BidFire

This site has fraud written all over it! It claims huge saving by showing you that the customer has just won an item for $9.50, in fact the bid was $950.00 US dollars. Each bid is ONE US DOLLAR not one cent as it shows on there website. Also the "30 second rule", you'll love this. Just watch the bidding get down to the last 30 seconds or so. This could go on for hours. My advise to ALL, this site is very misleading and almost criminal

Bidfire is insane. You have to buy bids at a dollar a pop. There are only a few items up for bid. Every bid starts the timer again at 45 seconds. It is virtually impossible unless you have an unlimited amount of bids because you are competing with people all over the place. If you're gonna buy bids, then you might as well fork over them money and buy the product outright. SCAM! They are making a killing out of people buying bids who will never get a chance to win!

I just stumbled across this site and watched the bids for a while. The current bid, a $100 instant cash from Amazon, seems "stuck" at 25-23-24 and then back up to 25 seconds without anybody placing the bid. That showed me that this is a scam site and I'm glad I didn't fork over any money for bids. Trust the old saying that if something seems too good to be true, it never is a good thing!

Bidfire and other penny auction sites are at best no more than gambling sites masquerading as auctions. Unless you are in the mood to lose your hard earned money, I would look elsewhere for deals and entertainment.

Think of it just as: you giving gifts worth hundreds of dollars to people you don't know. The site sells an item that is worth $200,30 people bid an average of $10 each = $300 for a $200 item, they make a $100. If you loose it's like you have paid for somebody else's computer or ipod... cool.

I watched a couple kindle dx auctions both times it was obvious that inside bidders are both pumping the real bidders for all their cash and also that the inside bidders are also the "winners". They stay on as long as there are outside bidders bidding and then as soon as the real bidders finally give up and leave the last two insiders go back a forth a couple times and then one conveniently quits. I've seen it happen with each auction i've monitored. STAY AWAY! I would love to be able to find out if amazon ever gets any orders for the product from this site. I'll bet not. This is utter scam.

They have great stuff like computers and iphones for bid. You have to buy bids at $1 per bid. Each time you bid it goes up 5 cents AND the timer resets for an additional 45 seconds, so they make millions with people buying bids, because the only wat to way is if no one outbids you 5 cents in 45 seconds. They were bidding on a kindle 2, it won for 143.50 (that's 2870. 00 in bids they earned from that one product) SCAM!

Took $400 dollars of my money on credit card and closed the site not to be heard from.

Another site that makes it seem like you can win a $400 item for a bid of $0.20. The claims of costs are very dishonest. They are making tons of money on people's desire for things that dozens of other people want too. Only one winner and dozens of suckers per item.

I know a lot of people think this website isn't for real. I know, I was one of them! My son won a 64gb Touch iPod and Noise cancelling headphones, and called and told me all about Bidfire. I couldn't believe it. I told him I would be a believer if and when the items actually came. Four days later, there they were. Brand new! Now, I love the website. I can't say that I have been as lucky, however I did win a movie. I am fascinated by just watching all the action.

There is no set time for auctions to end. If someone bids with 10 seconds left till the auction ends an additional 30 seconds is added to the auction time.

Considering the fact they sell you the ability to place bids, they are in fact just ripping you off as your bid is wasted when there is not set end time for the auction.

I would say stay away from these types of websites. It's similiar to online gambling. You pay for bids just for a slim chance to win something.

Who really knows if this stuff is real or legit but you can be assured that you will spend money to try to win and that will cost you in the end. I would say just stay away from anything like this. Save your money and use legit sites, like ebay.

If you have found a way for the site to work for you and thinks its safe, then do it. I just don't like the idea of paying money for a chance to win and possibly being out that money. It's not for me. But could be for you, that's your call.

