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
Dealfun is absolutely dreadful. I have spent hundreds of dollars purchasing bids on this site, and have not won any auctions at all (with the exception of the first “gimme” auction they set up when you first join; you get 10 bids). I follow their advice, use my bids wisely, do what I see other people doing, yet still haven’t won a thing.
The site warns you not to bother going up against what they call “prestige bidders” (are these straw bidders or people with issues?)… I assure you that anything worth winning will be won by one of these people.
It’s much like a bait and switch… they are happy to show you the iPad they sold for $42.00 (did the site go down or something?), and the PS3 that sold for $12.00, but don’t ever bother to hope that you will win an item at these prices.
While some say to wait until just a couple of people are bidding, then swoop in and start bidding at the close, I offer this: if someone has spent hours trying to win an item it’s not right to jump in right at the end. I’ve never done it to other people, and don’t appreciate it when someone does it to me. It’s really annoying when an auction is prolonged unnecessarily by someone who bounces in and starts bidding like a fool; it’s an invitation for more people to come in and prolong the auction indefinitely. That is exactly what happens at Dealfun. Auctions take far too long to finish, meanwhile the site is raking in more and more money.
I have quit Dealfun and moved to another penny auction site where it’s common courtesy to step aside when you see that someone has worked hard for an item – and the sale prices of the items are much lower. Why be nice? Because you know the item will come up again and the site isn’t so overcrowded that you know you can win the item another time. I’ve done it for others, they’ve done it for me (no collusion).
It seems to me that a handfull of fools has come in to Dealfun and taken over; their prices are inflated for a penny auction and there are a few screen names that you will see winning the best items consistently. I have a feeling that they buy from Dealfun and sell on EBay.
Dealfun also touts that they will apply your bids (not bonus bids, but purchased bids) to the cost of an item. When I started to lose money on the site, I decided that I may as well take advantage of this, and started to order items in hopes of selling some elsewhere to at least break even (cover the loss I incurred buying bids). To date I have not received anything that I have paid for. Customer service won’t talk, and the items are in what seems to be a perpetual “processing” status.
I’m not full of sour grapes; there are other (better) sites out there. If people are interested in doing penny auctions, do your research and find one. They can be a lot of fun and you can get items inexpensively; but Dealfun is NOT the place to go!
To the person above who mentioned the pennyauctionsreview site, I agree, they are trying to get people to go to Dealfun using their link. They did these “reviews” mentioning Dealfun multiple times, and have 0 comments. Right. I’ve submitted my scathing review, so I KNOW they’ve gotten some input!
Oh, and one more thing; as Jordan mentioned their buy it now option is pretty stinky. Their price for an iPad (16gb) is $700.00; EBay sells it NIB for $500.00.
dealfun is totally rip off.. I spent over 300 bids and couldnt won anything.. all ipads and iphones sells over $250 everytime. probably computer bots are behind it..
i don’t know what everyone is complaining about i just won a 32 inch tv for 23.95 and did not even spent a cent using the deal wheel along with a watch for 1 dollar 75 bid pack for 1 cent and a purse holder for my mom for 1 cen’t using free bid’s.
people gotta learn how to bid right or don’t bid at al.
and for you travis yes the more bid’s you buy the cheaper/discount you get just like if you went to a discount bulk store and bought alot of same product it will get cheaper for each one you buy, do your math buddy boy no gimmick they make alot of money for each bid you use. but also people who dont need to buy alot of bids make profit buying these products.
@mike d You’re an android! based on your comment you clearly work for dealfun.com how do you go from winning something to comparing dealfun to a discount bulk store?
You get on around 12-7 am. You bid. You win 😀
On the deal win i get thiungs for my mom and dad for christmas
Guys, i am 15 living in australia. There is no way I am wasting my money on bids. I just use the deal wheel spinning thing and spend those. I have one an electronic bottle opener for 2cents and a menthol E-Cigarette. Just go on at late times and you win easy as like i do 🙂
The e cig thing was 83 cents btw
Just use dealwheel people, dont buy the bids at all. total rip!!!
Dealfun is not made out to to be so good when u bid and you dont win u still lose the amount u have made during ur bidding rip off and not in pennies in dollars. Isay if u dont win the item u were bidding on u all of bidding proceds should be credited back into ur acount why r u losing just formaking a bid?
Dealfun should should change their name to DEADFUN!it only make you spend money and time for nothing!!!please do not sign up and pass this message around your family and friends!!!
