- Joined
- Oct 30, 2004
- Messages
- 6,386
- Age
- 46
- Location
- Clarksville, TN
- Website
- www.gamefaqs.com
- Main Job
- Secondary Job
- Third Job
- Server
- Quetzalcoatl
- Linkshell
- None
- FFXIV
- Rappa
I'm going to preface this rant with a giant warning....
DO NOT MAKE AN ACCOUNT AT SWOOPO! DO NOT SHOP THERE!
Okay then, now that that's out of the way, I want to introduce you to possibly the most evil and diobolical website that I've ever seen...
http://www.swoopo.com/
Go ahead and open up the site in another window. Just watch the homepage for a moment. Looks pretty exciting doesn't it? All those auctions flashing, all those too good to be true prices for great items?
Let's take a look at the inner workings of Swoopo now...
You create an account and give them your billing info and all of that and you're ready to start the exciting world of bidding on cheap items. Now hopefully you already read the rules before you signed up but assuming you didn't, I'll fill you in on the rule that makes this site evil. Every time you bid, the price of item goes up by exactly 15 cents and the time of the auction goes up anywhere from 5 to 20 or so seconds depending on how many people bid at once and how much time is left in the auction. In addition, every time you bid, it costs you $1.
That's right, every bid you place, you pay $1. You never get this money back.
Now let's extrapolate on this a bit. Every time someone bids, Swoopo makes a dollar. Now if you do the math, that means that if Swoopo sells something for 13% of what they paid for it, they just broke even. 13%. Let's say for simplicity's sake that Swoopo auctions off a $100 bill. Let's say that the auction ends at $13.05. That means Swoopo makes $13.05 and they give up $100. That seems like a loss, right? Wrong. $13.05/$.15 = 87. 87 bids means $87. Swoopo just made 5 cents by selling a $100 bill for $13.05.
The amazing thing is that people are actually participating in this. Go back to your open window of the site and watch all the flashing auctions. Everytime they flash, Swoopo just made money. Think of these auctions that end for over $1k. Just imagine how many people bid on that item over and over and ended up with nothing to show for it but a massive loss of money. If you bid on that item 10 times back when it was only $20, you just lost $10 for nothing.
Let's look at a real world example....
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw170j-h-16-4-core-2-duo-n/101046.html
This laptop sold for $3353.85. It's worth $1399.99. Not only did the winner owe $3353.85 for the laptop, he placed 2020 bids. That's an extra $2020 that he has to pay. So already Swoopo's made over $4k just off this guy. But once you count the OTHER BIDDERS, there were (3353.85/.15) - 2020 = 20339 other LOSING BIDS, each of which made Swoopo $1. That's another $20k+ IN ADDITION to the $4k they made off the winner.
If that doesn't make you want to vomit, I don't know what would.
DO NOT MAKE AN ACCOUNT AT SWOOPO! DO NOT SHOP THERE!
Okay then, now that that's out of the way, I want to introduce you to possibly the most evil and diobolical website that I've ever seen...
http://www.swoopo.com/
Go ahead and open up the site in another window. Just watch the homepage for a moment. Looks pretty exciting doesn't it? All those auctions flashing, all those too good to be true prices for great items?
Let's take a look at the inner workings of Swoopo now...
You create an account and give them your billing info and all of that and you're ready to start the exciting world of bidding on cheap items. Now hopefully you already read the rules before you signed up but assuming you didn't, I'll fill you in on the rule that makes this site evil. Every time you bid, the price of item goes up by exactly 15 cents and the time of the auction goes up anywhere from 5 to 20 or so seconds depending on how many people bid at once and how much time is left in the auction. In addition, every time you bid, it costs you $1.
That's right, every bid you place, you pay $1. You never get this money back.
Now let's extrapolate on this a bit. Every time someone bids, Swoopo makes a dollar. Now if you do the math, that means that if Swoopo sells something for 13% of what they paid for it, they just broke even. 13%. Let's say for simplicity's sake that Swoopo auctions off a $100 bill. Let's say that the auction ends at $13.05. That means Swoopo makes $13.05 and they give up $100. That seems like a loss, right? Wrong. $13.05/$.15 = 87. 87 bids means $87. Swoopo just made 5 cents by selling a $100 bill for $13.05.
The amazing thing is that people are actually participating in this. Go back to your open window of the site and watch all the flashing auctions. Everytime they flash, Swoopo just made money. Think of these auctions that end for over $1k. Just imagine how many people bid on that item over and over and ended up with nothing to show for it but a massive loss of money. If you bid on that item 10 times back when it was only $20, you just lost $10 for nothing.
Let's look at a real world example....
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw170j-h-16-4-core-2-duo-n/101046.html
This laptop sold for $3353.85. It's worth $1399.99. Not only did the winner owe $3353.85 for the laptop, he placed 2020 bids. That's an extra $2020 that he has to pay. So already Swoopo's made over $4k just off this guy. But once you count the OTHER BIDDERS, there were (3353.85/.15) - 2020 = 20339 other LOSING BIDS, each of which made Swoopo $1. That's another $20k+ IN ADDITION to the $4k they made off the winner.
If that doesn't make you want to vomit, I don't know what would.
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..and have a lot of money!
I can't wait to win stuff at such a low low price.
