The Internet has exploded with all sorts of bargain websites that promise to offer consumers big savings on things like electronics and jewelry. Many of these companies are now openly advertising on network television; however, according to Sarah McDaniels, a technology expert and investigative feature writer, this doesn’t make them reputable.
“If you’ve watched television lately, you’ll see commercials for penny auction sites, such as SkoreIt and QuiBids,” she said. “Beezid even has Lindsey Lohan pitching its product. Unfortunately, this type of aggressive promotion is attracting a lot of unwitting consumers who don’t understand how the platform works.”
McDaniels says penny auctions are really more like casino games than actual auctions. According to her, they operate by forcing members to buy bids, which they must spend each time they want to make a claim on an item.
“Even if the bidders don’t win the auction, they lose their bids,” she said. “This allows the auctioneers to profit when their members fail; and they ultimately encourage this by adding extra seconds to the auction, each time someone makes a bid.”
Other Alternatives to Bargain Websites
If consumers want to try to score bargains by participating in actual online auctions, McDaniels, who specializes in investigative features focused on reviews, scams and deals, says they can try websites, such as eBid or iOffer. Still, she says even these sites have been criticized for not policing vendors well enough.
“I just did a review on iOffer,” she said. “This company is very aggressive in its marketing efforts, proclaiming ‘ deals, deals, deals ‘ for its members. In the end, I found all sorts of customer complaints regarding vendor scams involving counterfeit merchandise.”
Although McDaniels says sites like iOffer aren’t necessarily involved in these types of online scams; they do indirectly encourage unscrupulous vendor behavior by turning a blind eye. In the end, she says consumers should be wary of bold claims regarding big bargains.
“I’d say anytime consumers hear the phrase, ‘deals, deals, deals,” they should turn and run,” she said. “More often than not, aggressive advertising tactics are a sign of a deceptive business model; because the company cannot rely on positive word-of-mouth advertising, and must instead resort to wild promotional claims.”
Choosing between sites
For consumers who are hoping to find reputable deals, McDaniels recommends sites that offer local discounts, such as Groupon and LivingSocial. On the other hand, she warns against any deal site that claims to be selling discount brand-name items from overseas warehouses.
“Take DealExtreme, for instance,” she said. “Here’s a company that claims the ability to ship expensive, brand name gadgets and electronics for pennies on the dollar; however, many current and former members complain that they’ve been swindled with bait-and-switch tactics, where the product they receive doesn’t actually match the one pictured on the website.”
10 Comments
I really enjoyed reading your post. Hope to see more of this.
Thanks for sharing great tips. Keep posting!
I know certain sites such as http://www.bizperkscincinnati.com/ are good sources for bargains in the tri-state (Ohio,Kentucky, Indiana) and offer legitimate bargains.
Yeah; I’ve had some bad experiences buying technological applications from overseas warehouses. They came very cheep, but more often than not the product that finally arrived (after a ludicrous delivery time) wasn’t what I had actually ordered, and any attempt to make contract re: a return was met with silence.
Some people see it as some form of scam, I think bargain websites are even considered illegal in some places.
Personally, I think it’s the web designers who scam consumers.
95-plus percent of individuals and businesses who either desire or require a website can get one free or for very little cost. These websites can do all the same things the “custom built” ones can do.
I have another site about a different topic than the free one listed above. Since it’s commercial in nature, I won’t mention it here. I registered it through a discount registrar (GoDotYourself.com – cheaper than even GoDaddy, and w/o the annual price increases). I pay $7 per month for hosting, which gives me access to 1-click installations of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, OS Commerce, Pligg and just about every single other open-source website software known to man.
There are so many free templates to choose from, you’d be hard-pressed to NOT find one that’s got the right look and feel for the site you envision. My site looks perfect. All I had to pay extra for was the logo, which I obtained through an independent graphic designer for $60.
So, for $154, I got a website that is 10X better than those of some of my colleagues who paid thousands for their WordPress sites. It’s the web designers who (in most cases) are scamming people. The same software most web designers use is free at at least two registrars/hosting companies that I know of.
Is the fact that they know how to sign up for an account at a registrar/hosting firm, click a mouse to install the software and then use the theme finder to find one that meets the description of what their client wants REALLY worth $3,000-$5,000?
In my opinion, the answer is a simple “no”. I figured it out in about a day. The work can be done in 2-3 hours.
Unless the site is EXTREMELY elaborate, there’s no reason to pay somebody thousands of dollars to build it.
I don’t thin they scam people because they need to provide some value for them to take off and as visible with many of these websites initially they can run into losses as well. As with most think persistence is very important.
Thanks for giving us some awareness advice in detecting scam kind, Especially that most of a time my husband and I dealing with social media in different factors.
Hmmm… how do these companies get away with it. There needs to be a lot of reviews to keep people aware of such scams. Thanks for sharing this post.
More often than not these people think that scams are real, then they see a real job opportunity and search for it in Google, only to think it’s a scam. I think the most important thing for customers to do is to be vigilant when they are researching online.
Just like anything else it’s always good to get a second or maybe even third opinion about a product or service.