Dealfun is indeed a ripoff..Example I bought $64 dollars worth of bids..My credit card was charged $84.& when I went back on the site my 123 bids tha I had not used were gone..0 bids in my account..I also had fewer bids lift after bidding on only a couple of items,Where did they go i watched carefully and I did not use them..I also bid at 5 seconds on an item and it went to another winner at 3 seconds..And where are all the great items..they had 2 iphones, 1 tv, 2 computers and the rest was crap..Not a ripoff..Please dont try to make me feel more stupid than I already do for falling for your scam..shame on you..
It costs .60 cents for a bid of 1 cent . If you see something for 2.00 – this means that already the company has made $120.00 ( 200 * .60 = 120.00 ) just from bids. So an item that would normally cost 12.00 and you pay 2.00 the company has collected $120.00.
But each time you make a bid it costs you .60 cents. And if you use the automatic bid of 25 bids, you’re going up by $15.00. Although you may see the price go up 1 penny, you’re actually paying .60 each bid.
dealfun is not really a scam as of yet but like it is said on this site its gambling. personally i dont like bidding on an item and wait hours for the bid to end, each time you place a bid 1penny goes up its a waste of my time. I watched a bid on the ps3 than had to go to work came back 5hrs later and the same bid was still going on. if you enjoy gambling for hours on 1 item and is a big time hoarder than this site is perfect for you.I did some research and it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to wait for an item to go up 1.00 usd now if you do the math how long will it take to wait for an item to reach 200 usd its a long time. since each bid goes up 1penny and each bid say is .40 (its not really .60 since most people get the package and its around .40)so if an item is still in auction and reaches 200usd it took 20,000 bids to get there and what the company earned for the one item in bids is alot around 10k usd.
The worst ever, Its a ripp off. It takes you hrs to actually win, and even if you buy the highest bid u still lose. The make money from the customers and you could spend up to $500.00 in bidding and you still dont win. You are better off bidding on ebay.
Hey, somebody knows how long it take to get 1 item? I bought a pc 12 day ago and the status continue in processing….i think i wasted my money.
Sounds like alot of suckers to me!
You are right about deal.com! IT IS A RIP OFF!!!! i HAVE NOT WON ANYTHING. I SPENT 100.00 BUYING BIDS AND have not won anything. I continually email them and have tried their live chat and get no where. I was stupid! Please don’t give this site your money. I read another sight that said that they employ people to go on line and write good reviews. I believe it. Their customer service is not even as good as the commercial with “peggy” on it. Notice that there are no phone numbers to reach them. It’s all email and live chat which they don’t answer.
I also bought my first on 11-17-11 seen nothing yet??? I’ll keep you posted also have not been bidding yet my bids are going away. Have been contacting the support team and the only response I have had is that the bundled my complaints??!! I’m leaning toward Scam!!! I just deleted my credit card from the account and I’m keeping an eye on my billing eeerrrrrrrgggghhhh I guess lesson learned 100 dollars later….. not real happy now I will retract this statement I promise if they contact me or if I finally do receive any items I have bought and paid for.
Last night I was bidding on a 7″ Android Tablet. Deal fun was acting strange and the timer clock would start and stop. Many times going from 15 seconds to 1 second with nothing in between. I was using 2 browser just to monitor the bidding. I was also getting a pop-up stating that I was not logged in, when it showed that I was. I cleared the cache on both browsers, but it did not help. I was using the bid buddy and I know I had a lot of bids left in it since I had just restarted it over with 25 bid. It bid a few times for me and then the auction ended. It should not have ended since I was still bidding with the bid buddy. I lost over 100 bids and I’m not happy about it. I planned to take the auction to the end.
I also started an open group on facebook called DealFun Member’s Group where you can talk about DealFun.com issues.
http://www.facebook.com/groups/223993824340298/
If it is to good to be true then most likely it isn’t. Please don’t waste your hard earned money, please don’t join.
I have bought over 40 items starting early Nov and have yet to see a single thing class action lawsuit pls
@Josh – If what you’re saying is true – that is horrible please keep us updated. People need to know because if what you’re saying is true DealFun needs to be shut down.
I too have not received the item I paid for.
I was aware that if you do the sums they are making heaps more than an item is worth but thought I’d give it a go anyway.
I bought (won) an item 3 weeks ago.
I got notification that it shipped 2 weeks ago but have still not received anything.
I have sent several emails to thier support team to try to et an aswer to what is going on and all I have received in reply is there automated replies.
I have even threatened to go to my bank and report them and have the transactions against my card reversed and still no reply.
As far as I am concerned it is definitely a scam.
I had a feeling something like this would eventually happen especially with Dealfun’s bid prices. Please keep us updates Glenn! We appreciate all of your comments!
Sure won bid paid for merchandise and never was delivered. Scam,scam,scam
I haven’t received any thing.
