The Changing Nature of Penny Auctions

Whilst the penny auction industry is a relatively new presence in the online domain, it has attracted a large amount of bad press. Much of this press is certainly founded; with a range of different unscrupulous operators out there actively attempting to defraud auction players. However, as the penny auction industry has started to develop, many of the original scam websites and scam tactics are being weeded out in favour of fairer, more transparent websites that are now gaining popularity amongst internet users.

In the past there were three major flaws with penny auction sites. It has been the usage of the three tactics outlined below that has defined the way in which the industry first developed. Today however, the newest websites trying to undo the work of these early actors, with fairer, more trustworthy systems is becoming prevalent.

One of the biggest complaints with first generation penny auction websites was shilling or shill bidding. Shill bidding was the process of site owners, their friends and employees all bidding on items they had no intention of buying purely to raise the price of the auctioned item and increase the amount genuine bidders had to pay.

There was also a problem with robots that were built into the auction system. These "bots" were created as fake users and subsequently placed fake bids, once again driving up the price of auction items and essentially defrauding the genuine bidders.

A complaint with some bidding sites that carries on today was the lack of a time limit on the auction. The process of adding time onto an auction with each bid made means that the auction can theoretically end up going on indefinitely, resulting in the winning bidder paying more than they should.

Fortunately these three major flaws are being rectified by a new type of penny auction site. This new generation are changing the way in which penny auctions are carried out, making the entire process fairer for bidders. One of the ways in which they have done this is by creating a definite time limit to each auction, meaning that all of those involved know when it will finish. Another way in which a fairer system is being achieved is by showing the auction participants a complete list of all of the available bids; finally by showing the value of all of these bids, bidders are now provided with more information than they ever had with the original penny auction websites.

There a number of different penny auction sites now entering the marketplace. One such website is YooBeeDoo [http://www.yoobeedoo.co.uk/] which has developed a revolutionary auction system for hosting fun, fair and flexible penny auctions that above all else offer a better deal for bidders.