Thursday, May 17, 2012

About PennyBurners

Overview:

PennyBurners.com was founded in April 2010, after seeing a desperate need for an unbiased, fair source for discussion of the penny auction industry. We currently offer a site verification process, penny auction owner-bidder mitigation, penny auction reviews, important and relevant industry news, a fun and vibrant forum, and many other exciting tools for the Penny Auction Community, including the ONLY penny auction radio, PennyTalkRadio! The PennyBurners Team has developed dozens and dozens of industry contacts, both with site owners and bidders, and are honored to have established relationships with some of the top industry leaders.

Mission:

We are a dedicated and passionate team of people who value honesty and integrity, above all. Our mission is two-part: Bidder Education & Industry Transparency.

Bidder Education:

We believe that a lot of the negativity surrounding penny auctions in the media is the misconception of the general public. It's easy to look at a penny auction site and think it's too good to be true. This belief commonly leads to something being called a scam. We believe that by publishing detailed, easy-to-comprehend, and honest publications, such as Are Penny Auctions Scams? and Are Penny Auctions Gambling? we are helping to mold the public perception of penny auctions in a positive manner. We also scour the web on a daily basis to reply to various news, blog, and ask-answer posts in our mission to provide the public with helpful, honest, and educated answers to their questions on the industry.

Part of our Bidder Education mission is to to give the Penny Auction Community a reliable place to go to learn about the industry, discuss their experiences, and learn how to protect themselves. We do not allow accusations of wrong-doing, either by a bidder or site owner, to go unchecked in our forums, and follow up on every instance with which we are presented. Many other penny auction forums allow a free-for-all, which has caused much damage to the community and to the industry as a whole. This is not conducive to our mission.

Transparency:

We believe that a lack of transparency has really hurt the industry. Up until recently, no one really knew who the owners of these sites were, or if the bidders bidding on a particular site were real or not. Since our inception, the team has been an "open book", so to speak. Our phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, and photos are public and are shared with those who need to contact us. We cannot demand transparency from site owners or bidders if we do not offer it ourselves.

We offer the site owners to show their dedication to transparency by participating in our site verification program, which, in a nutshell, ensures that all bidders on their site are real, paying bidders and that all bids are accounted for. This verification program also consists of verifying that the business is properly registered and provides us with a database of phone numbers, addresses, and other information on the site owner. The verification process is currently being re-developed to be more thorough.

We offer bidders the opportunity to be transparent by providing a fair, moderated environment in which they can post their honest reviews and feedback of their experiences with penny auction sites, and in which they can discuss the industry with fellow bidders and site owners.