Saturday, April 11, 2009

真的有这么大只蛤蟆通街跳?On Swoopo...

Last 2 day i was looking for any cheap deal for Apple Iphone, when i came across this.

A brand new Iphone 3g 16G is up for grab now!! just bid and you will get a chance to buy it with a greatly discounted time. But wait....

Each bid will cost u 50p, further more, the end time automatically extend when a person bid, so you might need suveral bid to secure ur deal , which sometime cost u several hundred pound like the last winner....

For the auctioner, they sure gain hell lot! Consider an auction price starts from 0.01 GBP, and end up with 200++. Multiply this figure by 50 , 10000++ will be the auctioner income!!!

Furthermore, people who need to bid will need to buy a 10pound bid package. Although the auctioner promised to cash back 10 pound for the bid, as several people will buy it, it end up only few people will get their cash back.

AND, most importantly, people involved in it will be addicted, as first 10 pound you spent on the bid cost u expected to be free ( from the cash back reward on first winning auction ), u will definitely spend more, especially you are bidding on huge discounted item like the Iphone. Thus, you either stop early or end up keep on bidding, as you already spent a lot on bidding and you dont wanna end up wasting all ur previous bid.

At the end, the auction probably stop when all the other parties can't or not willing to follow up as the auction price is too high. If we plus the bidding cost together, the winner probably spent more than he just bought a Iphone from the retail store.

As conclusion, this is actually another form of gambling, only difference is, gambling actually held higher percentage to win compared to this !