markerbids.com

[stevewar]

Hey everyone,

has anybody checked out this site? I'm now lawyer, but I am a software engineer, and know a bot when I see one.

there is currently an auction for a dm-12, which retails for about $1250. The way this software works is that each bid costs approximately $1. If you buy larger bid packets, you can get that down to about $.70 each.

At this time, there is a bidder, named CrewNYC who has bid 2754 times for this item. I have saved the bid history available straight from the website. It is clear this "bidder" is a shill to jack up the number of bids.


Also, Mike made this comment: This auction is for a FACTORY SEALED, Dye DM12 in Black / Tan. BY FAR the best color that Dye came out with for 2012, this is an absolutely GORGEOUS marker, probably the best looking DM I've ever seen! I bought two of these at World Cup, one for review, one to sell on Markerbids! Last night's DLX LUXS 2.0 dumepd at $3.17, get on this marker early!! FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING!!!

Seems to me he lost big time on the DLX, so he kicked his bot up to push the bids on this DM12.

Take a look at the bid history, you will see that the autobidders always take exactly 18 seconds to bid. Since the autobidder is SUPPOSED to be random, this couldn't be the autobidder.

Does anybody know Mike Phillips? Is he a legit guy?

here's a small sample of the log I'm speaking of...
$56.89 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:22:34 AM
$56.88 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:22:16 AM
$56.87 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:21:58 AM
$56.86 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:21:40 AM
$56.85 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:21:22 AM
$56.84 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:21:04 AM
$56.83 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:20:46 AM
$56.82 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:20:28 AM
$56.81 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:20:10 AM
$56.80 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:19:52 AM
$56.79 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:19:34 AM
$56.78 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:19:16 AM
$56.77 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:18:58 AM
$56.76 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:18:40 AM
$56.75 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:18:22 AM
$56.74 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:18:04 AM
$56.73 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:17:46 AM
$56.72 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:17:28 AM
$56.71 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:17:10 AM
$56.70 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:16:52 AM
$56.69 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:16:52 AM
$56.68 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:16:34 AM
$56.67 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:16:16 AM
$56.66 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:15:58 AM
$56.65 * kiabuckets 10/25/2011 02:15:40 AM
$56.64 * CrewNYC 10/25/2011 02:15:22 AM

[Chronobreak]

while i wouldnt feel confident enough to call the site an outright scam I would reccomend staying away from it and not bidding, there are alot of sketchy things going on there and similar sites.

I would liken the "bidding" more to" gambling"

[cockerpunk]

if you win, you will get your stuff as promised.

IF you win being the key part. be sure you know how the system works before you get involved.

[tigar19]

It's a legit site. Mike Phillips is very well known in the PB community mainly due to his TechPB videos and forum. I believe he states somewhere on that site about how he has hired Dale Ford (The Ford Report) to randomly audit his site to make sure their are no auto bots hiking up the price.

To prove to the critics he's legit, he asks the winners to post up a picture/video of their win in exchange for some free bids.

You really should take a closer look at how the autobidder works before making such a claim. I don't remember the specifics, but it's something like each bid add time to the clock and the auto bidder will automatically place a bid for you when there is something like 10 second left or something like that. So, the consistent 18 seconds could be the difference between the added time due to a bid being placed and when the autobidder is scheduled to make another bid.

Go take another look at the site. Go check out the forum. Go dig a little deeper and I think you'll come to the conclusion that the site is legit. People win all the time. Sometimes, people win expensive things very cheaply. Sometimes not, and that's why it's a gamble.

Edit: I am not a software engineer.

[TOTShadowCompany]

If this is true..."At this time, there is a bidder, named CrewNYC who has bid 2754 times for this item" that means CrewNYC paid or bid $1,927.80 for a $1,250 marker???

Something sounds fishy there to me...

Like to old saying goes, "If it sounds too good to be true..."

[Frizzle Fry]

Ever since the APOLLO LCD issue, I tend to avoid that crowd

I would not trust it.

[tigar19]

I don't think we have the whole story. Two possible explanations (and there could be more) is he has Free bids from posting up previous winnings or he won a Bid Pack at a low price that they sometimes put up for sale. Then again, there are some people who after bidding so much money they simply cannot walk away without winning the item. Even if it meant they paid more than retail.

