Only problem is charging money is illegal. I was thinking of "implying" that you may have to pay one day, and having the register button say "Sign up for your free trial", which will be an infinitely long free trial. But then again, the site is all about trust, and you've already tricked them from the start with this method.
Yeah I tried the approach of a quirky, 1 owner website, and it didn't work. I'm still trying to clean up all the jokes, memes, etc.
Hmmmm, yeah I can see how a first impression is that the site is a penny auction site. I definitely need to rethink the front end design and UX flow. Maybe don't even show the prizes until they've registered.