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Is Bidpax Really A Scam And Can I Actually Win Cheap Auctions?

Nov 1, 2009 Reviews

This is a follow up post to my earlier account of how I met the online penny auction website during one of my few forays within Facebook’s ads. I will attempt to rate their value based on points which I will give along the way.

Of course these points don’t matter, just like using cents as bidding power. Ahhh…

Okay, so the big question, is Bidpax.com a scam & can one really win cheap auctions? I’ll disect this question into 2 parts:

1) So is it a scam?
Let’s put it this way, a short dictionary definition of a scam is ‘A fraudulent business scheme’, and at first glance, Bidpax.com does have all that legitimate business cosmetics via its webfront and its FAQ pages, which it even teaches you how you can protect yourselves. 2 points to Bidpax.com for these slick moves.

And then comes the not so slick moves, like having a ‘First In Singapore’ tagline in its header only for you to realise that it’s a website with a Hong Kong contact address. Why the conflicting data? Oops, gotta take away 1 point in this instance.

So who is the company/person behind Bidpax.com? No mention at all, and in this day and age, any reputable business operating online would want to build trust by being transparent and contactable. 3 points taken away as this is a vital information that is missing.

By now Bidpax.com has already gone -2 points in total. Let’s go further.

Next we’d like to know how Bidpax.com gets its products from, as in is it a partner of an electronics vendor? Or is it an electronics vendor itself, who simply doesn’t want people to know about (actually it’s not so bad if people knew eh~)? Why do we need to know? Because how else can we get a guarantee that once an auction is won, that we’d get it? Oh, and in case we don’t get it, there’s really no person/company that we can go after to get back our money spent in the bidding process! Ahhh, see where I’m going here as why transparency in company details is important? Another point taken off.

If you’ve been to their mainpage, you’ll see all the ongoing auctions and how intensely fought these are by the users of bidpax, but are these really users at all? Are they real? Where are the user profiles? Why can’t we access them and see who these users are? We want a vibrant, breathing community but the current state leaves us feeling like robots. Almost all the internet business have a method where users communicate with each other, via PMs, forums and so on, where they leave comments and feedbacks. If Bidpax.com have the genius to program the auction software, then why not host a simple forum as well (there are many free options anyway, so the hesitation is questionable..)? 10 points deducted. Wooo~.

So many more questionable points to talk of, like why is a driver’s license required to receive the winning item? Why is Bidpax.com using Plimus as their e-commerce merchant platform when Plimus’ website explicitly mentions that they are a platform if you are a merchant for DIGITAL GOODS AND SERVICES? 20 points deducted.

Okay, enough questions and point deductions.

I think I’ve injected quite a few food for thoughts here, and to answer the question if Bidpax.com is a scam, you, yes you, must decide and consider for yourself if it is so.

I’m not saying it’s a scam, and I’m not saying that it isn’t either. You decide, but I know where I stand, which is as far away as possible.

Oh, here’s the 2nd part before I forget.

2) Can one win really cheap auctions?
Say, if you want to spend as little as you can, you purchase the 25 bids package for SGD$42, which translates to 25cents of bidding power. ‘Powerful’ stuffs huh~ That’s like a value of $1.68 ($42/25) for every 1 cent of bidding power. Woo~

Let’s assume the going rate of a PSP at Bidpax.com (as of this article) is $5.62, which really translates to 562 cents X SGD$1.68 = SGD$944.16 !!! Cheap or expensive?

Think it’s worth a gamble? Then go ahead. Oh, and do let me know when your items have arrived, so good luck.


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Possibly you might wanna read these as well:

  1. How To Get A First Hand Macbook Pro For SGD $12.97 — But wait, It’s A Bloody Scam!
  2. The ‘Singnet Is Upgrading Give Me Your Account Details’ Scam
  3. Zynga Poker Phishing Scam, Too Cute.
  4. Where Have I Been???
  5. I Want An Imac 27inch (Festive Present Maybe?) But Not From Bidpax Please.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
  • jACKY tAN

    Its a total scam!! Why? Because i have not got a single bid credit in my account after paying for it! And fortunately, I only tried to buy hte cheapest bid pack ($42). It would be absolute disaster if I have try to buy the more expensive packs!!

  • http://www.mar.sg googooboyy

    Instead of contacting Bidpax, here’s what I recommend. Contact your the merchant you used to pay the $42 (Paypal/Plimus or your credit card company) and immediately get them to freeze payment on suspicions of fraudulent activities from vendor (Bidpax). You may still have a chance of getting your money back.

    Then contact Bidpax and request explanation, and at the same time, try not to give them anymore personal details that could be used against you.

    Good luck.

  • Aseem

    Thanks for this interesting and detailed analysis. I am sure its not a genuine offering.

  • http://Mar.sg Mar

    I second that comment Aseem. Although it must be said that there are honest online Penny Auction sites out there (not sure that Bidpax qualifies here though..), but in any case, I’d advise anyone to control their biddings at these sites.

  • Bidpax is a scam

    I actually sat and monitored the bidding process today, friday 13th November 2009: I noted the following users bidding, just interesting to see if any of these users are real people rather bots.