If you want the truth, go on their forum and ask him if he really paid that much more than what that item is worth.

I'm telling you, Mike Phillips, is a legit guy and that also goes for his Markerbids website. In the world outside of paintball I know he is taking college courses for his Accounting degree or he already has it and is studying for the CPA exam.

He also opened another similar site for selling RC items which is another hobby of his.

[DevilMan]

It's funny... this and the other companies are legit for the most part. The Beezid and Quibids and stuff like that.... they are legit and are not scamming in their process. And they are making SERIOUS money doing it.

They say that a NIB APPLE IPAD sold for $27.39!!! Well when a person has placed a bid on that product then that's worth 1 penny to the price, the thing is, all together the 1 penny bid actually cost the buyer $1 or so. So say a bidder bids 10 times and each bid has cost them $1, the bidder added only 10 cents to the BID price but has basically thrown $10 of their money out the window. It goes to the company as a bid that you lost because you still PAY for the bids you placed. It's not a matter of getting the money back if you don't win the item.

So say that the IPad sold for $27.39 and each bid cost each bidder $1. The company has just sold the IPad for $2,739.00!!!! Yes... that's almost THREE THOUSAND dollars!!!

So the companies are making major profit off of other people tossing 3 dollars, 23 dollars, XX dollars at an auction that they don't win. They put the money in and they have paid. Some win, but most do not in that aspect. It's 100% legit because it's not a scam. It's a "well ran" business. It is similar to gambling with the exception that there WILL be a winner. With gambling, it's the luck of the draw so to speak. With this stuff it's going to sell... just not sure to who.

I played it when it first started. Before it became so well known. Now there are LOTS of copies of the main ones and as they say, "The devil is in the details." Read the fine print. Understand what you are getting into. I played it, I spent about $50 learning it and I mainly bought gift cards for eateries and stores and such. I made just a little more than what I spent and called it quits. It's super easy to get sucked into the process. If you have an addictive nature I would stay away from it. If you can control yourself and understand that it's not a game to play but that you need to understand the rules on what you are doing then go for it. I don't think you'll come out ahead too often, but you never know.

DM

[Frizzle Fry]

I'm telling you, Mike Phillips, is a legit guy and that also goes for his Markerbids website.

http://www.techpb.com/forum/index.ph...ic=134995&st=0

This marker was donated to TechPB by a gentleman named Dizzart I have done business with on AOG as a museum piece for Mike to make his "Traveling Paintball Museum" (similar to what EMR does, but mobile). The idea was, rather than sell it, he wanted to donate what is probably the last PL Angel LCD that's effectively unifired/new in package to someone that would appreciate it and display it rather than use it to make money and start some enormous bidding war. He contacted Mike, and explained his case, and Mike he said he wanted the gun for the collection/museum - he even sent a prepaid shipping label to Dizzart. When the marker arrived, Mike took pictures of the marker, made a video firing, and marked the box with Dizzys name.

Almost a year later the gun shows up, with the packaging but having been used, on AOG. The kid who's selling it states he bought it on Markerbids.com where Mike listed it for sale. Dizzart contacted Mike and others, and was ignored. Finally he contacted several Paintball bloggers/site managers (including Dale Ford, who claimed he did not want anything to do with MarkerBids) and tried to get to the bottom of this by making it public knowledge.

Since then Mike has been editing forum posts regarding the theft of his marker, and claimed that "TechPB sells guns so if you give us something it's reasonably to expect we'd sell it", claiming that he never intended to start a museum (documented), claiming that he didn't know who donated the gun it just showed up (documented), claiming he sold it to buy an SMG 68 (why, if there's no museum?) and even offering the buy the marker back from the kid now selling it to "burn it". Every bit of contact that was positive was ignored, and every bit that was negative was met with more of Mikes BS.

Dizzart is one of the nicest guys I've done business with on AOG, but with that said, he's not my "friend" he's just a guy I did business with and encountered on the forums and field and I respect him for how he operates. If he was a jerk like Mike Philips, he would have listed the marker on Ebay for $1000+ back when it was new in package and tried to make money on the thing - instead he tried to do something good for the sport (at great cost to himself) and has been screwed over since. Oh and if you mention it even in passing, you're in for a nice ban on TechPB; why ban people for asking questions if you don't have something to hide? It's not a public forum and Dizzarts side of this has not ever really been heard because of moderator interference. When the conversations between Dizz and Mike were posted elsewhere, Mike wasn't very happy.

