Swoopo - wish I'd thought of THAT!

These is this ridiculous new auction site called swoopo. The company itself is auctioning all the items. In some auctions, the bid increments are 1 or 15 cents. And the winner of the auction generally gets a TV or laptop or whatever at a good price.

Here's the catch...it costs $1 to place a bid! Suppose they auction off a TV worth $1500. Let's suppose that 100 people bid about 50 times each for this TV. So the TV sells for $750. Someone gets a $1500 TV for $750 (plus their $50 in bids). 99 people are out $50 each. And swoopo makes...drum roll please...$5000!!! (OK, they had to pay $1200 for the TV which they sold for $750, so they made $5000-1200+750 = $4550 profit.)

They also have automatic bidding so sometime near the end of an auction, automatic bids come fast and furious. And every time someone bids, it adds time to the clock!

Sometime they even auction off CASH. That doesn't seem legal. It's basically gambling. The whole thing seems borderline illegal and unethical. They are making money like crazy. Wish I'd thought of it!

- schneid