The only winner is the people running the site. I think it is a loophole for getting away with gambling and it should be stopped. Yeah one person wins an item, but here is how it goes. I'm watching a bidding right now for an Nintendo Wii valued at $199.99. The current bid right now is $33.00 and has not stopped yet. Now $33.00 in. 05 cent bids is 660 bids. Lets say it ended here right now. For the last half hour I only seen 3 people bidding. It also was pretty consistent that all 3 people were bidding at the same time equally bidding. That means each bidder had to bid 220 bids. In order to do that each person would have had to purchase the 100 bid package that gets you 15 free bids for $100.00 and they would have had to purchase 2 packages. That cost each person $200.00 right for 230 bids. Now that the bidding has ended the last person supposedly won a Nintendo Wii. Wow isn't that great it only cost them $200.00 in bids, plus the $33.00 for the item for a total of $233.00. Remember earlier I told you the item only cost $199.99. Now they paid $33.01 more than the item cost. Now back to the people who run the site. Each person paid $200.00 for the bids. $200.00@ 3 people is $600.00 + the $33.00 for the Nintendo Wii. They made $633.00 less their cost for the Nintendo Wii which is probably about $100.00 plus lets say $20.00 in shipping cost to the winner. That is a profit of $513.00 for them. It look to me it would be better to start your own site. Happy gambling, I mean happy betting. I hope you win something far less than what it is worth.

I believe Bidfire uses bot bidders. If the "bot" wins, then they do not lose the money on the item auctioned. It is simply never sent out! Therefore every legitimate bid on the auction is pure profit.

I recently bid on item, watched the clock end on zero with my bid as the top bid, and as the winner was announced, it showed the only other bidder as the winner! The clock did not reset to 30 seconds as it was supposed to. Very fishy indeed, so I am suspecting the "bot" algorithm had an error. Even if the other bidder was legitimate and not a bot, the fact that the auction ended with my bid as the top, and yet the auction was given to the other bidder is not right. I am extremely suspicious. In addition, they acknowledged the error, but did not honor my win, instead refunding me some bids. I feel they should honor the win, but I'm not holding my breath. I will update this review if they do.

Yes, you CAN win items, but if they are really using bots, which I suspect they are, you are nearly assured of losing money or losing the auction.

This site's business doesn't create any value in general. It's like a casino to users who know how it works. I don't got evidence to say they are cheating besides their business model. If you say casinos are scams then bidfire is scam.

If you realized all these and still wanna try your luck, you're on your own.

Most people lost their money in casinos.

Pretty cool website with lots of cool electronics auctioned off daily. I tried it out by buying a $100 bid package and ended up winning an auction on a $399 (retail price) iPod Touch 64GB which included a 50 bid package. My final bid was $51.56. Even though I used up all the original 115 bids plus the 50 free bids later and spent $151.56, I did end up with a really nice iPod that would have cost me $400. This is gaming in every sense, so you won't always win, but it's really cool when you do.

Bidfire is a fraud they use bots that are shill bidders! User Marmour is on every bid the last second! You will not win on this website. I have bid on many different things last second and every time user marmour is there to raise the prices and make it impossible to win. I wouldn't be surprised if this User MARMOUR was made by this site. DO NOT USE THIS SITE

BAIT AND SWITCH CON...

The administrators claim that they don't use bot bidders or software to ensure that ON CERTAIN AUCTIONS, no human bidder can ever win (us the customers). But because there's NO TRANSPARENCY, there's no way of backing up their claim other than their own word.
HERE'S THE KICKER... THEY LET HUMANS WIN SOME OF THE TIME IN ORDER TO KEEP CUSTOMERS COMING BACK, BUT THEY ARE KEEPING RECORD OF THEIR LOSSES AND REVENUE AND WHEN THEY NEED MORE REVENUE, THEY USE THEIR OWN BOT BIDDERS WHICH THEY "SAY" THEY NEVER USE.
Sure, they do let human beings (us the customers) win SOMETIMES (I myself have won a few items), BUT just enough to keep Bidfire's bottom line in the black. But then when they need some more money, they make sure that their computer bidder always has the last bid.

