MadBid

I too was sucked in without realising you had to pay to bid. No info about this on the sign up page or the fact that they will keep your money if you do not spend it.
After some pressure they have now agreed to refund my money, see below.
Some info on the company.

Maddbid.com
Marcandi Ltd - is the controlling company. *******@marcandi.com.(Reg No. *******)
Juha Koski & Daniel Rovira are the people who control the company.
*******@madbid.com is his personal email.

C/o Thb Associates Ltd
The Courtyard
High street
Chobham
Surrey
GU24 8AF

I threatened them with Trading Standards and ASA. I also spoke with their accountants BDO London, *******410. To enquire if the letter published on Madbid web site was genuine.

'Hey BRIAN,
Your order has been successfully refunded.
Just to let you know your order placed on Wed, 23 Jul 2014 for order id ******* has successfully been refunded.
Refunds can take up to five working days depending on your method of payment.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us on *******361 or emails us at *******@madbid.com'

We all know it is a waste of time trying to phone them.
I hope the foregoing may be of some assistance.
B. Owen.

I was sucked in to this by what appeared to be a newspaper article, suggesting great bargains to be had in an auction. I believed the bargains to be true based on what I thought was buying power (foolish in hindsight, before the backlash!), and I was aware that products could be purchased using the money spent on credits if the auction wasn't won.
I have since seen numerous reviews, following my own experience of watching the continuation of an auction I was bidding in, and could see that it stopped with a list of other apparent bidders still in the list (looked as though they were autobidders). I had already given up due to the fact it had reached maximum price, but was using up all of my credits and would have ended up costing me more than RRP!
Clearly there were bots set up in the background to inspire bidding (research mentioned on other sites has highlighted this), and my credits were converted into "earned discount" which can be spent on any of the products listed, apparently at a discounted price, which are all above the prices I have found on the Internet by the way.
There is a refund policy in place, which states that any unused items which are returned within 14 days will be refunded in full. What it doesn't state, and was discovered by making a phone call, and not in the emailed reply I received from the customer service manager when I asked the question, was that the refund comes in the form of "earned discount", which is effectively a credit note. This is a guarantee that our hard earned cash is going to be spent on their over priced goods, which are limited in choice.
There appears to be pretty much no chance of winning an auction unless you have inside information as a techno boffin (no disrespect intended), and as a mere genuine mortal, we are basically filling their bank account with interest earning cash, with which we are entitled to buy over priced products within 365 days.
It really is time that this outfit was removed from any association with the organisations we put our trust in, such as paypal, and the newspapers with which they clearly post their own adverts to look like articles which are supported.

I was relieved of £99.99 within 30 minutes and have NOTHING to show for it! As a fairly intelligent woman, I have to say I was completely blinded by clever marketing and a clean looking website (Ididn't see it coming). Also, they play on your need or desire for a bargain. In my case, it was the NEED for a bargain, as money has been tough following multiple strokes that has left me incapable of work and disabled in the last year. I desperately needed a T. V after mine broke.

My advice, STAY AWAY! Why I didn't come to look at reviews first I'll never know! Thing is, they plant clever consumer review articles around the place, I think I read mine in a magazine. Consumer reporter tested Madbid for getting a bargain on an ipad I think... he went to the site, bid once or twice and won the item at 80% off retail price. Complete crap! These articles are obviously written and paid for by Madbid. I wish I still had it, I would contact the publisher. This is why I signed up. Grrrr!

Today for the last 4 hours I have watched countless amounts of people place thousands of pounds of bids on a one thousand pound TV. One by one they have dropped off as they have run out of credits. Some of them bid for over an hour. In my experience I know this must have cost each one of them more than £200. You do the maths. Each one of these now walk away with nothing! You pay for every one of those bids. £100 will buy you 1000 credits. The auctions that is taking place right now charges you 8 credits per bid. This gives you only 125 bids. That's a staggering 80p to bid ONCE! So it's no wonder that £100 can be gone in 30 minutes. Reminding you again... you are walking away with absolutely nothing!

Still waiting for a response from Madbid, but I do not expect anything satisfactory to come from my correspondence. The best I can do is warn others not to make the same mistake.

We cannot redeem any earned discount into refund atleast? Because there's not much things to shop in the "Shop" and also everything has a shipping price which is exorbitantly outrageous and also does not get included in the earned discount, Also the products that's available in the "Shop" is a cheap quality which is China made which is easily available in the market for 1/4 of that prices quoted in the "Shop". Those are not branded products like for example Bluetooth speaker is not JBL which is easily available in the market for the price you've quoted for a cheap Bluetooth speaker which is not even branded. Please be Flexible as the automatic charge that took place was unauthorized as you were not supposed to have my card details on your file even after me choosing not to save the card details. And I was bidding continuously to win the bid and did not realize that you ran my card and I got credits from that untill I checked my bank statement and now you say that I shouldn't have used the credit package for me to get a refund, this is Fraudulent activity or a way to rip people off.

Registered and bought £49.99 credit and did some bidding. I did not win anything but the message appered "you have not enough credit". It was at the weekend so I could not ring them I rang Pay Pal, they confirmed that the money succesfully went to Madbid! But where was the money? Paypal told me that they will write to them in the mean time they adviced me to send them the e mail too. Which I did but no reply and pay pal had no reply eighter. Finally I have called them and found out that basicly as soon as you start bidding soon your money disapperas even though you do not win anything!

Did not relaise I was involved gambling website. How can they call them self auction company when you do not win anything but still pay for it! Could not beliieve this kind of compay are exist in UK. They refused to pay the money back. Aperantly it is on the terms and conditions and I should not sign it without reading it. I know I will not get my money back but just want to warn others. Liverpool Lilily