Does Quibids Make Millions?

When you think of the most profitable penny auction site, you probably think about Quibids. Quibids is the largest penny auction site on the internet today. But is it the most profitable one? Honestly, the most profitable penny auction sites are the penny auction sites that truly are scams. The dishonest penny auction sites are the ones the use bots and don't ship the customers products. These sites do not stay around long so short term they might be profitable but sooner or later people realize the penny auction site is a scam and the site closes down running away with peoples money.

But lets get back to Quibids. The site sells a $50 gift card for only $3.50. That is 350 bids at $0.60 each. Thus, Quibids is making $160 off of that one auction ((350*$0.60) - $50 = $160). So it might seem that Quibids is making millions of dollars. However, in an article posted on Quibids.com the company begs to differ. Quibids says that they make a net profit margin of 5-10% every day. This is not much more than major retailers like Wal-Mart that reported a 3.5% profit margin in 2010.

One thing that customers ignore when roughly calculating Quibid's profits is the buy-it-now option on Quibids. Buy-It-Now allows customers to apply the amount that they spent on bids on an auction towards buying the item at full retail price. When a customer chooses buy-it-now, Quibids does not make a profit off that person's bids. The Buy-It-Now price is just slightly above the price a person would purchase the profit off of Amazon. Quibids is probably only making 1% profit on each item sold via buy-it-now.

Quibids also reports to loose money on 50% of their auctions every day. The money that they make on profitable auctions helps pay for the money lost on the non-profitable auctions. Another fact that customers seem to forget is that cost to run a business. Quibids must pay rent for their office space, pay salaries, office supplies, marketing fees and more.

Quibids is still a very profitable company and I definitely wouldn't mind making the money they make. However, they are not as profitable as they seem. Quibids being the most popular penny auction site, think about the profitability of other smaller penny auction sites like Happy Bid Day, BidCactus or Biduh these sites might not be making as much money as it might seem.

Wavee Site is Down - Customers Conserned Wavee is a Scam

The Wavee site is down due to "technical issues".  If you visit Wavee.com you will see the below message to their customers:

Wavee Customers,

Unfortunately, Wavee is currently unavailable due to technical difficulties. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to restore service.

We are continuing to ship normally during this disruption. If you have additional shipping questions, you may contact us here. We will post any information regarding the outage here on the website as it becomes known. We appreciate your patience.

The Wavee Team

Personally, I have seen over 20 penny auctions sites close their doors due to "technical issues," claiming that they will open soon, but these sites never return. The Wavee team states that they will be shipping won products. However, there are numerous customers reporting that they are not receiving the products that they won on this penny auction site. This is just too bad. 

I frankly don't believe that Wavee's site is down due to computer issues. I think it is because they had 442 complaints filed in the recent 3 years with the Better Business Bureau. The Better Business Bureau is warning customers and potential customers to not play and shop on Wavee.com. Better Business Bureau complains are from numerous states including: New Jersey, Texas, Oregon, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Florida, California and Hawaii. 


The reasons for customer complaints varies but the most common complaint involves technical issues. Wavee's penny auction site will shut down while people are bidding on an auction. When the site crashes, the winning customer does not receive the product they were bidding on and also loses bids. 


There has also been occurrences where customers have had unauthorized charges on their credit cards. Testimonials against Wavee including an story about unautthorized credit card use can be found on SiteJabber. Most customers on SiteJabber believe that Wavee is a big scam. 


The Better Business Bureau warns customers to read a website's terms and conditions before participating and giving money to the site. Also, review the Better Business Bureau's rating of the site. In this case, the Better Business Bureau rated Wavee and "F". A rating of an F is the worst score any company can have. There are penny auction sites that have good ratings. Below are some Better Business Ratings for popular penny auction sites on a scale of A+ to F:


Quibids: A-
Bid66: A-
BidRivals: A-
BidPigs: A-
BidFire: F

So what's next for Wavee? Will Wavee have a lawsuit just like the Quibids Lawsuit? 

Florida's Attorney General is Investigating Penny Auction Sites

According to News4Jax, Florida's Attorney General is investigating penny auction sites and looking into the possibility that penny auction sites are scams. Many people believe penny auctions are too good to be true. Florida's Attorney General agrees that it is just too great of a deal. However, real people do actually win great items like a 42 inch tv for $1.53 or a PS3 for $2.34. The way penny auctions make money is by charging for bids. Each bid costs anywhere from $0.50 - $1.00. When a bid is placed the auction price increases a penny. Thus, if a video game is sold for $1 and bids are $0.50 each, the penny auction site really made $51 (100 X $0.50 + $1). Some people think penny auctions are a scam, but they are not illegal.

Below is a statement by Florida's Attorney General's Office:

"Our Cyber Fraud Task Force is looking into the issue of penny auctions as an active investigation and therefore we will be unable to provide any additional detail. As far as tips for consumers, we are still learning about these sites. However, at a minimum, reading and understanding the terms and conditions, including any information about the charges necessary to register or buy bids is certainly important."

There have been several lawsuits on penny auction sites and lawyers claim that they want these sites to be listed as gambling sites rather than retail sites.