Deal Fun advertised on the following pages:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/DealFun/121122941310494
http://www.facebook.com/dealfun
http://www.facebook.com/groups/DealFun/
The following messages:
“This Christmas Season, make sure that your loved ones will receive some precious gifts from you.” (December 15, 2011)
&
“One week to go before Christmas!! Make sure that you got your loved ones some precious gift at that Special day of gift giving and sharing :)” (December 18,2011) Just last Sunday with one week til Christmas!
Yet nothing has come from orders placed in November.
Items with Tracking numbers haven’t even been processed or are still being processed.
One Tracking number says that the order was placed with the distributor just today. That is ridiculous!!!
Deal Fun advertised just last week to get items for Christmas. But they can’t orders out from November? Then they wonder why people get mad at them!
For all items that don’t arrived by Christmas, which will be 30 days for these orders and should have been plenty of time, I will contact my credit card company and dispute the charges for None receipt of merchandise. I think that is reasonable since they advertised up to this last Sunday about getting Christmas gifts. They must’ve meant Christmas 2012!
I’ve started my own group on facebook for Deal Fun discussions. All are Welcome!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/223993824340298/
Dealfun is a Total SCAM!!!!! Please don’t be fooled like I was. I lost 60 bid dollars and only won 1 bid. I waited two months for my An “ipod shuffle” It’s a plastic piece of crap from china that isn’t even from apple. It does not work. It came labeled as a toy even though they show a real shuffle on the deafun website. What a cruel joke! Please don’t be fooled like me. You’ve been warned folks. Step aways from penny auctions. Can’t tell you strongly enough. EVIL scammers working at Dealfun.
I have been through pain with Dealfun since I have been a member. They closed my accounts, kept my bids on them with no reimbursement and did not send me my items that I paid for. They still owe me $230 in gift cards that I won over a month ago, several items that I won about a month and a half ago that I have not gotten and when I contact customer service they will not respond to me at all. THEY ARE A SCAM. Dealfun has this wheel that you spin to win either free bids or items, I have won several items on this wheel and HAVE NEVER COLLECTED ONE OF THEM. You are lucky if you get the stuff that you pay for. If I do not get my items that I paid for within the next couple of weeks I will be forced to report them to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for scamming consumers. I think that many people should do the same thing that have been scammed.
DealCrap will be a waste of your time and money. If only I saw this blog before signing up, I would have saved a lot of money. Do the math folks, it all adds up in their favor not yours. An expensive lesson for me,hopefully not for you. Just imagine trying to bid for something and every time you put in a bid, it takes 15 seconds for you to win. If the item goes to $2.00, that means you spent 50 minutes on the computer. If you got time and money to waste, deal crap is for you.
ps. I emailed them to complain about there guarantee that you will win something-never got a response.
SCAM. I purchased bid pack. Won a few auctions, including some at what seemed like great bargains. All was good till delivery time. Per their emails, they shipped items promptly.
Then I monitored tracking info … all it said was “information submitted”. And it stayed like that on every one of the 7 packages destined for me for weeks. Basically this meant they went so far as printing a shipping label, but never actually mailed the packages.
After 21 days on the first of the packages, they claim they re-shipped it, with more emails saying “expect tracking number in 48 hours”. No tracking numbers followed. I then sent additional email to their support, which considering it was a scam was quite good as they responded quickly. This time, I told them I was putting a stop on my credit card for all purchases and submitting this as a fraud case to my Master Card company. They responded with a choice … for a free $150 gift package, or refund my money. Huh, why would I take the gift package if I know I wouldn’t receive that either. So I asked for a refund. Fortunately, I got that refund within 2 days, so that saved me the trouble of having to put stop orders on multiple credit card purchases.
Why were they so quick to refund my purchase after the threat of reporting? Cause if they end up in the Master Card list of fraud companies, nobody will ever be able to pay them. If they truly did send all the packages and they are all still “in the mail” then eventually I should receive them. Of 7 packages, weeks later, I got ZERO of them.
So yeah, a total scam, but ask for your money back … they did it for me, and surprisingly quickly!
This is a question for IH486. Will you e-mail me the penny auction thatyou are using now? I am having problems with DealFun (surprise, surprise, surprise). I had a bigger poblem with another penny auction a while back & got taken for probably $200-$300. Then that auction site was shut down. If you can send me the auction you use now that would be great. My email address is [email protected]. Thanks!
Thanks for any other great article. Where else may just anyone get that kind of information in such a perfect manner of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I’m on the search for such info.
i won some items back around December 7th and now its January 4 and nothing from them. Have had several emails saying that the product has shipped but I dont know where it is, they have my correct address so that cant be the problem… oh well Poo!
Thank you all so much! I was about to sign up because I thought it was like an eBay thing but cheaper, boy was I wrong! I hope this DealFun goes out of business….quickly, before they scam more people!