Mike Phillips (and other TechPB-involved loudmouths) are far too high on their minor internet fame to ever admit that they are wrong on a subject, practicing bad business, or even that they just screwed up and made an honest mistake...



If you're looking to do "business" on MarkerBidz, take a peek at some of the comments Mike has made about honesty and business practices and make the right choice...

If hiring a third party group to audit the site was a hurdle in ensuring the site's success, I would consider it.

But I don't trust these "compliance" people. We've got a successful pay-per-bid site, that's running efficiently with a strong following and client list. We've spent thousands of dollars ensuring it runs fair, spent hundreds of hours fixing it, tweaking it, and configuring it to work it's absolute best.

We're not going to turn over a 6,000+ client list, along with the entire code of the website to a "audit agency", who could end up stealing our client list, or screwing up the site.

Sorry if we don't agree, but I'm not going to hand the keys over to a successful website, along with thousands of dollars per month, for someone to tell me what I already know.

And it doesn't matter who I hire or how much I spend, you're just going to shoot holes in that as well.

If I hired a guy with a MIT Doctorate in computer science, who was the VP of Penny Bid Website Auditing at Earnst & Young, you'd still find something to attack me with. So it's pointless.


His logic is that if he's making money, there's no reason to distrust him because other people are utilizing his "services" (OK, that works with regard to Ponzi schemes too, right?) - and that a third party audit by a professional group would be a risk to his business because they "might steal his ideas or customers" (Sure. That makes sense ).

[TechPB-Mike]

LOL good ol' Steve Warshaw!

For the record, Steve Warshaw has never patroned Markerbids, nor is he a customer. In an effort to sell his "software consulting business", he's trying to promote his own business, on the coattails of the popularity of Markerbids. Read his comments here-

Read Steve's Comments about Markerbids here

In a last ditch effort to do, whatever he was trying to do, he is threatening to "pwn my company" with a lawsuit of some sorts. Yea whatever.

He signed up for Markerbids this afternoon (after threatening to sue), bought two small bids packs which were quickly refunded.

I'm not sure who Steve's story is, nor has he ever been a customer of Markerbids. Probably he's just looking for another avenue to hock his MLM Arbonne garbage-

http://www.energiefitness.net/

Markerbids does not run bots, we have an independent consultant (Dale Ford) who routinely checks the site to ensure that the "automated users" is both shut off, and that none are in the que.

Kiabuckets has a Youtube channel, check it out here-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51xUdHOjObU

CrewNYC has a Youtube Channel, check it out here-
http://www.youtube.com/user/CrewNYC

kiabuckets name is Keith, and he lives in Alberta, Canada. CrewNYC's name is Chris, and he lives in New York. All of their bids and bid packs are accounted for through paypal.

I think Steve Warshaw has let the fumes of that Arbonne he's been hocking get to his head. He claims he's going to "pwn" the website with a lawsuit. I'm definitely looking forward to meeting (and thanking) Chris & Keith in person at the court hearing.

Steve is looking to either "self promote" his personal training business, his software consulting business, or his arbonne business by attempting to attack my site under the threat of a lawsuit.

We'll see how much "pwn'ing" is done when we all show up with our paypal receipts, matching bank records, and corresponding bids used.

The only thing more fun than being sued... is counter-sueing! I apologize to the mods in advance for this nonsense that Steve has decided to vomit on your forums. I'm not here to sell Markerbids to anyone, just defending it against someone who woke up yesterday and has taken on a desperate agenda to use my company to hopefully promote his own

[TechPB-Mike]

Also, the thing with the Angel was simple - he donated it to TechPB, we did a couple shows on it, and we sold it. People donate things to TechPB all the time, we use them and we sell them.

The problem was how Dizzart and TB decided to handle the issue. Instead of contacting me (the only person who had the ability to get the gun back), they went on a week long smear campaign, calling me everything from a thief, a liar, a fraud, yada yada blah blah

Had Dizzart simply contacted me and said "Hey Mike, I noticed you sold the Angel that I donated to TechPB. That gun meant alot to me and I was hoping that maybe you could get it back." I would have gladly gotten the gun back. I could have bought it back in cash, gave the buyer free bids, I could have printed a label that would have shipped the gun, via FedEx Overnight, directly from the buyer to Dizzart.