    For the 30 mins of copying the bidders name from the website the one who won the SONY laptop only bidded once.. and then i never saw the name again..

    1blufirelady
    wholegrain
    mickeydee
    bobsi416
    simon2983s
    ronz
    JObe
    irresistible
    meleyers80
    iWantThis
    ihavelotsofbids
    fingaltigress
    Tojo
    Sydney2075
    Vinay5
    Jehovahspride
    Aladan
    timmy007
    Ahkyaraeka
    bobsi416
    rebecca92
    hhd3
    daedalus
    babcorp
    Ranatunga4
    Dasef45
    ajcau
    bushville
    copentuser – This user won the bid the sony Laptop. I was monitoring the whole bid and this user Bidded once and Won? Bizaar..
    garthtander
    theeyes
    gavtrac
    spice
    2lucky
    rielsie
    meleyers80
    nswgirl
    porwong
    bluemm11
    eieiosteve

  • http://Mar.sg Mar

    Interesting that such a bidder would ONLY bid once, then WIN, and not even had the slightest urge/cheek to TRY a bid for other gadgets. Interesting, if you know what I mean..

  • PeNy

    I confirm everything that has been said here so far, right down to the list of bidders supplied by ‘Bidpax is a scam”. On several occasions the winning bidder was a one-off who was not involved in the process earlier, jumping in at just the right moment and clinch the deal, beating everyone else who were seriously bidding!? My own bid went down to zero several times, with me as the last bidder, where it hung around forever on “Going…” until someone else jumped in and won, what the?…. I would love to know their secret!!!!

  • Shats

    Thanks for the post, and the helpful comments from other readers. An ad for Bidpax popped up on my facebook page and I was considering registering with the site.

    Thanks to this blog, I will be saving my money and bidding elsewhere.

  • Max

    I just notice something here… The nikon D90 was priced at RM21.28 with last bidder “kman”. when the time reach 8 second left the increased by 2 cent from the same bidder. I found this “kman” continuously bidded 3 times before changing bidder “artitude”. FYI “artitude” also does the same (continuous bid).

    now, why would someone outbid himself here?

  • http://Mar.sg Mar

    Shats >> You’re welcomed. Thank goodness you Googled efficiently. You may wish to buy us all here a cup of coffee too since we’re at it. \m/

    Max >> Someone would outbid himself because he has too much money, I presume. Or it could be that it isn’t a person, most probably, and scarier than any Alien or Paranormal Activity, a Bidding Bot. Good eyes you have, Excellent.

  • Hub

    BIDPAX is a scam..I can confirm that
    having seen the ad on Facebook, I was silly enough to buy SGD 800-1000 worth of bids..the website actually says currency in SGD which made it appear legitimate..appears to be only anyway

    I actually WON an auction for a PS3..it never came..
    first, they gave excuses like the PS3 is not in stock in Singapore..then they offered to transfer money and asked for my Paypal account..
    after giving them the email address for my Paypal, there was a crap/nonsensical/out of point email reply from them that they “fixed the error”..upon requesting for clarifications, no more emails were forthcoming..I have been sending reminder emails..for 6 weeks now after the auction ended
    it’s all silence now..freaking scam

    after searching on Google, one can find lots of weird sites that proclaim that Bidpax is not a scam..that’s laughable
    also, there’s even one site named bidpaxnotascam or something, supposedly set up by a fan who won stuff..look, who’s so free to set up a site just to say that the bid auction site is not a scam (when in fact it is)..
    buggers..

    Please, whoever is reading this, please tell your friends etc, not to throw money away..even if they have a slim chance of winning the auction with a lot of bids..they will never get the merchandise..

    ps: also, search whether the items on bidding are ever available in your country (since they claim that they ship the goods locally). I found that the TV models are not available in Singapore and you can never get warranty..that’s one loophole they haven’t plugged to con more people..
    beware

  • Scammed by Bidpax

    If only I read this blog before I started bidding then I wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble and feel like a complete idiot after I spent alot of money buying bidding credits. Anyway there is hope my friends. Given that bidpax does not reply to any emails/request for refund I resorted to the following:

    1. Contacted my bank – I lodged a transaction dispute form (i had remaining credit left in my bidpax account so technically if I requested my money back bidpax should refund that amount). However after several attempts to contact them and a visit to their non-existent office I informed my bank that I could not contact them, clearly establishing the fact that bidpax is not a legit company and is out there to scam people. My bank reversed the transaction and refunded all the amount back to my account. Thank you HSBC.. you are a bank I can count on.
    So perhaps you can also do the same thing. If bidpax is legit they would somehow disputed this with the bank .. but I got my money back!

    2. I formally lodged a complaint with the Consumer Affairs here in Melbourne and the Hong Kong consumer affairs, both office have replied back informing me that they are conducting investigations. I will keep you posted once I hear back from them.

    3. Lodged a complaint with facebook for posting ads like bidpax. I told facebook marketing team of my terrible scam experience with bidpax and hopefully they would stop advertising bidpax in their website.

    You may have been scammed but a quick call to your bank may help resolve the matter.

