those last few minutes with everybody bidding on it may last for quite a while. The trick is to wait for it to get close to the last winning bid (as in what it was sold for last time) and throw dollars at it, AND set aside an hour or so to fight over the last bid. believe me you end up watching it with complete frustration as you constantly get outbid. So in the end ebay might be more pricy, but god, its a hell of a less headache.
i think dealfun is a scam. how can you win when a bidbudy is on. bidbuddies out bid each other and the only thing you get is less bids. i’ve sat and watched the bidding for a whole day and at some points all the bidders would sit out and the bidding is taken over by the bidbuddies. (see below)
this was a bid for an iphone 4(unblocked) 16gb.
Bid History
Bid Bidder Bid Type
$273.27 flashgordon13 Bid Buddy
$273.26 kab00m Bid Buddy
$273.25 Scoody95 Bid Buddy
$273.24 sakiwi69 Bid Buddy
$273.23 p0ppsy Bid Buddy
$273.22 Sappho51 Bid Buddy
$273.21 fly007 Bid Buddy
$273.20 sakiwi69 Bid Buddy
as you can see, the bids are all by bidbuddy. no manual bid. noone can outbid the bidbuddy system. the lowest any bidbuddy can go to is 4seconds and then another bid buddy will jump in. to win the bid, you would have to wait until the price gets close to the RRP price and bidders start dropping out. i’m never using these penny auctions again.
Hi,
I agreed with bidderscammed, travis
I tried bidding at some bidding site and realize that there’s always at least two auto bidders willing to bid for more than the actual price.
With this kind of auction,we don’t know who they are and are they existing in real life!? No,of course we don’t.
I tried to follow 2 auto bidders bidding for a 100 bid pack of $50. Each of them did use >152 bid (cost > 50$) to bid for 50$ value bid packs.
I just wonder are they idiots because they don’t know to stop in time!?
I don’t think they are real bidders since we can easy find out this with new penny auction site.
And the nick names of winners in most site are weird as well. I think they are just auto-generated by the site owner company
Just for your idea and I’m not aiming to any specific site at all
I decided to try Dealfun. The rules seemed to change (like finding out I could not use all my bids on item I wanted) faster than I could learn them. So I closed my account. Now they won’t stop sending me daily or more mailings despite contacting customer service and submitting over 10 requests to stop receiving spam. I rate DealFun as a money and time vampire.
My local Craigslist has been hit with multiple classified ads from multiple surrounding areas offering less than 100.00 iPod Touch deals. They are all worded basically the same with minor variations. I asked for details on one of them and got this response from the email address of “[email protected]”:
———————
Hey there
Someone just bought this from me, but I can tell you where I got it from.
I just bought 4 of these from dealzfun.com and I resold them on here for some extra money.
Since the site is new theres like nobody online, nobody is bidding, its like xmas all over again. The trick is to bid right when the counter hits 3 seconds and you win pretty much every time.
Regards
——————–
when the auction is ending and someone bids over you, it should reset back to 15 secs. often it’s reset back to 16 secs or 17 secs. do you know how much longer they can prolong the bid by increasing it a second longer? tricky huh? when i tried the live chat, asking the question to the guy over the other end, he took off without answering the question. he didnt even dare to intro himself on the chat.
how much cheaper? here’s why they outsmart us. not cheap considering an ipad auction can go up to $200 = 20,000 bids.
that’s 20,000 bids x $0.50 from customers pockets.
that’s $10,000 out of our pocket to get an ipad. not done yet..
that’s what we have already paid them via our bids. plus the winner will fork out $200 to claim it!
GRAND TOTAL: $10,200 for an ipad that’s lowest at its class!