If TB would have contacted me and said "Hey Mike, I got someone here who is pretty upset. He donated an Angel to you a year ago, and you recently sold it on Markerbids. Any chance you could undo that sale, and get the Angel back to him?"

We had that Angel, sitting in storage for almost a year, and he never contacted me asking about the condition of it, the status of it, or when he could expect it to be returned.

As far as the paintball museum, that was going to be of my PERSONAL markers. I am not interested in being responsible for other people's property. If I want a paintball gun bad enough, I'll just go buy it. How much are Angel LCD's going for? $150? Maybe less?

The museum idea was of my own PERSONAL marker collection. At one time, I had over 100+ markers in my possession, most of which were showcased on TechPB. My local pawn shops are practically giving away classic paintball guns, there is nothing "rare" or "unique" about 99.99999% of the markers in paintball. Just like the FN303, if I want it, I go buy it.

If Dizzart was truly interested in getting the Angel back, he should have contacted me instead of launching his smear campaign. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being smeared on multiple websites.

And as he learned, that's no way to get help from me. Had he handled it differently, I would have gladly gotten it back into his hands. You guys can have the last word here, I won't be posting in this thread again

[Frizzle Fry]

AOG had pretty well documented this thing since the marker came up for sale. The supporting members section was discussing this and his attempts to contact you long before any "smear campaigns" started, and in fact the reason he went to 3rd parties to get attention was that his TechPB PMs were ignored and his posts edited, and you refused to be civil.

Since you're clearly in it for the cash and only the cash, you might have trouble understanding this - Dizzart wanted to DONATE his marker to a MUSEUM to SUPPORT THE SPORT. If he wanted to sell it, he would have sold it unfired for plenty more than what you sold it for after you used it... He bought your bogus story about caring about the sport and made the mistake of getting involved with you - the reasons he wanted his gun back were many and varied but it boiled down to the fact that you outright lied to him time and time again, and took his donation to the "cause" of bettering the sport of paintball and preserving it's history for the next generation of players and sold it for personal profit.

[cockerpunk]

Since you're clearly in it for the cash and only the cash

mike can be called a lot of things, in paintball for the money is not one of them.

[Frizzle Fry]

mike can be called a lot of things, in paintball for the money is not one of them.

...so he starts a pay-per-bid site (the modern equivalent of 3 Card Monte) filled with autobidding scripts which sells guns/gear that people give him for free? He sells markers that people donate to him for educational/historical purposes? And plasters banner ads over everything he touches? Whatever you say. That doesn't sound profitable at all. How much do your moderators get paid over on TechPB by the way, do they get a cut of the profits?

[cockerpunk]

...so he starts a pay-per-bid site (the modern equivalent of 3 Card Monte) filled with autobidding scripts which sells guns/gear that people give him for free? He sells markers that people donate to him for educational/historical purposes? And plasters banner ads over everything he touches? Whatever you say. That doesn't sound profitable at all. How much do your moderators get paid over on TechPB by the way, do they get a cut of the profits?

zero, and what profits?

there is no money in paintball dude, anyone who produces anything in this sport knows it and can tell you that.

[stevewar]

Ok Mike,

First of all, I am a customer @ markerbids. I've followed along several auctions for at least a month trying to understand the entire system. The day I wrote that penny bids are legit post was the day I signed up on your site; I did so because I like your techpb videos. I hadn't purchased any bids because your site is VERY buggy, and often unreachable. Once I was familiar with some of the issues, I decided to try bidding on the DM-12. That's when I noticed the auto bid system placing bids at the EXACT same interval over and over again. That's what caused me to search for the bid history logs, and that's why this issue came into question. Also, if you noticed, my public conversation here on AO was inquisitive. My personal email to you stated that the over bidding was suspicious, and if your explanation was lacking, I would consider legal action. I may have only wasted 15 dollars bidding on your website, but that doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing for other people who have, or who might be, ripped off.

