I don't see why it's despicable. The format of the auction seems to be clearly available to all participants. It's all consenting adults, who have all of the information needed to make their own informed decision as to whether or not to participate.
If people want to gamble, why not let them? How is this any different than operating a casino? It's not wrong to provide a service that many people deem enjoyable just because a small portion of them can't exert the self-control to use it responsibly.
I'm not sure it's despicable, but the difference to gambling is that gambling is sold as purely entertainment. The fun _is_ the product. Swoopo mentions entertainment as well, but they also make people believe that they are buying a product for a good price, which is clearly not the case.
So as a (potential) customer I'm taking note that this company is using deceptive tactics, claiming one thing and structuring their system to do something else. Yes they do it openly, so it's up to everyone to not buy from them and to remember not to buy from this company and the people behind it ever again.
Yes, but if you try to buy several products in this way you're not always winning, so the average price each individual pays per successfully purchased product will be awful, or the business model wouldn't work.
Right. Which is fine because that's the entertainment aspect of it. You're playing a game where the goal is to get a product for the best price, and you know it. And if you don't succeed, you lose some money, and you know that too.
Seems like a fun game to me, I'm already thinking about how I might be able to take advantage of it.
"How is this any different than operating a casino?"
Operating a casino requires a license for a start afaik, and there are checks to ensure things are fair.
How do we know the winning bidders actually exist?
I agree people should be able to make their own minds up in the main, but they should be doing that safe in the knowledge that they are being treated fairly.
Isn't that endemic to any auction site? eBay knows your max bid and could easily have bots forcing up the incremental bids to earn themselves more fees. Perhaps all auction sites should be audited, but I don't see how this one is any worse than the rest.
And sadly the licensing requirements for online casinos are a joke. Read up on the Kahnawakee Gaming Commission some time, you'll get a kick out of it. Until we legalize and regulate them, they'll never improve.
This is actually a really good point. Why does anyone entrust eBay with knowledge of their maximum bid? A hypothetical shill-bot 9000 could easily bid up auctions without ever having to worry about accidentally having to own the item. It seems like it would be far better to have your own bidbot handle things for you...
People have speculated about this on eBay from day 1. Personally I tend to believe its untrue only because they're a large company and certainly someone would have blown a whistle by now. The bot would have to be in-house to know people's maximum bids, and no individual employee would have incentive to create such a thing, so it would have to be a top-down directive.
If people want to gamble, why not let them? How is this any different than operating a casino? It's not wrong to provide a service that many people deem enjoyable just because a small portion of them can't exert the self-control to use it responsibly.