To those of you familiar what what swoopo.com is, you may find this story interesting. It is not a story of how I lost thousands of dollars or think swoopo is a scam...just my experiences on the site.
3 weeks ago I discovered swoopo.com. Being as curious as any naive person who stumbles upon the website, I created an account. When discovering I had to buy bids, I was slightly astonished by how expensive the initial bid packs were. Since this was really only an experiment for me, I bought the cheapest bid pack, 40 bids for $30.
As I started watching auctions, I was intrigued by the apparent deals people were getting. I threw down about 4 bids learning what would become of my efforts. Needless to say they got lost in the mix of the other thousands of bids made on a single auction.
I quickly learned that winning is a little harder than one would assume. I started doing research on the site. There were certainly many different views on the site. As the days went by I started getting more and more involved in watching the auctions (not bidding, just watching). I started becoming obsessed with learning patterns, strategies and how to win. I started googling tutorials. Obviously there are the obvious e-books for sale of "how to win swoopo". There was also a program for sale that analyzed bidders and auction stats. Also, people were selling compiled data on when auctions ended and for how much. It was insane to say the least. I managed to find a free e-mail newsletter that gave new tips everyday. Some were helpful.
As I started learning more trends, I initially thought things would sell cheaper in the middle of the night. Well this is a global website, its always a reasonable hour somewhere in the world. I then thought having a ton of bids would work. However, I was not about to spend any more money beyond my small $30 experiment. I then noticed the dreaded bit butler. This thing was terrifying as you never knew how high a person had their bid butler set. One night I was watching an auction, I went to get a drink of orange juice, came back and it had ended at a ridiculously low price. I was kicking myself for walking away....then I realized "this is ridiculous, this has to end".
However, I kept finding myself watching the auctions, waiting for the right one to pounce my still 30 some bids left on. I would wake up in the night to go to the washroom and find myself watching an auction. Finally a few days back I saw a youtube video of a guy reviewing swoopo. He started discussing how people would setup script based bots to automatically bid for them when the counter reached 1 second. I started thinking, "ok, there is no way a simple joe blow can win this".
Finally last night, I sat down, threw a bid on an auction for a macbook and went to bed. Six hours later I checked the auction and it was still going. A guy was bidding frantically and a bid butler kept intercepting him. I realized, some people are out of control, they will do and spend whatever they need to, to win. I had my small $30 pocket of bids. This one particular bidder with the bid butler had to have spend well over 600 bids so far. I can't and will not compete with that. I'm not insane. So I just went to random auctions, exhausted my 32 bids remaining and walked away.
What have I learned from all this about swoopo? Well as far as I can tell, swoopo is not a scam. It is a very cleverly constructed machine that preys on the simple minded.....much like gambling. You certainly could win on swoopo, if you spent an unreasonable amount of money of bids. However that is not a 100% guarantee as people are stupid enough to try and compete with an "infinite" bid butler. I didn't get sucked into the hype. I watched, I observed and I learned. Unfortunately I'm not about to commit to what it takes to win swoopo. Ironically the savings are not really worth it.
The greatest lesson I learned about winning an item on swoopo was from the youtube video I watched. Go out and buy the item somewhere else.
3 weeks ago I discovered swoopo.com. Being as curious as any naive person who stumbles upon the website, I created an account. When discovering I had to buy bids, I was slightly astonished by how expensive the initial bid packs were. Since this was really only an experiment for me, I bought the cheapest bid pack, 40 bids for $30.
As I started watching auctions, I was intrigued by the apparent deals people were getting. I threw down about 4 bids learning what would become of my efforts. Needless to say they got lost in the mix of the other thousands of bids made on a single auction.
I quickly learned that winning is a little harder than one would assume. I started doing research on the site. There were certainly many different views on the site. As the days went by I started getting more and more involved in watching the auctions (not bidding, just watching). I started becoming obsessed with learning patterns, strategies and how to win. I started googling tutorials. Obviously there are the obvious e-books for sale of "how to win swoopo". There was also a program for sale that analyzed bidders and auction stats. Also, people were selling compiled data on when auctions ended and for how much. It was insane to say the least. I managed to find a free e-mail newsletter that gave new tips everyday. Some were helpful.
As I started learning more trends, I initially thought things would sell cheaper in the middle of the night. Well this is a global website, its always a reasonable hour somewhere in the world. I then thought having a ton of bids would work. However, I was not about to spend any more money beyond my small $30 experiment. I then noticed the dreaded bit butler. This thing was terrifying as you never knew how high a person had their bid butler set. One night I was watching an auction, I went to get a drink of orange juice, came back and it had ended at a ridiculously low price. I was kicking myself for walking away....then I realized "this is ridiculous, this has to end".
However, I kept finding myself watching the auctions, waiting for the right one to pounce my still 30 some bids left on. I would wake up in the night to go to the washroom and find myself watching an auction. Finally a few days back I saw a youtube video of a guy reviewing swoopo. He started discussing how people would setup script based bots to automatically bid for them when the counter reached 1 second. I started thinking, "ok, there is no way a simple joe blow can win this".
Finally last night, I sat down, threw a bid on an auction for a macbook and went to bed. Six hours later I checked the auction and it was still going. A guy was bidding frantically and a bid butler kept intercepting him. I realized, some people are out of control, they will do and spend whatever they need to, to win. I had my small $30 pocket of bids. This one particular bidder with the bid butler had to have spend well over 600 bids so far. I can't and will not compete with that. I'm not insane. So I just went to random auctions, exhausted my 32 bids remaining and walked away.
What have I learned from all this about swoopo? Well as far as I can tell, swoopo is not a scam. It is a very cleverly constructed machine that preys on the simple minded.....much like gambling. You certainly could win on swoopo, if you spent an unreasonable amount of money of bids. However that is not a 100% guarantee as people are stupid enough to try and compete with an "infinite" bid butler. I didn't get sucked into the hype. I watched, I observed and I learned. Unfortunately I'm not about to commit to what it takes to win swoopo. Ironically the savings are not really worth it.
The greatest lesson I learned about winning an item on swoopo was from the youtube video I watched. Go out and buy the item somewhere else.