Now let's be clear about something; I'm not trying to promote my own business. Sans the fact that your website doesn't get that much traffic, and is next to worthless in SEO terms, you will see, in fact andQUITE CLEARLY that I shut down energiefitness due to antiquated internet policies.

The only lawsuit I threatened was if you couldn't provide any reasonable evidence that these bidders weren't shills. Your answer for them paying over 200% of retail value for a marker was "reputation" on your website. I again gave you the opportunity to provide a way for me to validate these users were real, and you declined. I then investigated the VERY suspicisous bidding activity going on with the DM 12, and to related that data with other auctions in which CrewNYC and KiaBuckets were involved head to head. In EVERY auction these two go head to head, they pay over 150% of retail value for the item being auctioned. It seems to me these guys would know each other well enough to understand that they are "serious" bidders. Your entire argument is hogwash.

Kiabuckets has a Youtube channel, check it out here-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51xUdHOjObU

CrewNYC has a Youtube Channel, check it out here-
http://www.youtube.com/user/CrewNYC

kiabuckets name is Keith, and he lives in Alberta, Canada. CrewNYC's name is Chris, and he lives in New York. All of their bids and bid packs are accounted for through paypal.

I have multiple paypal accounts and youtube channels, and I even sans that, how does that disprove that these guys could have a partnership with you?

With regards to Arbonne, I see you could use a little nutritional help yourself Mike. Instead of opening your very large mouth and inserting your very large foot, maybe you should READ a little.

I think Steve Warshaw has let the fumes of that Arbonne he's been hocking get to his head. He claims he's going to "pwn" the website with a lawsuit. I'm definitely looking forward to meeting (and thanking) Chris & Keith in person at the court hearing.

Steve is looking to either "self promote" his personal training business, his software consulting business, or his arbonne business by attempting to attack my site under the threat of a lawsuit.

We'll see how much "pwn'ing" is done when we all show up with our paypal receipts, matching bank records, and corresponding bids used.

The only thing more fun than being sued... is counter-sueing! I apologize to the mods in advance for this nonsense that Steve has decided to vomit on your forums. I'm not here to sell Markerbids to anyone, just defending it against someone who woke up yesterday and has taken on a desperate agenda to use my company to hopefully promote his own.

Actually no mike, what I'm trying to do is figure out if I, and other decent people are being ripped off. I don't need to promote my side businesses, they're just hobbies. Your site doesn't get enough traffic to make 1 bit off difference for them anyway.

I have indeed contacted the BBB and my IP attorney to find out of this matter is worth investigating. It is likely that your business doesn't have enough value to be worth suing. However, if my own personal investigating of your publicly available data continues to show VERY suspicious activity, am I going to call it out.

If you want man up, and actually provide the evidence I asked for originally, you could have your developer call me directly. That's a fairly simple and free (or almost free) solution.

[stevewar]

zero, and what profits?

there is no money in paintball dude, anyone who produces anything in this sport knows it and can tell you that.

Penny auctions, if legit, are MASSIVELY profitable, in terms of percentage...As of this point, the minimum income for the DM-12 auction is around $6160. That's an INCREDIBLE margin for any business

[Frizzle Fry]

zero, and what profits?

there is no money in paintball dude, anyone who produces anything in this sport knows it and can tell you that.

That's a pretty broad generalization. Some of us actually work in the industry (or have worked in the industry) in a capacity somewhat greater making snarky comments about it on Youtube and playing scientist in our backyard. Granted startups are tough, but online retail has become the best way to make a profit in paintball, and it becomes even easier when people have to pay you for the right to walk into your store (never mind the products they purchase). You don't have to make a lot of money to be making money.

If Markerbids.com isn't yet and will never be profitable, then why is Mike defending his choice to not allow his site to be audited claiming worries over the theft of his customer base and technology? I've dealt with forums - the advertising on TechPB is more than adequate to cover the costs of maintaining the site (both software and hosting), and with moderators and "staff" essentially donating their time for just the privilege of position there's no need to worry about man hours - hell people line up to work for free.

You can say what you want, but it doesn't change the way Mike has behaved in the past towards other members of the paintball community, and sadly many of his supporters and apparently customers too. So yeah, he's not someone you should do business with, nor is he someone you should trust or try to "help".

