Complaint Review: MADBID.COM - SURREY Internet

I feel that it is misleading of the company to refer to what the winners of the auction buy as being prizes [see james@madbid]. Could this be a deliberate strategy in order to convince people that they are getting something for free? Quite clearly , if you do win, you are making a purchase and not being gifted anything but the word prize does have quite an emotive feel to it doesn't it ? The use of that one word by the company tends to tell me all I need to know about their sales methods and I for one will steer clear.

Regards Aex.

I have read with interest the reports on Madbid.com. I think the main point as to whether or not they blatantly use dishonest techniques is mostly irrelevant. (I have my own opinions but will keep them to myself.) It's not an auction site, it's online gambling. If that's your thing - fine, but personally I wouldn't touch any form of online gambling with a barge pole for a number of reasons:

1. All gambling organisations are there to make money FOR THEMSELVES. It doesn't matter whether it's a lottery organisation, casino or fruit machine - they do not exist as some form of philanthropic organisation that enjoys giving away cash or expensive goods for peanuts. Therefore the odds are always STACKED IN THEIR FAVOUR. Yes you might get lucky at the casino or on the fruit machine or at Madbid. I might win the lottery (but the chances are very very heavily stacked against me.) The losers make Madbid huge profits. That's why they do it. It's as well to remember that.

2. In the real physical world it is at least possibly that luck and the laws of physics might be on my side. In other words luck dictates that the ball might fall in the right slot on the roulette wheel. In the virtual world a computer (which is not bound by the laws of physics) is making all the decisions. The computer decides where the ball lands. Although I am not for one moment suggesting that Madbid would every in a million years for one moment think about doing this (ahem) - what's to stop the computer adding it's own bids at the last moment to put the price up? Think about it.

3. Lastly - have you seen the advert? Watch it again, look closely at the style and who it is aimed at. It's on a par with We Buy Any Car, Envirophone and other adverts of the same ilk. Think about it.

4. However, it's not for me to stop anyone exercising their right to gamble on line at Madbid or any other site but - think about it!

I also have compiled a journalistic report on Madbid and would like to read your transcript please Mel 

Regards
Fred
(((REDACTED)))


CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.

Hi, read your article with great interest as i am a journalist who has been investigating Madbid.com. for a quite a while now.  If you would like to see the correspondence exchanged between the Managing Director of Madbid and myself then please leave your email address on this site and I will contact you soonest.  You may be interested in the website www.myauctionwebsite.com which is an independent company who review, name and shame and congratulate (where due) penny auction websites.  You will see how they infiltrated a company who are the main programmers and suppliers of penny auction software and the results are staggering with this particular Indian company even showing the reporter how it all works.  I am not suggesting that Madbid use the same software but all of the jigsaw pieces do fit together nicely.

As a footnote, do not be put off Penny Auctions by your experience with MadBid as I have found there to be some good legitimate websites out there, its just the same old story of the minority spoiling it for everyone else.

Good luck everyone

Mel

I believe that the author of the original report has a hidden agenda. I believe that this person is a regular user and winner on madbid and is merely trying to put others off the site by giving a false account of their experiences.

I have won in excess of 50 items on madbid and have never had a problem with them. The director that I met on the handover of the car that I won was nothing other than charming and gave me no reason for doubt (backed up by the vehicle registration document that I was in posession of)

Yes, you have to be careful and stick to your limits, but what has been reported is utter twaddle.

The original poster report strikes me as being a bit false and maybe even the words of a competitor.

First of all, it is a violation of UK law to claim to be a customer when you are not.  The username provided by this person could potentially refer to one of 3 users in our database.  1 of whom has won dozens of auctions, and the other two never bought a bid package; they used their free bids and went on with their lives.  So if this user is a real customer we would be happy to look into their complaint further if they identify themselves, otherwise they should retract this false and defamatory report. 

This report is obviously false for the following reasons: the address listed on our website is our registered address where one director of the company and our finance team sit.  These these staff have no hand in the operational side of our business.  The operations and customer service side of our business are based in Victoria, they are the ones that maintain the website, schedule auctions, ship products and interact with customers.  If he claims to have gone to the address on our website, he is lying about talking to a MadBid employee.  This is further obvious because we do not have any female orientals on our staff in either office.

As far as no one ever winning anything on our site, we have over 30,000 winners in the UK, many of whom have provided pictures of themselves with their prizes which you can find on our website.  Even further, a number of our big winners have appeared in promotional videos which can be viewed in the News section of our website. 

If MadBid was a Con why did the BBC and the London Times not mention it in their articles about us?  The Times has actually just run a second article about us this weekend.  The reporters did their due diligence and found MadBid to be a legitimately run penny-auction where all bids placed come from customers, not employees or bots.  As a matter of fact, MadBid.com is regulated by the ICO.  They have full access to review our server records, which we are keeping safe and backed up should they be needed.  If there was anything suspicious about the way we run our business they would have put a stop to it long ago.

MadBid is a game of skill.  None of our customers would start out by buying 2000 worth of bids.  You need to start small and figure out if your strategy is winning.  If it is not most users either change their strategy or move on.  Plenty of our users have found a way to win that suits them fine: we have some winners who have won 1000's in prizes without buying a single bid package.