If you are a regular bidder on penny auction, BigDeal.com, operated under Project Fair Bid, you may have already heard the news. If you haven't, take a look at this screen shot:

(Picture was resized after article was no longer a feature; please go to BigDeal.com)

BigDeal launched in November 2009. The startup raised $4.5M in funding from from the Mayfield Fund, First Round Capital, and Foundation Capital, with Nicholas Darveau-Garneau at its helm. Nicolas was part of the launch team of MSN.com in 1995, where he worked with ecommerce partners to create the MSN store. He was also Co-Founder of Imix.com, an Internet music company, which was the first to get the legal downloads rights from all major record labels and raised over $22M in venture capital.

Nicolas launched BigDeal with the desire to legitimize the penny auction industry and to be transparent in every step of the bidding and buying process. For example, BigDeal was one of the first penny auction sites to offer detailed bidding history on their auctions. On a given item’s page, bidders would see a list of the other bidders who had bid on the item, their time spent on bidding on the item, number of bids, and the time since each users last bid.

Regular bidders on the site have seen this closure coming for a while now. A couple months ago, BigDeal stopped auctioning off their higher-end items, like iPads, digital cameras, and laptops, and switched to lower-valued auctions. A few bidders even reported that BigDeal had emailed auction winners after the the end of their auctions, stating that they couldn't ship the item(s) and offered a refund and free bids, instead.

While some may see this closure as a negative, BigDeal Bidders are not out of luck. BigDeal has contracted with BidCactus.com to allow their users to transfer their bids. If bidders transfer their account, BidCactus will honor all of their outstanding bids.

BidCactus launched in April of 2009, and is now the oldest operating penny auction. They have been audited by Ernst & Young, with the last audit performed on April 30, 2011. They are also members and founders of the Entertainment Auction Association.

The PennyBurners Team wishes all team members of BigDeal a bright, successful future! We are sure the site will be missed by its faithful bidders.

To discuss the closure of BigDeal, to leave reviews for BidCactus, or to discuss any other aspect of the penny auction industry, please join and post in the PennyBurners Penny Auction Forum.