Penny auctions, if legit, are MASSIVELY profitable, in terms of percentage...As of this point, the minimum income for the DM-12 auction is around $6160. That's an INCREDIBLE margin for any business

Don't mind Cockerpunk, he's always right.

[stevewar]

Don't mind Cockerpunk, he's always right.

Let me be clear here. I really do like the videos mike makes. I really did want him to produce some kind of reasonable evidence such that I could continue using the site with confidence.

I did make a mistake in threatening legal action. I was pissed off because I was, and am still, fairly certain I was being ripped off. For that I apologize.

That said, mike keeps saying that he has paypal receipts, back records, and bid history to back him up. I only wish, for his sake, that those pieces of evidence actually prove that there is no fraud involved. Mike, have you ever heard of collusion?

The simple way to clear yourself here mike is to let an independent party, me or somebody else with software engineering experience including PHP, SQL, etc. to inspect the code, and the apache logs. I don't even need to see the private customer data.

Your excuse about stealing code is ridiculous. First of all, there are free penny auction platforms available all over the internet, and second, anything you have on your site I could recreate without seeing your code anyway.

[DevilMan]

Stealing code? Really? I guess someone never got over Angelina from back in the crash and burn days.

Like making/maintaining/operating a website takes rocket science these days.

Please...

DM

[tigar19]

At first I was under the impression that an innocent question was being asked about markerbids.com and Mike Phillips.

Now it is clear to me that this thread is tied to some personal vendetta and the inncoent question was just a cover.

I'm done with the politics. Paintball is my hobby and I prefer to keep it as a relaxing hobby.

[StygShore]

Is it possible the users who are racking up these bids are using somethign like Bid sniper program like they make for Ebay that autobids for them? So they are doing something outside the Markerbids.com programming all together?

Not defending the plauers, just throwing another option out there for the shady bidding practices?


I thought they were shutting down all the penny auction sites a while back, but some new law must have passed becasue I am seeing adds on TV for this crap as well.

If I am understanidng, you are paying money per Bid, not for your bid amount... so if something is $23.00 and you put in a bid that cost you $1.00 the bid will go up to $23.01 right?


Styg

[cockerpunk]

Penny auctions, if legit, are MASSIVELY profitable, in terms of percentage...As of this point, the minimum income for the DM-12 auction is around $6160. That's an INCREDIBLE margin for any business

and all that money (which isn't that much anyway, you see stuff go for under its cost quite often) goes right back into keeping techpb going.

i can't produce any evidence, as i have no offical affilation with markerbids. all i can say, is that mike is not luaghing all the way to the bank with techpb, or markerbids. and it is more then obvious that mike is not involved in paintball to make money on it. he is here cause he loves paintball more then anyonei have ever known. markerbids is a method to pay for things mike wants to do with techpb and paintball in general.

fizzle said mike only cares about money, i merely wanted to correct that.

[cockerpunk]

Is it possible the users who are racking up these bids are using somethign like Bid sniper program like they make for Ebay that autobids for them? So they are doing something outside the Markerbids.com programming all together?

Not defending the plauers, just throwing another option out there for the shady bidding practices?


I thought they were shutting down all the penny auction sites a while back, but some new law must have passed becasue I am seeing adds on TV for this crap as well.

If I am understanidng, you are paying money per Bid, not for your bid amount... so if something is $23.00 and you put in a bid that cost you $1.00 the bid will go up to $23.01 right?


Styg

i would assume bid sniping is an effective strategy

[shooter311]

Is it possible the users who are racking up these bids are using somethign like Bid sniper program like they make for Ebay that autobids for them? So they are doing something outside the Markerbids.com programming all together?

I think it is just the point that CrewNYC bid 4574 times on this marker, and Kiabuckets bid 3045 times (That's $5,333 those two spent on a marker they didn't even come close to winning. *assuming they are paying $.70 per bid). That just seems odd for experienced bidders, plus that they were bidding on it when it was at $.01, 3 days before the auction end. I think experienced bidders would know that is throwing money away. The only time to bid, is at the auction end, otherwise you would never win, there is always someone that bids at the auction end, and I am guessing there has never been a winner that won on the bid for first cent.


I am not taking sides, just trying to clear up the point being made. It is odd behavior, but I think people should know what they are getting into when investing money. I would rather invest money into marker bids than scratch off tickets (at least there is somewhat of a chance of winning something on MB).