  • http://Mar.sg Mar

    Thanks for sharing your experiences and the outcomes, and I’m sure there are a number of us, who remain anonymous reading this, and whom have learnt a lot by reading all of your comments, so thank you for sharing.

    Bidpax-Is-A-Scam:: HSBC, the world’s local bank — they rock, just for reversing the payment and giving your money back! And you rock for alerting the relevant authorities too.

    Hub, Hubber:: It seems that you got burnt a weeks ago which probably meant that a recourse to reverse the credit card payment might be a little harder than normal, but if I were you, I’d still seek it by all means. As for the website, it’s called bidpax[dot]wordpress[dot]com. Quite an amusing read, but somehow it’s not funny at all.

  • aussieme

    yes bidpax is a very well organised scam, if you paid with paypal for your bids please open a dispute ITEMS NOT RECIEVED,( not goods as not described) and meantion to plimus & paypal that BIDPAX is an online internet scam. Plimax is the middle man just like Paypal, if they get enough complaints hopefully they will do something Also report it to scamwatch. I too have been scammed, the same people are winning the auctions, if they are so professional at it why do they keep bidding the item up, you only need to bid on the item in the split second. going going… yep gone. Not to a registered user but to the same bidders check the ended item history.. same bidders have been winning for weeks.

  • http://www.mar.sg googooboyy

    I wouldn’t say a very well organised, just mildly organised would suffice. Wouldn’t want to compliment it too much now.

    The scary part about this is that there are still internet users who are not aware of the setbacks that such a site presents, and the best that we can do is simply to stay alert and watchful and to spread the message as wide as possible.

    About the comment of the same bidders winning for weeks — a bunch of lucky &^@#^%^$, oh wait a minute, they’re bots aren’t they?

  • adityamalik

    Hi I am a s/w engineer from India and i came across a site http://www.bidpax.com and one of the clients of the company wanted to get something similar developed. So, I investigated how a 90K Item like a mac book etc was sold at a bid of 1 0r 2 INR thats 100 or 200 bids where each bid is avg costs at 35INR so that 3500 INR or 7000 INR.
    My deduction is that the site guys are selling everything at a loss cant be so there must be something wrong/illegal they are doing —right.
    And after spending a lot of money bidding that i never won as no 1 can unless they want it —that is the site owners.
    Once you start bidding strongly they must have some sort of bid buddies that bids from their end….but time and again you will feel if you start bidding aggressively you will warn off others but you cannot as most of them arnt.

    In the end you will see the main home page refreshes to remove the already closed auctions and that where they will strike if you or any human player isnt the last bidder you will feel a sort of technical snag and the bot wins that not you ….where as you will feel some1 has actually won.

    GOD great stuff guys fooling every1 with this gimmic I cudnt get your revenue model at all but now I do coz…nothing in life comes cheap or free and no body does a charity, not even sell at zero mark up let alone selling something at 97% discount below you own purchase….na na SORRY guys for all who are spending in their $$$$$ for nothing…..I must recommend my client to get into this business and develop something similar if he really want instant money!!!!!!!

  • googooboyy

    Hi AditMalik, thanks for sharing. Bidpax may appear like a good opportunity, but it may actually be far from a reputable or creditable online company for us.

    There have been plenty of discussions of how users didn't get what they wanted in this blog, but somehow I couldn't transfer those comments into this new (disqus) comment system.

    You may want to look at http://www.pennyauctionwatch.com and see for yourselves the good, the bad and the ugly of it all.

  • adityamalik

    Hi goodboy but the site does nt open it says access denied by country i guess…..have a look at bid20.com its been showing off a lot these days in INdia even on television ads and full page ads in national newspapers,,,,what a scam

  • googooboyy

    Sorry you couldn't visit PAW, it's a gr8 unofficial watchdog for penny auctions. You can try to search Google for 'Penny Auctions' and a host of results should enlighten you.

    As for bid20, they may look authentic but since I am not a member or have any intentions of trying them out, I can't say anything more.

    But I have to add that it's amusing reading their 'About Us', especially the part where they mention that they are a software company, yet they dive into an auction site selling gadgets. Also isn't it weird that if they're so proud as a company to do this, there isn't a single name or face to the staffs of the company, like most reputable, honest online companies do.

    In any case, if they are a legitimate company, I wish them well, BUT If they aren't I hope more users will come up front and testify against them.

  • singh

    my name is singh,i like others was lured in to all this and ended up spending 900rs on Bid20.com came out empty handed.haven;t heard from anyone getting anything from these sites……..so far….!!there was this site Elebarn.com promising to sell cheap electronic gadgets and that too turned out to be a scam.Beware guys!!!! it's a good way to make money though for software fellows:-)

  • singh

    even the banks are hand in glove providing them successful transactions.their logos are displayed as service partners wow……..!!!!No one is safe!!!!:-)lol

  • googooboyy

    I would say that the banks are merely providing a service or a platform for any business to operate on the web, but I'm sure with enough feedback and complaints, any good, trustworthy banks will sincerely terminate any errant vendors' account and also annul the fraudulant transactions, if any.

    Try contacting the banks. Worth a try.