Does anyone use guns4pennies auction site?

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chutestrate

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How does it work. I read the getting started information, and it makes no sense to me. Are people buying and selling way under market value???
 
Technically a scam. It's just a penny auction but for guns. You buy a set amount of bids for a price then every time you bid time is added to allow others to bid. Every bid used isn't credited back if you lose so you (and everyone else) basically pay the entire price and then some to win something for "pennies".

Just google penny auctions if that wasn't clear enough.
 
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I know nothing about that site but I can already tell you, like the poster above, that it is a scam.


"If it is too good to be true, it probbly isn't".
 
Not a scam

It's a risk, not a scam. Yes, there are more losers than winners there, like any penny auction, but you know that going in. Penny auctions certainly aren't for everybody, but if you have a good mix of luck and skill you can win and be ahead of the game. I've won several items there, and will go back to bid on more. www.allpennyauctions.com/users/Guns4Pennies.com/trigerhppy/


Below is the description of how these work from their facebook page:


Penny auctions work like this: Users purchase packages of bids. Depending on how many they buy at a time, the bids cost between $0.97-$0.68 apiece on G4P site. During an auction, the timer counts down, but anytime someone uses a bid it is deducted from their account and the timer is reset to 30 seconds. If the timer reaches 0, the last person to have placed a bid gets to purchase the item for that price. In this type of auction, both the user and the business are taking a chance. The business takes a chance that enough people will have bid on an item (thus spending those 97-68 cents each time) that they will have covered the cost of the item and allow us to make a profit. The users are taking the chance that they will be the last person to bid, spending less than they would have to buy the gun or accessory in a normal manner. If they don't win the auction, they've still already spent the money to bid, but the possibility of winning an item fairly cheap is worth the risk to those who've decided to participate. Many also like the excitement that this type of auction brings. Some things you will see sell very very cheap (http://www.guns4pennies.com/auctions/closed). Those are the times that our chance didn't pay off and we lost money on the items. It happens fairly often. But overall enough people enjoy the auctions that they keep coming back and create a sustainable business.
 
If you bid on something, and you don't win, BUT you loose your money anyways- guess what, it's a scam.

No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American public.
 
Ok, still clear as mud. The site will sometimes loose and make money. What happens to the seller? Does the site give the seller what they are asking for their product or does the seller take a hit?
 
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Each bid increment is a penny.

You buy bids for a certain amount. For example, 100 bids may cost you $50, which means the auction site makes $.50 each time you bid.

So if you see a $900 AR15 sell for $21.34, that means that there were 2134 penny bids made on that gun.

2134 times $.50 means that the auction site recieved $1,067 in bid fees for that rifle.

Everybody loses the cost of their bids except the person who won the item.

If you had started bidding when the rifle was $20.00 (you bid $20.00, somebody else jumps you to $20.01, you bid $20.02, etc) you would have used up all 50 of your bids when the rifle hit $21.00. So you dropped $50 and still don't have a gun that sold for "only" $21.34.
 
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Caveat emptor!

Such auctions are legal in the states where they're hosted; the attorneys have been consulted, you can bet. I don't play these, nor do I buy lottery tickets or shoot craps in Vegas. The only gamble I sometimes take is on horse racing.
 
Trigger happy must own the site. It is a joke u can sign up they will give you 5 dollars to try it out but all u do is help them make more money. Bottom line stay on the high road and enjoy
 
I never paid attention to these sites... Something for (nearly) Nothing is the nectar of Fools.

The instant I heard Beezid using Lindsay Lohan to hawk their wares, I knew everything I needed to know about penny-bid sites.

What kind of company looks at a brain-dead, spoiled-brat, narcissistic drug addict and says "THAT will improve our image!, THAT is what our company is about!" ?

No offence to the Operator of this other website, but in today's economy... It makes no sense whatsoever to play games with my money, when I could just walk out and spend it myself on things I need.
 
It is similar to gambling.

You buy points with real money, you expend points/money in the auction. If you win the auction you get something in exchange for your points/money. If you don't win the auction you loose the points and the money that bought the points.

Winners usually come out very well. Losers have lost their money. How much depends upon how far you went to win and didn't. If you understand the rules of the game and go in with your eyes open to what the risks are it isn't any worse, or better, than going into any casino and playing.
 
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If you don't mind paying $.01 to $500 over MSRP, feel free to use them.

Personally, I'd rather skip it and use the 'traditional' websites. CDNN, J&G Sales, Bud's Guns, etc.
 
Don't think I'm going to be using this venue to buy or sell guns. It may not be a scam, but I can't get any clear answers as to what happens when a seller uses the site. Do I actually take 50 bucks for a $300 gun?
 
I definitely won't be using the site, but does anyone really know how it works? I don't see any clear explanations of the process. Just curious now. Is it really a scam or just a risk someone needs to be aware of.

What happens to a seller?
 
ohhhh, I think I've been dense. Is it the site that sells items and sellers can't list items there?
 
I definitely won't be using the site, but does anyone really know how it works? I don't see any clear explanations of the process. Just curious now. Is it really a scam or just a risk someone needs to be aware of.

Not a scam, if you understand what it does.

Basically you pay for the privilege of bidding. Each bid costs you money. Eventually someone will "win" the auction and buy a gun for, say, $45. But, he may have spent $500 in points to bid enough to win, so he really pays $545 for the gun.

Some other guy bidding against him may have spent $400 in points to bid, and got nothing for his $400. Along with every other person who bid.

You're better off buying a scratch off or going to Vegas, but it's not a scam really.
 
"than going into any casino and playing. "

Will guns4pennies give me free drinks, dinners and rooms like the casinos do?

I was born at night, but not last night.

John
 
chutestrate said:
ohhhh, I think I've been dense. Is it the site that sells items and sellers can't list items there?
As far as I know, all penny auctions work like that. They are not an auction service like eBay, but a vendor selling good via an auction format.

TexasRifleman said:
Basically you pay for the privilege of bidding. Each bid costs you money. Eventually someone will "win" the auction and buy a gun for, say, $45. But, he may have spent $500 in points to bid enough to win, so he really pays $545 for the gun.

Some other guy bidding against him may have spent $400 in points to bid, and got nothing for his $400. Along with every other person who bid.

While this might be true, these sites thrive on have hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of people who are willing to throw a few bucks here and there for a chance to buy something at a very low price.

Here's a perfect example of from our "winner" above:
http://www.allpennyauctions.com/auctions/6e6b2ab28da7eb92/
Keep in mind that it only shows the last 10 bids, which is why it says there are only 5 unique bidders. I suspect there were at least several hundred unique bidders.

24189 bids @ $0.80 $19351.20
Price + $241.89
Retail - $3000.00
Guns4Pennies.com Profited $16593.09

So, while trigerhppy got it for $241.89, plus the price of his bids (care to share how many times you bid on that auction and how many times on all your other auctions, win or lose, trigerhppy?), the other bidders spent around $19,000 for the chance to buy it, but to no avail.

Sure, trigerhppy may have gotten a good deal, maybe a smoking deal if he played his cards right and didn't spend a lot on bids that didn't win, but there were a whole bunch more losers.
 
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