Not sure if anyone on here is aware of this site yet or not Markerbids.com v2.1 - Get the good stuff!

I tried it for a bit but have come to the conclusion that it is part scam and part private raffle (illegal). Here is why;

Mike Phillips (TechPB fame) started an auction site where he "auctions" off new items. The rub is that you pay $1.00 every time you bid.
The site registers your $1 bids as 1 cent bid and the bids continue until time runs out on a stale bid. Sometimes things for for cheap (80-90% "savings"),
other times they go for many times the objects retail value. More often than not Mike is making a killing on items and pockets the cash to "run" TechPB.

I think that here in Canada the site would be ruled as an illegal private raffle. You are essentially buying bids (tickets) without any assurance of winning,
and can spend more than the retail value of an item and still not "win it". He's recently made some changes but I think it's still fishy.

Just looking for open conversation with adults as opposed to the rabid fan-boys on his forum.

Thoughts?

B.

Markerbids.com - Page 3

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I have been to that site and even tried to win some things.

It's legitamite and legal here in the US. It's also gambling. This means you might lose your money without anything to show for it. OR This means you might win big.

I don't think of it as a raffle, because the winner is not chosen by a random pick from the hat. The winner is the last person to bid on it. Sometimes this requires you to have a lot of bids on hand to keep your place as the last bidder and sometimes you can win things with just a few bids because no one else wants to spend their bids on it.

So I don't understand why you think it is a scam. The people who win post up youtube videos showing the world what they won in return for free bids. This helps prove that it is not a scam. They've also hired, with pay, Dale Furby to monitor/audit the site for the use of autobidding robots which artificially drive up the price.

I am not a fanboy, but I do enjoy Mike's forum as well as markerbids.

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As long as folks are getting the merchandise, that's what matters. As Mike stated in the thread on the X7OG, he provides plenty of feedback/tools on the process and clearly states the intent of the site and how it functions.

I can also understand Mike's need to raise capital, as running a site can be costly on it's own. Folks often make demands for new or updated aspects of a site but they rarely ever are willing to help pay for it... and then it's left up to the owner to foot the bill or face the wrath of it's members.

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