Swoopo Scam

[Stephen Probert]

Bryan, I understand that you probably have no control over the google-placed ads on the website, but I have seen Swoopo ads several times on the TDP homepage, and after looking into that scam of a company, I wish you could prevent them from advertizing on your site over a vendor with great integrity like B&H.


If you aren't familiar with their scheme, people pay $0.75 per bid on items that say they only cost 20 bucks or so (like a Canon XSi). The prices are low because each bid only increases the item price by $0.01 to $0.15. People are bidding because the prices are low and there are only a few seconds left....but wait! Every time someone bids, the time left increases, so some of these auctions never seem to end. Essentially Swoopo (who is the one making the money, there are no "real people" auctioning items) is selling $500 dSLRs for thousands of dollars, and they mask the way the site really works. I know that someone has to be somewhat dim-bulbed to be duped by this (or they find value in the experience of bidding away their money), but I find it quite offensive.


Is anyone else mad about this?

[Bryan Carnathan]

Stephen - Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I don't have a lot of control over these ads, but I can ban domains from inclusion - and I have added Swoopo.com to the banned list. It might take a period of time for this to take effect, but they should be excluded soon.


Thanks again.