[entropygirl]

Gift cards and cash auctioned off, smells fishy to me but you never know. Anyone heard of it or try it?

dfwbid.com

[rameeti]

Yes, it only takes your entering an auction once to see what a scam this is.

I paid my $3 through PayPal to enable me to 'bid' on an auction. I chose a Home Depot gift card valued at $50. The auction rules require bids to be in increments of $.01 so the bidding moves at a snails pace. A bidder is prevented from bidding again for the same item for 45 seconds and this is done to prevent the bidding process from moving too quickly. The combination of these rules thus create a situation where the auction will transpire over a day or more of bidding. The 'lucky' winner must be monitoring that auction for that entire time (as they've paid their $3 for permission to bid on that item) and they must be remembering to be every 45 seconds to get to be the high bidder.

My first (and last) auction just finished. When the Home Depot gift card reached a bid of ~$42.00, up popped a screen telling everyone that some 'lucky' person had just won that auction by answering a 'Win it for a Penny' opportunity and the bidding was over. Thus my watching this auction for more than a day was for not. Some other unknown person supposedly was lucky and the item was taken off the bidding block.

But the reality would have been that I would have paid $3 for entering the auction, $5 for shipping of the gift card, $42 for the winning bid of the card, and thus not have saved any money for my days worth of pressing the 'Bid' button.

But rather than give someone their money back by allowing someone to win a bid, the items are taken off the auction block and not given to any bidder.

And lets not forget that every bidder that has entered that auction has paid their $3 for the privilege to bid.

Scam? I think so. And it will continue until enough people Twitter it and get the word out. It sounds too good to be true and thus, it is too good to be true. How about it? Spread the word.

[JSipll]

I bought 5 chances for $15 and just won a card for 1 cent. It is a beating however as you have to keep bidding and clicking the penny button. PLUS you have to have a speedy computer. I figure the $50 gift card cost me $20 and once I use the other $3 credit I probably won't be doing it again--it is a beating and you have to stay by the computer for a long time. But is is fun to win a 50 dollar gift card--but it is an endurance race.

[gasie]

I've been on the site for a month and won 7 items, three $50, one $100 and an 8GB iPod Nano all for a penny and two $50 cards for around $21 each so I've covered all the auctions I lost and up over $150 so I'll keep bidding until that changes.

I've received 4 of the $50 cards and have shipping details on the rest so I can attest that it is legit. the cards even workled at the store and really helped with the cost of groceries.

I too have tracked usernames and I can see why the bidding might seem bogus because it is possible for someone to win the Penny Buy without ever showing up as a bidder.

Some users just keep trying the Penny Buy instead of bothering to bid, plain and simple. They are only interested in getting the card for a penny plust the $2.99 entry fee and $4.99 s&h.

Some users bid for a while to drive the price up so the penny buy is more likely to come up or keep an eye on the timer and bid if it gets low so as not to loose the card. That's the risk of spending so much time on the penny buy, everyone forgets to bid and the timer runs out and you loose the card to the highest bidder before the penny buy ever shows up.

The auction can go all day, and sure enough as soon as I shut down the laptop and drive home, the auction is over and someone one for $15 or so because everyone else was in their cars or otherwise diposed. Now I have my wife start it up at home and bid and try the penny buy until I get home.

[golferwife]

I heard about it on the news this week. I went to the website Wednesday evening. When iI returned Thursday, Friday and today...nothing. The sight will not connect? Anyone else have this problem?

[gasie]

I know they are working on new software and the server is up and down right now, but I am sure they will be back online soon. It's a great site.

[terrivw]

I first learned about DFWBid on a local news channel, so far I have wasted $45 and won ZERO, NADA, NOTHING!!

I also wasted 3 hours today and another 5 hours yesterday.

There has to be a secret to winning this thing but so far I haven't figured it out. Any tips from those who have won?? Thanks!

IF there isn't any way to win than why bother wasting $45 to win a $50 giftcard, I could have bought it. Especially after you pay another $5 for shipping.

I may contact the channel I saw it on and ask them why they would tell their viwers this was legit.

[gasie]

I find it worked best if I only joined one auction at a time and checked the Penny Buy every 10 to 15 seconds and kept up with the bidding to make sure someone else didn't end up the high bidder and the timer run out. Generally I just bid every 3rd time I checked the Penny Buy if I wasn't still the high bidder.

I see alot of users bid on all the active items at once but it is too easy to miss a Penny Buy having to cycle through all of them and find someone else beats you to the Penny Buy that comes active on one item while you were checking it on another item or the timer runs out and someone gets it being the high bidder while you were concentrating on another card. But I still see some users win for a Penny while bidding on several cards at once so it can be done too.

My winning rate is around 24% of the auctions I enetered and I won 11 auctions for $700 in value and spent $305 to get it so that's not bad.

[kiztise]

I have won a couple of auctions, its competitive but fun!

[slims999]

Originally Posted by gasie

I find it worked best if I only joined one auction at a time and checked the Penny Buy every 10 to 15 seconds and kept up with the bidding to make sure someone else didn't end up the high bidder and the timer run out. Generally I just bid every 3rd time I checked the Penny Buy if I wasn't still the high bidder.

I see alot of users bid on all the active items at once but it is too easy to miss a Penny Buy having to cycle through all of them and find someone else beats you to the Penny Buy that comes active on one item while you were checking it on another item or the timer runs out and someone gets it being the high bidder while you were concentrating on another card. But I still see some users win for a Penny while bidding on several cards at once so it can be done too.

