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Review 9/15/2009
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Swoopo?? I think the proper name is Stoopo, because I felt pretty stupid after running after the little carrot they wiggled in front of me. Only a few days later, I was able to put two and two together with figuring out this company. Their business plan, in terms of ethics and morals, is very improper, but amazingly brilliant in finding a loop hole in the law for LEGAL online scams.
It's almost like gambling. You might end up with a real bargain the first couple times you play, but the more you use it, you'll only find that you broke even ... or below even. You have to purchase bids in order to bid. In fact, you can bid on winning more bids ... then you simply purchase the bids you won!!! The auction clock, at any random time, can decide to increase its time from less then 10 seconds away from finish to over an hour away ... and this can happen at multiple random times on the same auction item. So though it might show it running at a set timeframe when the auction begins, you can usually expect it to continue on about 2-10 times longer. Swoopo also use this system called a Bid Butler, that will continue to place bids for you as the high bidder when the clock goes under 10 seconds. They use a macro system for this, so you can be away from your computer while the "butler" kindly uses up your bids (which means your money) that you place on the butler. But if another person activates a butler (or if one is computer-generated by the company), then yours and theirs simultaneously bids until your butler or theirs run out of bids. In addition, the auctions are international for nearly all items. So with this economy, who do you think will have a better chance of winning? The American or the Icelander, both who have similar jobs, brings home the same amount of pay (even after Icelandic taxes)? My guess would be the Icelander. Moreover, Stoopo reserves the right to substitute whatever you won (at any time before its delivery) with another similar item of a LESSER VALUE compare to what you have won. It says so in their policy on their website.
After watching an auction on a 300 Bid Certificate (which basically will add 300 additional bids to your account), worth $180.00 (what Swoopo lists it as), I saw that a Bid Butler was activated by a username. I kept going back to the auction, as I was surprised how much money people where bidding on it, as the item was only worth $180.00. The butler didn't win it, but the person going against it with single bids won it at close to $160.00. Now where is the deal with that? These 300 Bid Certificates are plentiful and always listed about 1 every hour or so. While this auction was going, there was another auction going for the same item and another just starting. The butler who was betting against everyone must of had at least 200 bids placed on it (the bids go up in 2 cent, 6 cent, 12 cent, and 24 cent increments, depending on the item ... this item was set at a 2 cent increment), and that's a conservative guess. My thinking is this ... I feel that Swoopo sets up their own Bid Butlers and does this randomly to any particular product .. whether it's on a Bid Certificate to head phones to a laptop to the plasma TV. It's done randomly with a set number of unknown bids placed on each .. my guess is that it can go up to as much as 500 or more bids. Proof is in what you see and using a little common sense. Too bad in my case hind sight was 20/20.
Swoopo makes a lot of money off their legal scam. Say a 50 inch plasma TV MSRP is listed at 2 grand. I'll lay this out at conservative estimates, but I do believe the profit margin on their auctions is much higher. Lets say one auction runs for nearly 15 hours and in that time about 200 people bid an average of 25 times each on the TV. Each bid is worth 0.60 cents for each $1.00 you pay. So by the time the person wins the TV, everyone spent a combined total of $3,000. Let's say that on this auction, by chance, not one company computer-generated Bid Butler was assigned to it. A bidder wins at $150.00 and shelled out 15 bucks in purchased bids for it. Great day for them! Swoopo makes $3150, minus their cost for the overstock TV, and they come off with a loss (possibly). But take for example another auction with the TV and maybe 4 company computer-generated Bid Butlers assigned to it at random times during those 15 hours. It's more competitive now, and the quantity of bets are increased to 50 averaged bets per actual person up to 200 bidders. The TV sells for $770.00. The winner ends up spending $30.00 in bets towards their win. Still a bargain for the winner. The total dollar amount spend by bidders on that auction came to $6000, and combined with the selling price, Swoopo makes a total of $6770 minus their cost. Now you have 2 winners.
Unlike eBay, Swoopo does not reveal who is putting up their items for auction. Even at an auction house, you get to read who is putting up the item, even if it's from "anonymous". In the case of Stoopo auctions, you only know what you see, and all purchases are final. With eBay, the seller pays to have their items listed for auction ... and so it goes at any auction, usually. But with Stoopo, they work it the opposite way, otherwise known as a "reversed auction", so they get these overstock items at killer prices from their suppliers. Would you pay $20 bucks for the Sunday paper because all the advertisers got to advertise at rock-bottom prices while the true expenses are passed off onto their consumer base? There just seems something wrong with that idea.
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