Shipping time probably goes by where you’re living. I heard that from their place to my house will take about 12 weeks….It’ll be better if you guy that have DealFun, just spin the wheel and don’t bid and especially don’t give them your card #…If you got bids, forget about it, wait for the next spin, if you got mystery gift, congratulation 😉
i agree with u entirely and its time people get wise to this all these bidding auctions r a farce just save up and get ur item you will find it cheaper in the long run
DealFun is definately a rip off. I was dumb enough to order 7 different items and that was over a month ago. I’ve contacted them over 30 plus times and to no avail. Don’t be drawn in to this site. And the shipping company is a joke….
Dealfun is a scam.won an auction in November but never received the merchandise. they kept putting me off. when after a month and half I contacted them saying that i would be nonflying my credit card and that it sure seemed like a fraud. whit in minutes i got a response stating they canceled my account and would refund my money. when I called them they told me my spouse called and canceled my account.This is an account that he does not know my account or numbers plus he was on travel to make things more unlikely. I told them I wanted the merchandise I paid for. but it was to late my spouse canceled it which was not true, they said they would play the recording for me but when i asked to hear it, the operator changed the subject. I have contacted all accounts and wish to warn all to stay away from this site. they are a scam.
Stan,
good luck don’t count on getting anything. I had won that was not the problem you just not get the items
This is a total scam, we did win and auction and they took our money immediately that was Dec. 19th and we still don’t have the product. The reference tracking number takes you to some international site that shows no information. How can they get away with this? I would like to take them to court for the $$$ they are ripping people off for. It is one thing to bid and lose and another to pay and get nothing in return. I suggest people stay away from this SCAM.
I agree I have so called won three items over a month ago and still have not seen a thing.you can count me in on a class action law suit yesterday.Bloody ripoffs
I agree, just got hooked on the think about a $40.00 Ipad. They don’t tell you that you are likely to spend hours bidding and win nothing.
DEAL FUN IS A MAJOR RIPOFF.
Burn your money for warmth before risking it on Dealfun!! I’d found this blog when trying to find out which company owns Dealfun, so that I may lodge a formal complaint with their state’s Attorney General, I’m that pissed off!
I’d tried Dealfun back in November, spending $84 on bids, and winning nothing. With little left in the account, I decided to use the ‘buy it now’ option for a r.c. helicopter as a Christmas gift to my son. I purchased the blasted thing on November 11th, and received an email notice that it had been shipped. By Thanksgiving, it had not arrived, so I went to the site to launch an inquiry. A few days later, I received an apologetic message from customer service informing me that a new helicopter had just been shipped, with their apologies. When that didn’t happen, I tried them again, this time stating that I’d better receive some good news before lodging a formal complaint with the AG. I also visited my ‘account’, to find that my order status was “shipped”.
It is now 1.20.12, and I’ve yet to receive either the helicopter, or any additional info.
What’s sad is that I’ll never trust any of these sites again, so I guess I’ll be saving money.
My advice to anyone thinking of using Dealfun is to burn their money for warmth, as they’ll at least have something to show for it. I’ll now try to find their ‘parent’ company and lodge my complaint with the Attorney General. Our experience is certainly no fluke.
Been waiting since November for Auction items I have won…..not happy….too date owe me 6 items….notice that they have spread out items for bid with longer times…..not sure what is going on!!!!!
went on won several items they never shipped keep puting me off then finaly said that the vendors couldnt supply the items so credited my account with some 400 plus credits now all they have on there site is junk and the things that look good are going for way to high of a price because everybody that won items has been credited bids so it nuts and if you win you probly won’t get what you win anyway dont get sucked in take this as fair warning
now look at your e-mail you will recive credits bubbs oooo and by the way the are still auctioning off the same mp3 player that the vendor could not supply
If only I had done some research first. I only blame myself. I’ve read every blog here about dealfun, and I am now really scared I’m on the list of fools. I have over 300 bids left, have yet to win anything and if I did, I don’t expect to receive anything. To make matters worse I just now went to dealfun, saw some auctions and then WHAM! The site disappeared. Undergoing some kind of maintenance they say. Wonder what happened to all the auctions and bidders. What a coincidence. It’s almost like they know I was just here, reading about them. I’m not even sure I can get a refund now.
you wil never get a refund and as for there site now there are only about 8 items available for bid so I think they are shuting down the dab thing is they are located in an other country I also have near 500 bid that they credited to my account for items won that they did not deliver sucks for us
THIS IS A SCAM! If you win they don’t send it to you. The say it is out of stock and send you crap (that they say is equal to what you orderd),or they give you more bids in exchange for a refund. DON’T DO THIS!!