My winning rate is around 24% of the auctions I enetered and I won 11 auctions for $700 in value and spent $305 to get it so that's not bad.

Hey Gasie! its slims999 from dfwbid. I remember seeing your name, and I think you won 1 today right? I won 2 cards today within 10 minutes of each other. was kinda cool... a $50 chili's/On the border card... and a $75 wal-mart card...

BTW with Wal-mart cards, you can take it into Wal-Mart and buy American Express Gift cards with them and use them anywhere instead of just slaving yourself to the multi-billion dollar corporation...

I joined today and am pretty pumped. opens up at 9am CT, ill be there!

[slims999]

Originally Posted by gasie

My winning rate is around 24% of the auctions I enetered and I won 11 auctions for $700 in value and spent $305 to get it so that's not bad.

What in the world have you spent $305 on???? My ratio is 66%, but for 1 day , so that doesn't count... i'll wait a week, then a month and calculate my ratios then.

Looking forward to the Wii tomorrow morning at 9, and also signed up for another $75 walmart card... hope i win!

good luck gasie

[slims999]

Originally Posted by terrivw

I first learned about DFWBid on a local news channel, so far I have wasted $45 and won ZERO, NADA, NOTHING!!

I also wasted 3 hours today and another 5 hours yesterday.

There has to be a secret to winning this thing but so far I haven't figured it out. Any tips from those who have won?? Thanks!

Sit at your computer for hours, dont get up . It's not easy, trust me, but once you pull $50-200 in a day worth of gift cards you spent maybe $3-15 to get... it's worth it.

I have tomorrow and Wednesday off, so we'll see what happens.

[gasie]

Originally Posted by slims999

What in the world have you spent $305 on???? My ratio is 66%, but for 1 day , so that doesn't count... i'll wait a week, then a month and calculate my ratios then.

Looking forward to the Wii tomorrow morning at 9, and also signed up for another $75 walmart card... hope i win!

good luck gasie

Hi slims999, I did see your name too you won the $75 Walmart card I was bidding on.....

Well, there are the 37 that I didn't win which is $109 in entry fees and then there was $22.52, $20.03, $18.95, $27.44 & $30.11 for the five I won that weren't for a penny plus the $8 entry fee and S&h for each of those and the 6 more I won fpr a penny. It's now at $325 to win $800 and still at 24% win ratio which I can settle for.

I'd been away for 3 weeks and didn't have a chance to use the site so my second time up I just sat there looking at the screen a couple of seconds too long because I think they changed the color of the Penny Buy active button and I didn't realize it was there but I got the quiz and just missed submitting it in time to win a $75 Gift Card - You Choose. I think I've had the quiz about 10 times and just missed being first with it, which at least makes me feel better because I know I have a chance if I can just get better at math

The good news is that it looks like most of the auctions are going for a penny now which means $8 with the entry fee and s&h. Only two out of the last 111 went for more which was $15.07 & $15.51 on $50 cards. They're moving faster too because those 111 auctions were in the last 5 days and it used to be a single auction could take two days to finally end and each day might only see 5 to 10 auctions complete.

I know I'm hooked on it... good luck on winning more and I'll be interested to see what your ratio ends up.

[Ice]

Do you think a person could bid if they have phone line internet connection?

[bargainshopper]

i am really interested in this, but it seems confusing I get confused very easily and I can't just waste $5 here and there. Would love to win some GC though!

[slims999]

Here it is folks... 8:51am, the bidding starts at 9am central standard time, so let's do this! I may sit here til noon if I have to!

[slims999]

YES! I just won a Wii for $10!! Wow.

The questions were 30+44
and 17 times 8.... I had a calculator out and ready, so i just whipped em out and did em... the first one was easy, but multiplication sucks!

Can't believe I won it.

[gasie]

Originally Posted by Ice

Do you think a person could bid if they have phone line internet connection?

If you can click on the About then click the Back button and let the page reload and you can do that about every 12-15 seconds, then I would say your connection is fast enough to participate and win.

The Penny Buy and Quiz pages have very limited graphics so will load quick enough for you. The Current Auctions page with all the images of the cards takes the longest and it has to reload every time you bid or try the Penny Buy.

[slims999]

Gasie, I hope you win that Olive Garden card!

[gasie]

Originally Posted by slims999

YES! I just won a Wii for $10!! Wow.

The questions were 30+44
and 17 times 8.... I had a calculator out and ready, so i just whipped em out and did em... the first one was easy, but multiplication sucks!

Can't believe I won it.

Congratulations, I considered trying for the Wii but we eat out at Longhorns once a week so I'm trying for the Olive Garden card which we can use there. I try to get cards where I am spending money every week anyway so I save money on my bills, although I did grab the iPod Nano for the Penny, still haven't used it yet. Too busy bidding to load any music on it.

Oh good, another $75 Walmart is coming up, Gas & Grocieries - my favorite things....

[slims999]

if you aren't using the Nano, sell it, that way you make a profit and use it for bills or whatever. WalMart has American Express gift cards which you can use anywhere... so instead of using it only at Wal Mart, you can buy gift cards to use anywhere.

For some reason a Wal Mart gift card cant be used for VISA gift cards... just AMEX... weird. I hope AMEX doesn't cancel that like VISA did.

but HEY I make keep the Wii! It sells for 150-200 though.

[kiztise]

Congrats on winning the Wii ... i am going for the $75 Walmart Card!!!

[slims999]

Hey me too... we can compete, this is fun.

[slims999]

May the quickest mathematician win!

[bargainshopper]

can someone tell me how you know the penny bid is active