This goes directly against their claim that they NEVER use their own Bidfire bot bidders. They do. Just watch an expensive item being auctioned, and you'll notice some very fishy bid patterns and VERY suspicious delays in the clock when the time expires, and *presto*, literally 3-4 seconds after the clock hits 1 second left, and the auction is seemingly over with a winner, the auction mysteriously continues conveniently with a bot bidder suddenly bidding that had stopped bidding several hours prior. Of course there's no way to prove this unless the federal authorities get involved, but SEE FOR YOURSELF re: the strange bidding patterns and mysterious auction extensions.

Again, yes, some humans do win, but only enough for Bidfire to point to them and say, "see? We are legit." Bidfire, you are not legit because you claim you NEVER use bot bidders, yet, you don't provide ANY bidder identity transparency at all for your paying customers to verify your claim.

Before anything else, let me say that I had to learn things the hard way and I'm here to warn people not make the same mistake I did. This site is definitely a gambling site and the chances of winning are slim to none. Sure, there's some people who win. Some may say that they were lucky but it kinda makes you think how much luck does someone have that they keep winning all the time?

Anyway, here's my story. I found bidfire through facebook advertising switchfoot. I was curious so I went on their site and bought $50 bids +5 free. I was so excited and started bidding on a gift card. I placed my bid and waited for the clock to run out. Unfortunately, the time never ran out. Every time a new bid is in place, the clock resets. So, I kept on bidding and another player kept outbidding me. The bidding war went on for a while until I realized that I was completely out of money. I lost $55 on that one bid and I do blame myself for not doing my homework before I started the bid.

Moving on... I believe in second chances so I thought I'd give bidfire another shot. I told myself that this time I would do my research and bid wisely. I went on different sites (including this one) to checkout people's comments and experiences and majority of them seemed to be positive. I read about how people won and lost and watched a few bids before I started bidding again.

I bought another $100 bids and started bidding on different things. I allowed myself to use 15-25 bids per item. I did not win but I came close and that gave me a lot of hope. Over the next few days, I saw that they were giving away a MacBook Pro. I have been saving up for one for quite a while and I thought I'd take my chances on bidding. I took $250 and bought some bids. Again, I did my homework. Looked at past winner's history and the last bid for the item. So, the day of the bid. I prepared for it, I got my bids ready and I was willing to take my chances. I did not bid right away, my strategy was to wait for people to use up their bids and then start bidding, wait again and bid again. I really thought I came close until more and more bidders showed up. Few hours went by and it was just impossible to win so I gave up. I checked on the winner the following day and the bid for the Mac Book Pro was still going! I placed a few more bids but did not win.

After this whole mess, I still bought another $100 bids to bid on small items. Many people claim to win a lot on small things so I did it just to see if my chances of winning would be higher. Again, this was a big mistake. Lost the last of my $100 for nothing.

But yea, I know most people would say, you got to learn when to stop and yes, I'm aware of this. I am not a gambling addict and this is the first time I've lost a lot of money. I took my chances on winning and I'm done. I got sucked into betting in hope that I will win something I needed for cheap. It was a big lesson learn. Proceed to this site with caution.

I have bid for and won an ipod nano, 25 bids, and a fuji film digital camera for all under $100 including the amount I payed for the bids! This site has saved me a ton of money. There is no way I could have gotten these items new for that price. You just have to pic your items wisely. If you don't have a lot of money or bids, don't bid on the expensive stuff, just pick the smaller items. But if you have a couple hundred dollars to spend on bids there is a good chance you could get a $500 Ipad for $200.

First let me start by saying I have won a ton of stuff at Bidfire.com, however it is so obvious they are cheating it makes you laugh. I won several very large items right off the bat, and was way ahead (way ahead!). I think that is to hook you to keep you bidding in the future. Now I know (to late and now behind overall)! I lost a ton of money until I figured out they for sure use fake bidders. Just to name a couple they are rsteelkid, thering, etc. The way you can tell is they never bid until it hits loading like 4 times then it bids just to keep it going. If it was anyone else the auction would have ended if they bid that late and no one else bids (this takes longer if say 2 or 3 people bid last second). I know this as I have won lots of auctions and when you win it is between the 3rd and 4th loading if no one bids. Now what I do is I pay attention to this and do not bid while their fake bidders are bidding. I wait and let others bid and just watch. What you are looking for is when it counts down to loading you cross your fingers someone else will bid last second, and then you do not see the fake bidder anymore such as rsteelkid, thering, or whoever is the fake bidder. Now you know bidfire.com is not fake bidding, and it is time for you to start bidding like crazy. Unfortunetly, this is hard to do and often ends up with thering or whoever the false bidder is winning as people give up and then the bot (or whatever you want to call it) wins as no one overbids it, because they know they would just be throwing their money away. Trust me this comes from lots of experience. You can be a big winner no doubt, but it is hard and you will lose a ton of money trying if you are not lucky, but without a doubt they are cheating.

