Comment by BuckToBid | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BuckToBid | Hacker News Reader

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So now you have just jumped straight into calling me a crook. I'm sorry that Wavee or whatever site you went to took your money.

I honestly didn't know (and still don't) if you can make any money doing an honest penny auction site. We are just breaking even with this one so far.

The fact is that every time an auction goes up we have more risk than anyone else involved. If I put up a $500 iPad it could go for extremely cheap. The lowest one has ever gone for is 64 cents. That means we made less than $64 and still had to buy and ship that $500 iPad. And we have never sold anything for more than $26 which still isn't the $2600 you think it is because some packages give you more bids per dollar.

The legitimate complaint is when sites cheat. Which I would guess alot of them do. Using Facebook is not some trick to get people to trust us. Its a way for people to verify for themselves that they are in fact bidding against other real people.

How can you say that its a scam? Do you think we are just out there creating all these fake accounts with fake profile and personal photos and relationships etc. I can see maybe if we had 5 or 6 or even 20 users. But we have 100's of winners. That's a stretch even for the most paranoid and cynical of people.

Not everybody wins every time. But the data we have so far says that the majority of users that buy more than just a few bids are actually the ones getting all the deals. Its the people who come in and spend $24 expecting to win a $1500 item then leave when they don't. Those are the people who are losing. The users who are logical enough to see how the system works are the ones who get far more than they put in.

And some countries outlaw all kinds of crazy things, some countries are considering passing legislation to ban homosexuality so I guess we should all agree that its bad now too according to your theory?

I'm not so foolish to have spent money at any of those sites. But I do stand by my statement of calling you a crook. I don't believe that I will be able to convince you, but I do hope that I'll be able to convince others.

Let's give you the benefit of the doubt for a moment that you are actually honest. We'll say that you aren't running bots, fake identities, etc. That's fine. My basis in calling you (and those that run businesses like yours) a crook is not founded on that (though I have no doubt that other companies are doing as much, if only to boost the value and bidding on an item, but I digress).

Try to remember that the fundamental operating principle of your business being profitable is your selling the vast majority of your customers absolutely nothing. They aren't getting a good or service for any bid that doesn't win (which still costs them money). They get nothing.

The money to purchase those items must come from somewhere. If you are breaking even (as you say you are), it's not coming from the people who are "winning", it's coming from the people who are losing. If/when you are making a profit, it's not because the "winners" are necessarily paying that much more for an item (they won't have bid enough plus paying for the total value to pay for the item itself), it's because you've got more losers who are putting money into something without getting anything in return.

Your business is breaking even, and may eventually be profitable because of all of those who come in buying $24 worth of bids, failing, and leaving. Any business that requires it's customers be ignorant in order to make money is fundamentally a scam.

Also, your conflating countries making homosexuality illegal with countries making illegal a business that bases it's operations on exploiting the ignorant, is a fundamentally flawed argument. One is based on basic human rights to be who they are and behave in ways that causes no harm to others. The other is one that profits from people who don't know any better. One is a human rights travesty, the other is the outlawing of an enterprise with margins that organized crime wishes they could have (in the case of a "successful" site like Wavee and others). Trying to claim their equivalence, or that based on "my reasoning" they are equivalent, is dishonest, and really, troll-like behavior. That may fly in some forums, but it doesn't fly here. Try again.

> The users who are logical enough to see how the system works are the ones who get far more than they put in.

Your business model requires minimizing the number of those people and maximizing the number of suckers. There's a reason they're seen as scams and exploitative.

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