BidFire

If I understand the way this works from the user "Terms," Bidfire doesn't work like any real auction in the real world in that (1) You buy bid points to begin with, (2) You lose any and all bid points you 'bid' during the 'auction,' and (3) You still have to pay the final auction bid price for the item. This appears to be sort of a 'Ponzi' scheme for morons. What legitimate auction would ever dare try to scam the sum of all bids made during an auction? Eh?

I have heard about this site from my friend, and decided to try it out. I bought $100 worth of bids and didn't how what to bid on and also wanted to watch it for a while so i get the idea of when i should start bidding, finally i was looking at this $50 amazon gift card was at $14, and bidders weren't as consistence as earlier so i gave it a try, so i won the $50 gift card with ONE bid. Later got my gift card through e-mail in 2 days. So this is not a scam, and plus there are sooo many items that they lose money on.

I skeptical about the site as many are, but I figured why not try it, I won on it and received my winnings today. For the people who say that they see the same bidders on it spending more than its worth, think of all the poeple that sit in casinos dumping money into gambling, once they get started and have the investment into they want to win their money back and not give up, exactly whats happening on Bidfire. The pepole not only have the comfort of being home but can just keep going back to their credit card to reload. The site is real just be senseable when bidding, and when you do win you will see.

You have to look at Bidfire for what it is. It's a cross between an auction and gambling. There is thrill at winning, and disappointment at losing. I don't agree that it is a scam. You do see the same people winning, but those are the ones who stick to it. It's simple, if you see an item you want, you buy a bunch of bids and prepare to wait it out. I have won two of their auctions: a $100 gift card to Amazon.com and an Ipod Touch 64GB. I used 42 bids on the gift card, plus $27 to buy it - total cost $69. Not a bad deal. The Ipod was a bit better, I used 15 bids and paid around $8 to buy it (saved over $350). The very next auction, I wasted 100 bids trying to show another bidder I meant business. In the end, I didn't win, but still came out ahead. Bottom line is, you won't win by bidding once, or even five or ten times, and you probably won't get something for a nickel. If you watch what is going on, you might get a bargain.
By the way read further up this page at Elle T.'s comments. I've read the exact same rant on other review sites - there is no way she could know how much that person bid, unless she watched the entire auction with a pen and paper (the sites don't let you see that info), so I doubt her story is true.

I love, love, love Bifire. I won a Wii for 4.35 and a Garmin watch for $1.10 and used less than 100 bids on both items. Bidfire is in no way a scam, it is a risk and if you watch the auctions you will learn when and how to bid. I also received both items very quickly and I would recommend the site to all my friends and family if I didn't want them outbidding me :). I am in no way affliated with bidfire, I'm just a very happy customer.

I read all the negative comments but still decided to try this website out. I decided to bid on a Kindle DX. I actually WON this item for $41 after 100 bids (look in the closed history on their site, my username is watsonm), so I actually paid $141 for this Kindle DX, which retails at Amazon.com for $489. This is a VALID site, I've seen many people win, and I was able to get a smokin' deal on a DX which I badly wanted. Yeah, it's a gamble, so to speak, but aren't all auctions? I love it, and for the sake of MY future bidding, I hope the rest of YOU stay away, so I have a better chance of winning more amazing stuff in the future. I love the site. I just wish I was the one who thought of it 'cause they're raking in some amazing dough, and us consumers are getting awesome deals because of it.

I have won number of items from bidfire and i believe it is a pretty kool site. If you are up for staking ur money for something better then u shud be in this site but if u wish to think u will always win and complain if u don't then u shud betta not be here because this site is just like a casino where u can win anything with almost losing nothing but sometimes when u r out of ur luck u might lose also... I dunt think this a fake site cuz i recieved all the items that i won!

I have been a user of Bidfire since August of last year. I honestly at first didn't want to put money into something that was a BIG gamble. So I started off with $25, something I wouldn't complain too much about losing and would teach me a lesson if the site turned out to be a hoax. Well the first auction I won was 10 free bids, for like 30 cents and using like 1 bid, that was quickly put into my account. I waited a couple of days before trying my luck on bigger auctions, and remind you this site was first getting started in summer of '09, so I finally decided to bid on a bluray, and I won that for 45 cents. So now the difficult part, waiting to see truth behind a website that would offer "too good to be true" prices, and in the mail I got my movie. Took about a week. Since then I've been a constant user, always trying to try my "LUCK" on other items. Sometimes I win good, sometimes I lose. Honestly the site stays true to sending out the items. I've won some great items at f***ing low prices, and then again I've lost money because I didn't want to lose anymore of my cash. Honestly the site stands by sending out items, it's pretty much up to how many people are bidding and how much you're willing to keep bidding to see if you win, it's a gambling game that I like to play.