Well Bidfire advertises it's site as being an auction site. Ok sounds cool have been to many auctions both online(like Ebay as an example) and live auctions.

Well get there and start filling out the profile. Then start looking around, well try to as their search software at the best leaves a lot to be desired(as you will see in the email I got after sending comments to them). Found out in order to make a bid you have to buy bids. Thought that a bid strange as I have never been to an auction where you have to pay or at least until you have bought something. Some auctions the seller pays and some the purchaser. Any who, also read that when you make a bid and lose the auction either way you have lost your bid and have to purchase more. At this point sort of got disgusted with it all and send a few comments. Never did read enough to see if the seller has to pay a fee as in 99% of all auctions. Comments are below as is their response:

Milton lane, Feb 16 10:01 am (PST):
Hello,
Just a comment concerning Bidfire in general. I registered actually had to several times as it seems it kept losing my information for some unknown reason.

This will probably be of no interest as it has to do with the way you obtain your funds. By not re-distributing the bids back to the losers you have to potential to make a ton of money while everyone in actuality has to pay to do anything on Bidfire.

Unlike the true auction sites yours appears to be nothing more than a money grab.

Searches for anything on there is a joke. I did a search for hard drives and got a monitor and a laptop in turn I did a search for desktops and got a vacumin cleaner.

Sadly I will not be able to recommend your site to anyone at this time, not that I am anyone of importance, but the net does have the history of passing problems and comments quite fast.

The thought of paying to play on here is a bit to much as there are way to many up front true auction sites eager to have users without nickel and dime them to death for nothing other than to use your site.

If you believe me to just be a lone disappointed user please check this site:

http://www.sitejabber.com/reviews/www.bidfire.com I think you will find I am far from alone.

Milt Lane
Moyock, NC US

The following is their response:

Eric, Feb 16 10:17 am (PST):
Hi Milt, we understand that we are not like every other auction site on the internet, that's why bidfire was born, to be something different. We have hundreds of happy winners who come back time and time again to enjoy our high adrenaline shopping atmosphere. We do make money sometimes but sometimes we lose. I'm sorry you are not happy and as for the ability to easily navigate the site, we are working on and unleashing bidfire 2.0 in the coming months that will vastly improve it's functionality. There are also a few features in it that will make people want to stick around, I promise you that:-)

Yours to decide but they at this point appear to be as way to many companies are... Give me the all mighty dollar and be dammed with the user.

Just my thoughts and what I have been told by Bidfire rep.

Milt Lane
Moyock, NC

I ran numbers and though the site charges way too much per bid, if they have bots, they would need to double the amount of bids to break even. This is NOT a sound solution based on the retail rates. I think then when people post reviews about bots-scams, they are usually due to lack of insight and not based on any real intelligence about what they are talking about. Kinda like our government

Brilliant business Model. 20 to 1 gain on each dollar bid. Also, people think they "have a chance" to win stuff drastically under retail. There's a chance, but it's a small one. To win, you have to be lucky, end of story. You can have a great strategy, i. E. wait till a few people have bid over 100 times so it's less likely they will be able to financially keep bidding, and then go in with 100 or 200 bids. But, new people can always jump in, bid 5 time after you've bid 200, and you give cut your losses and give up. The winners who make out well bid on small ticket items that few people bid on, or those who bid hundreds on times on big ticket items and get lucky enough that another big bidder doesn't join them near the end of their threshold. Have fun, but don't try to use bidfire to make profits...