DEALFUN is the biggest SCAM yet…i purchased a bid pack
and tried this site what a joke…it will only let you see the beginers list wich is a bunch of junk…i sat and watched it for hours on end and you see the same names bidding for hours…there is no way these people would be spending several thousands of $ a day on bids what a joke…and for their support ha..i have asked the same question several time and have yet to get it answered…SCAM SCAM SCAM BEWARE
To ALL and JimBob who posted on 09/25/11…I received THE SAME EXACT EMAIL!!! Same name and email! Words used – everything!
It was also on my local Craigslist- I live in Eastern PA – I am reporting to Craigslist. Seller stated they had used ipod for $60 because “They needed the cash”. Bunch of bullshit!
EVEN BETTER – I replied to the email and it got kicked back and would not send to [email protected] – yet thats who the email came from!
Stay away! Shady POS’s!!
Is pennyauctionsreview.org a stooge for DealFun.com? Sure seems so. Just read their reviews. They applaud DealFun and pan the competition. Interspersed in their reviews of DealFun are links to signup for DealFun – something they don’t do for other Penny Auction sites. Looks to me that pennyauctionsreview.org is an arm of the DealFun scam.
Moreover, probably to protect itself from a lawsuit, pennyauctionsreview.org includes this disclaimer:
The website pennyauctionsreview.org receives compensation for the reviews posted on the site. All the reviews on this site are meant for entertainment purposes only and shouldn’t be taken as fact.
What BS! It’s either a review or it’s not. Make up your mind.
DealFun and its co-conspirator pennyauctionsreview.org are just two peas in the same pod.
@JimBob and Awhit and EVERYONE ELSE!! I received the same email today as well. I was looking at ipods on craiglist and contacted the seller a week ago and she just emailed me back today with those EXACT SAME WORDS! That’s what prompt me to check out the website and find reviews on it. A BIG THANKS to everyone who posted. I’m never going to participate in these penny auctions.
I found an iPhone on Craigslist so I emailed the person.
About 2 weeks later I received this email.
“Hey,
Sorry it took me so long to respond, someone actually picked it up yesterday, but I will share the secret of how I got it. I actually got four for under $80 at THIS SITE(this was actually a link to a dealfun affiliate site).
Since the site is fairly new there’s hardly anyone online (that what makes it easy), it’s like an early christmas. The big trick is to bid right when the timer countdown hits 4 seconds and the price is at least $15, you win pretty much EVERY TIME.
I have already stocked up on Christmas gifts for my family.
If I can do it there’s no reason you can’t.
Good Luck,
Angela”
The implication is that Angela is buying iPhones on Dealfun and then reselling them at a profit on Craigslist.
Like one commenter said”
if it’s too good to be true, it probably is”.
I received the same fake email after replying to a Craigslist ad for a new Ipod Touch.
Scam
— n
1. a stratagem for gain; a swindle
It’s right in the definition
I saw an ad on craigs list for and iphone.. then got this response from someone that they had sold it… this is a scam advertisement for this busines.
“Someone just bought this from me, but I can tell you where I got it from.
I just picked up 4 of these from dealzfun.com and I resold them on here for some extra money.
Since the site is new theres like nobody online, nobody is bidding, its like xmas all over again. The trick is to bid right when the counter hits 4 seconds and you win every time.”
So beware…
my credit card has been debited by AUD100.00 now i am overseas, is there anyway i can cancel my subscriptio/n and get a refund?
@beng sooi tan I think it’s better that you contact Dealfun.com their email is [email protected] you can also find it by visiting their website & please tell us what happened!
I recently had a few drinks then saw an add for deal fun, depicting a 42 inch plasma television for only $179.00.
How could this be, I wondered. Soon enough, I signed up and have regretted the decision ever since. It cost me $150.00 for the opportunity to place bids on items that somebody else ends up getting. In fact, I was outbid on this one item in particular, even after I was the last registered bidder on the screen. They say that they have the buy it now option, but if you look at the prices on them, that is a bigger rip-off than wasting your time and money trying to “bid” on something for cheaps. My final words…. DealFun.com= waste of time+ waste of money. F U Dealfun.com!