I discovered this website before Christmas on a link from eBay. I decided to purchase bids (for $25 I got 27 bids). I decided to play around on the site - I figured the worst that could happen was I'd lose $25. To my delight I won a Kindle DX for $42.15 (+ $9.99 shipping). At the time, I had only used 2 of the bids I had bought. I had them send me the shipping info. I saw that they received my Bidfire payment, then someone from their company went to amazon.com and bought a Kindle DX, which they paid for with an American Express credit card. They then listed my shipping address as the "Ship To" address. They also sent the tracking information. I received the Kindle DX about 10 days later directly from amazon.com, in its original packaging. The following week, I won another Kindle DX for $1.55, which I gave to a friend for Christmas. Since that time, I have won 50 bid packages on two separate occasions (for approximately $8.00 and $6.00, respectively). They also gave me 25 bids for submitting a video of myself with my product. If you become a fan of them on facebook, they play games where you can win free bids for guessing the price an item will sell for. I won 25 bids that way, as well. Plus, if you follow them on twitter, they give you 3 free bids! This site is great. Yes, there is some risk involved; you could use all your bids and never win anything. But I figure I'm around $1000 ahead thus far. Also, they have rules in place to make it more fair for everyone - you can't use autobidders and you can only win 3 auctions per week (people do report if you go over). It is definitely not a scam. My user name is ddavis13 if you want to check to see if I'm legit.
Thanks, Bidfire,
Deb

SCAM SCAM SCAM The most overused words on the internet. According to the negative reviewers, Michael Dell should be labeled a scammer. He builds a computer for $200 and sells it for $500! Why is that not a scam? Here's the deal, every bid on Bidfire raises the auction 5 cents so they break even on a $20 item when bidding reaches $1. (bids cost $1 each) Capitalism at it's finest. Wish I had thought of it. Genious. If you go into Bidfire with the realization that the real cost to you is the cost of the item plus your bid cost you can figure out when to bid or when to move on. I have bought $250 worth of bids and have won a Wii system for $49 and a ASUS Netbook For $1.70 That's $500 worth of stuff for my investment of $300. Not too bad. I received the netbook yesterday and the wii is on it's way. There are agressive bidders who try to run you off by immediately bidding after you, and those who wait til the last second to make a bid. (at the end of the auction time each bid adds 40 seconds to the auction time) Takes some patience but deals are to be had and it's fun and legit... vaughantx. Look up my winning bid for the netbook here: http://bidfire.com/auctions/1829

Alot of people have their own opinion of this site but it is a legit site. I just won a playstation3. I ended up sinking about 200 dollars in total into the auction but i won it saving myself about 100 bucks. My sn on their is smcguffey82. I was just about to give up when i won the auction. I won the ps3 for 60 bucks. It is a gambaling website i played the day before for a ps3 and lost it for 26 bucks to someone else, while i was tring to load more bit points. I almost lost hope because of some of the reviews on this site, i was all for it then got down because i had been a it for 4 hours bidding. Then i googled bidfire scams i found this site at the top of the page. I started reading them and thought to myself what am i don't i am just throwing away money and no one ever wins this, they have an inside man bidding on this stuff. I'd just purchased my 25 dollars (27 bids) and was down to my last two bid points when it happened a separate screen popped up and said YOU WON i began grinning ear to ear. So yes u can win if u don't believe i am real email me if u want *******@yahoo.com

I have won, once. It is tough to win. It can be expensive to win. But BidFire and similar sites act more like live auctions in one way than does eBay. Go to Sotheby's for the real auction experience. The timer on BidFire is the equivalent of the "going once, going twice" warning of the auctioneer. In terms of not having a fixed end time, BidFire is definitely an auction site in a truer sense than is eBay. To characterize these as gambling sites because the auction continues after each bidder raises the price is to mistake the model at eBay for an auction. EBay has a fixed end time which many people now associate with an eBay "auction".

It is the revenue model of selling bids which is not consistent with live auctions. Live auctions charge an auction premium which is where the house makes its money. In my opinion, charging for the bids themselves makes BidFire more like a dollar slot machine than an auction.

I won an iPod Touch which was exactly as advertised and arrived promptly from Amazon. I purchased approximately 150 bids and paid approximately $100 for the item. So a $400 iPod Touch cost me $250 all in. I did not go back to BidFire because:
1) I was primarily there to experiment with their model as a consultant to a potential competitor.
2) There is some seemingly irrational behavior among bidders partially related to loss mitigation which is a defect in the BidFire model.
3) Bids are expensive and do not count toward a purchase of the product. At least one other site credits the cost of one's bids toward the purchase of the product during the auction which eliminates the "loss mitigation" mentality that sometimes compels bidders above the outright purchase price on BidFire. For example, on a competitor's site if you spend $350 on bids for a $399 product you can click a button before the auction ends to buy it now for $49. After buying the product one is no longer allowed to continue bidding in that auction but the other bidders are left in exactly the same position they were in. This is a much needed enhancement on BidFire.
4) Rarely during the period when I was experimenting with BidFire was there a glitch as reported in another review. I did see what I thought was a glitch that appeared to result in a different bidder than I expected winning the auction. I later determined the "glitch" was actually a network lag external to the BidFire site.
5) At a nickel increment per bid, BidFire is raking in $20 per $1 of product price. In many instances I saw BidFire collecting multiples of over ten times the cost of a product, e.g. $700 for a $500 gift card translates into $7000 paid by BidFire bidders just for bids plus $700 paid by the winning bidder for a $500 gift card, over a 15x multiple. In the instance of the auction I won, BidFire collected approximately $1,000 for bids plus my $100 for a total of $1100 for a $399 iPod Touch.