BargainsandFun
Observations from Jeremiah, owner of BargainsAndFun.com:
(Quoted from A little dismayed)
"I'm going to start by saying I'm sorry to anyone that this post may offend. It is something I've had in the back of my mind for a few months now and I figure I'll finally post it. It is not directed at any user individually.
Over the past many months I have seen many auction sites come and go. Some were good sites and some were bad sites. Customers loved em - then they hated em. The life cycle of an auction site is usually a fairly short cycle.
1. Beta Test
2. Open
3. Ship Product
4. Good reviews (customer love)
5. Run Out of money (some skip this step)
6. Close Leaving Customers Stranded (customer hate)
Now i'm not saying that all sites out there have followed the exact same course defined above. Some have come through for their users in their final hours and shipped out all items, refunded bid-packs, and made everything right with their users. Others also change the closing to selling off the site with all the user information included (which I'm against & believe that all users should be given an opt out period should a site sell) and some unknown person takes over not realizing that the site now has a horrible reputation.
What compounds this matter is that most of these people that follow this course of a site and leave the customers stranded by taking their money have no issues about starting up another site under a different name and doing it all over again. Look at the one site a few months back that was deep in debt, the person was trying to sell the site on e-bay to offload it to someone who was unsuspecting and in their very own posts said they would be back with another venture soon!
So at the end of the day The only person that makes out on some of these sites are the people that get in very early and get things shipped dirt cheap. Oh, and the site owner that packs up in the middle of the night and runs with the stash.
Now to completely understand how this is able to happen I'm going to ask the readers to step into the humility booth here for a second (don't worry it's a nice place with a soft sofa to sit on) - On a weekly basis I see reviews being posted for all of these sites that are just starting out. Things like "I won this" or "I got it in 3 days" or things just like that. Which because everyone comes on and reads the reviews and see's how cheap things go and that the site is actually shipping items that site now starts to have a load of traffic. This will include a bunch of bid-pack purchases. Now that the site has the money lets say they are gonna pull the fast one and run. They keep posting items but stop shipping - they can usually do this for at least a couple of weeks before anyone catches on. People keep pumping money into that cash cow and the owner is filling his gas tank and his bank account. One morning you go to the site and there are no new auctions, none of your 2 month old items have been shipped and your feeling that "buyers remorse" thing. Another option for the site owner at this point is the "maintenance" thing where they tell everyone they have to go down for maintenance and will be back up in a few days but never come back up.
You look back and all the signs were there - the couple of quick easy wins in the beginning, then the influx of traffic, then the shipping starting to take longer, the maintenance that takes forever. The site owner begging you not to file a charge back.
Site owners know that a charge back has a 45 day limit on PayPal. So if they can keep you in the blind for 45 days then you have nothing to do but cry about it, and file a bunch of complaints with the FTC and other places that will probably not be able to help you that much.
So now I ask - What can you do to prevent this
Rather than flocking to that shiny & new site that is opening down the block just because you heard sally got a gift card for .02 with her free bids (a gift card that may never ship mind you) and trusting that the site owner actually will fulfill the won items over the next year or so. Stick with the sites that have been here for more than a week, have a proven reputation in this industry, are holding themselves to a higher standard, and people you have come to know over the past 6 months or more.
Remember - You can win that $20,000 gift card for .02 on nevergonnagetyourwins.com but will you ever get it. It's great to win things cheap, of course i see the draw here. But if they are never going to ship you your items then what have you gained. In fact if you bought a 500,000,000 bid bid-pack for $1,000 they are the ones that are winning! Consider it money gone! - In contrast you may have to spend a couple of bucks on one of the trusted sites to win a $50 card, but at least you'll get the card and it won't be a waste of your time and money.
Meanwhile, while all the users are running around to these new sites, the trusted sites that have been around a while and have supported the users and this community are finding it harder and harder to get anyone to bid. Those sites become overrun with a few users because prices aren't .02 for a 5,000 gift card. The site owners inevitably decide that it's just not worth it and in the end will close.
Think Trusted, Verified, HONEST Sites - Patronize them
(ok that's my rant for the day - sorry if i offend anyone)"
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