[tigar19]

i would assume bid sniping is an effective strategy

The fact that each bid adds time to the countdown clock makes bid sniping ineffective. The way to win is to out bid the other bidders. There are strategies to accomplish this, but trying to place a bid at the last possible second does not guarantee a win.

[DevilMan]

Correct! Bid Sniping is irrelevant. When someone bids, it adds time to the clock. Much like a REAL auction works. When you pony up that you'll pay more than the other guy, the other guy gets a chance to counter. I really wish Ebay was that way. Well when I'm selling stuff anyway!

If 5 people wait until the end of the auction and bid within the last 4 seconds, then it will add X amount of time to the clock. Some sites are different times so I can't say for certain what the times are, but say it's 30 seconds per bid, then it just added 2.5 minutes to the clock. Some sites I know it would only ad the 30 seconds for the first bid and then like 10 seconds for each bid after that. But the thing is, if you are there to bid, you can run the auction out for days. One of the things about the sites. If you can't be there for the duration of it, then you may want to pass.

But yes, tossing X number of bids that equates to real money that is way above and beyond the value of something that you could go to the highest priced store and pay full retail and give a healthy tip to the sales clerk is not something that too many people do. Especially people in this sport and in this economy.

So no CP. Bid Sniping is a moot point. And if there was no money to be made in PB then this sport wouldn't be this old. Period! Making some money is better than making no money and NO sport/company/business/etc survives by constantly losing money. Breaking even and having your bills all paid and mouths all fed and is still making money.

DM

[tigar19]

^^^The whole point behind the autobidder option is so you do no have to sit in front of your computer the entire time. You establish the maximum amount of bids, turn on autobidder, and go to sleep. The autobidder will continue to place a bid for you during the final 30 seconds until it has reached your set max.

There is a great section in the site's Forum about the different strategies that may make some sense of what you're seeing and calling suspicious. I suggest you read this. LINK

[shooter311]

^^^The whole point behind the autobidder option is so you do no have to sit in front of your computer the entire time. You establish the maximum amount of bids, turn on autobidder, and go to sleep. The autobidder will continue to place a bid for you during the final 30 seconds until it has reached your set max.

There is a great section in the site's Forum about the different strategies that may make some sense of what you're seeing and calling suspicious. I suggest you read this. LINK

If you look at the bid history though, they were bidding up the item days before its end. Crew NYC bid over 4,500 worth before the final day of the auction. This is not sniping because it was not used during the end of the auction. I could invest a million dollars in the first day then a person with 1 bid could win it at the end of the auction.

[stevewar]

i would assume bid sniping is an effective strategy

Actually for penny auctions, there is no way to snipe. Unlike EBay, whose auctions have a definitive ending, penny auctions can continue on into infinity.

The thing that makes your bid timing interesting is the psychology of bidding against a LIVE user or a live person watching their, not somebody using the autobid system. If you are head to head with a live person, there are some psychological games that can be played with your bid timing. One such method is the bully method (or call it whatever you want) where everytime a person bids, you immediately outbid them. If you're resolute, this method can be very discouraging to the person bidding against you.

In terms of the autobid system, the thing to do is wait until there is less time to bid. That's why having an autobidder that bids at the exact same time is ludicrous. The markerbids autobid system apparently always waits 18 seconds from the last bid, and at least on the DM auction, the count down timer always started at 34 seconds. As a live bidder, all you would have to do is wait for the timer to get down to 10, and you'd know you weren't bidding against the autobid system.

Of course the problem is "people" like KiaBuckets and CrewNYC apparently set their maximum bid price to be insanely high, and they don't care how much money they spend on bids (or Mike doles them out free or cheaper bids than anyone else can purchase). This allows the bid wars to go on automatic for literally days.

The funny thing about this design is that it would take me less than an hour to write a script that simply captured the count down timer, and notified me when it got below the threshold, and then manually bid against them. That way, a user could live their life, and still easily win auctions against these "people" who waste insane amounts of money on their autobidder. Of course, having an intelligent autobid system that varied the bid timing would make this much harder, which is why I asserted that these "people" are not actually using the autobid system. If I'm wrong, then the developer Mike hired to write his autobid system is seriously incapable.