Zbiddy

Not a real fan of penny auction sites. Seems they work great for some, not for most. In my experience, I fared very well with the $100 airfare travel cheques, $100-200 hotel cash cards and two-for-one companion airfare vouchers. OR SO I THOUGHT!

I happily paid for my deals, went to redeem them and realized why they were so easy to win. There's like a million different black-out dates, restrictions and time restraints. For air travel, your initial ticket has to be over $350 and your trip must include an overnight stay on a Saturday. For hotel discounts, you have to book at least 4 consecutive nights.

Now, I'm on a budget and don't travel often. When I do, it's not for long periods of time. I try to get the best deals on airfare and I certainly try to avoid the most expensive nights to stay in a hotel. I thought winning these vouchers would be a great way to do so.

It was a complete waste of my time and money bidding on these. What a bummer!

I've used a number of penny auction sites, including zbiddy. The model works like this: You buy a bid pack, then bid on the product you want. If you're the last person to bid, you win the item. The reason you get a discount is because other people are bidding too, so multiple people are investing in the product. There's some strategy to it, but that's what makes it fun. If you're willing to be patient and learn the ropes, sites like zbiddy can really pay off. I've won several auctions and paid significantly less than retail each time.

SCAM of all scams. I got a text message, responded to it. It said I got free bids, but they ended up costing me $97.00. I complained and they offered a $100 gas card. After almost 2 months, I got a voucher for $10 rebate on gas. You will get 10 $10 vouchers, but can only use 1 at a time. I sent my first one in and have waited 2 months for the voucher.

I also "bought" 4 gift cards $10, $10, $25, $25. I didn't win the auction, but used the "Buy It Now" option. It has been 3 months and I haven't received a thing, not even a response to my numerous emails.

Stay away from this website, unless you are a hacker and can bring this site down!

All I know is that I was supposed to be registering for free, I should of smelled the rat when my credit card information was asked. As soon as i finished my registration 99 dollars was charged to my credit card. How anybody can call this a good site when this is done right at the outset boggles my mind. I haven't touched the site since and have started proceedings in hopes of recovering my money. Looks like it's going to be a long process.

Well run site, few large items and always the same, a bunch of travel, cruise, vacation items All with restrictions or sending you to a travel agency to up sell you. No use as you can not simple use as you wish. Even cash wins for travel has restrictions. Very poor selections over all that again don't change. I have won bids only to find restriction I can not use on other then household items. Once again, you will see the same items all the time. I think they are missing an opportunity and happy for you to buy bids on useless items. It takes the fun out of this experience but I'm told all the sites are the same way

It's not the site... it's the people using it. I do agree their sign-up practices are deceiving, however the issue is with the number of people using the site. They make their money through the charges on bids. At $. 10+ per bid for an Apple Ipad that sells for $350.00 the person winning gets a deal, but the company has accumulated ******* bides at $. 10+ per bid, that's $3500. 00 for the item. Even if they pay list... they pocket almost 3 grand. Not bad, whoever thought of this and got people to participate in it is a genius.

I received an email from someone stating the product were so cheap to bid on because its a new site, and not many people know about it. You have to buy a certain amount of bids. Once any item gets down to 12 seconds, so many people (or generated people?)start bidding, no one ever wins. Or at least I never saw anyone win anything other than more bids. I spent over $85 on bids. In 2 1/2 hour and couldn't win anything. Wasted hard earned money.

Zbiddy is underrated. I'm honestly kind of surprised at the two-star rating here. I had an issue with one of the products I bought and the customer service I got was incredibly friendly and helpful. One thing most sites suck at today is service - look at facebook and google, where you have to dig and dig to find their contact information. I've seen complaints about zbiddy, but if people have issues they should contact the site directly. As for the site itself, the auction format is fun and engaging and theres a pretty wide range of products and gift cards. Make sure you read the fine print though - when you create your account you're also purchasing a bid package. There's no free signup.