Have you checked out QuiBids Deals yet?
Anybody paying close attention to the QuiBids homepage and/or blog this week might have noticed that we’re offering a new promotion to help save big-time cash while shopping online. We’re calling it QuiBids Deals because, well frankly, that’s the best way to describe it: we’re offering you the chance to bypass the bidding process and just straight-up save a ton of money on great products.
QuiBids Deals works as something of a rewards program for our customers. You must be on QuiBids to be eligible for these deals — some of which are as steep as 75% off — but that’s the only qualifier. It’s not like QuiBids Badges where you have to have won so many auctions of a particular type or whatever. In fact, some of these items are discounted by so much that you could use the savings just to sign up for QuiBids if you haven’t already! How’s that for value?
Think of this blog post as a polite reminder to you that our stock is limited and that this installment of the promotion is temporary. We’re pulling the plug on it at the end of Tuesday, May 1 (that’s next Tuesday), so if you want to buy a Garmin nüvi 1300T GPS Navigation System at 67% less than the standard retail price, you’ll have to act quickly. And there’s no guarantee that they’ll still be in stock by that deadline, so we recommend you snatch these items up as quickly as you can.
Another very popular item — this one’s good for 50% off — is a handsome set of Christopher Adams Cali King Sheets. We’ve got details on this set and the nüvi below, for your perusal!
Click here to check out QuiBids Deals!
Christopher Adams Cali King Sheets
This Christopher Adam California King Sheet Set by Egyptian Comfort features a 1600 Thread Count Microfiber Sheet Set in burgundy, chocolate, sand, or white for a cool and comfortable night’s sleep. The exceptionally breathable sheets have a soft, smooth feel and a lustrous finish. These sheets provide lasting vibrancy no matter how often they are washed. They are made of High Strength Microfiber Yarn that will stay soft and wrinkle-free for years to come. An additional feature is the Deep Pocket that is sure to fit that extra thick mattress.
Features:
- 1600 Thread Count
- Ultimate Luxury
- Softness and Comfort
- Deep Pocket to fit extra thick mattress
- Breathable Sheets
- High Strength Microfiber Yarn
- Wrinkle Free
- Available in Burgundy, Sand, White, and Chocolate
California King Set includes:
- 1 Flat sheet
- 1 Fitted sheet
- 2 pillowcases
Garmin nüvi 1300T GPS Navigation System
The ultra-slim nüvi 1300T Travel Assistant is a full-featured navigator with a 4.3’ touchscreen display that has enhanced interface. nüvi 1300T Travel Assistant announces street names and turn-by-turn directions. Map data is provided by NAVTEQ™ and maps can be viewed in 3D or in 2D overhead views. It also has pedestrian routing that can be enhanced with optional cityXplorer™ maps for mass transit information and ecoRoute™ to calculate a more fuel-efficient route. The nüvi 1300T Travel Assistant comes with built-in travel kit features like picture viewer, world clock, currency, and measurement converters & calculator. The GarminLock™ anti-theft feature ensures that your Travel Assistant stays safe.
Features:
- 4.3” widescreen display
- “Where Am I?” feature finds the closest hospitals, police stations, gas stations, nearest address, intersection & coordinates
- ecoRoute™ calculates a more fuel efficient route
- cityXplorer™ helps navigate city public transit
- Auto time zone automatically adjusts time zone while navigating
Delivery cost $7.00 USD
Return Policy: Within 30 days in the original packaging
QuiBids is a scam, claims man wearing odd wig
Take it from TheCrazySalami himself: QuiBids is a scam.
We recently — while traipsing our happy way across the chunk of the Internet dedicated to saving consumers oodles of moolah — happened across this very interesting self-produced YouTube video, posted by a gentleman who goes by the username TheCrazySalami. Now, we all know that everybody’s entitled to their own opinions, but Mr. Salami seems especially opposed to the way our company operates, for reasons that — how to put this politely? — don’t exactly make sense.
Titled “The truth behind Quibids and how its to good to be true,” this thing’s a pretty entertaining two-and-a-half-minute watch, and we’ll do our best to defend our company’s reputation against the bewigged gentleman below. Don’t watch if you can’t handle the sight of a guy getting really worked up while looking like George Washington borrowed somebody’s aviator glasses. His words are in bold below. Our interjections are in italics.
This is what you need to know about Cue-bids.
Pardon us, Mr. Salami. It’s pronounced QuiBids, as in “quick bids.” You can learn more about that at our About Us page. Sorry, we’ll let you get back to what you were talking about.
This is what type of sham this website is. OK, when you first sign up for this website they go “OK, this is a promotional code that we give you. You get ten free bids.”
Uhh…we’re sorry for giving you free stuff?
And you’re like saying in your head, “Wow, ten free bids! What’s that what’s that what’s that?” But! Listen to this: You go on there and they charge you $60 just for the initial sign-up. And in the sign-up process they give you 120 bids. IF you do the math, it comes out to be about 60 cents per bid.
Yup! Our users then take the bids on to our site and win great items. More about how that works at QuiBids 101.
Alright, so what do these bids do you? So you go online and you see these ten cents — Wow! You can buy a frickin’ iPhone for ten cents!
Well, that is admittedly pretty unlikely but still very much within the realm of the possible. Somebody did recently win a new iPad for less than $5 recently. And a gas-powered scooter for less than $20. But you probably wouldn’t be too interested in that, would you?
Well lemme guess, that’s just a sham. This website’s how they trap you. It’s a very addicting website. If I were you, try to stay away. These people are making billions.
Uh, we’re making billions of dollars by ripping people off? My car loan and the Better Business Bureau say differently.
Absolutely billions of dollars on these stupid people who go on there like “Oh, I’m going to get an Apple iPod for ten cents.” But you can’t!
Uh, technically you could. It’s just not super-likely, especially if you’re not extremely patient and careful about it! But if you commit to winning it, the worst thing that could happen is you buy it at the listed retail price!
What you don’t know is that every time you place a bid, it is sixty cents coming out of your own pocket and it’s not even guaranteed that you’re going to win that product!
Actually, most people are aware of that, because our auction model is clearly explained when people sign up for our site.
There’s like ten or fifteen people bidding on this product and it’s going up every time you bid in one-cent increments.
Yup — that’s kind of how most auctions (save for the penny bit) works.
So basically I put a bid on an iPod that’s eleven cents and it turns into twelve. Then there’s a timer on this website that counts down from ten, nine, eight, all the way up to one. In that ten seconds, other people can bid you out!
You got it!
So if another person bids you out on this website, the timer resets itself to ten seconds, so it just keeps continuing in a loop of ten seconds after ten seconds, per bid per bid. Then you’re bidding on something twenty times and you times that twenty by sixty cents, man, it just adds up!
Math! Cool!
And you’re not even guaranteed to win this product!
That’s also kind of how most auctions work. We like to think this is entertaining, and, much like other things that are entertaining — like comic books, action movies, trips to the zoo — has value.
I’ve been online and I’ve seen this TV that started off as one cent this morning and now it’s up to 100 bucks, OK? Imagine, every one cent this bid goes up, this is how this company’s making money. Sure, the last person that will bid might win this TV.
Actually, they will win this TV, as it so happens. And all the other people who bid on it but lost are more than welcome to buy the item, less the money they spent bidding. We call it Buy Now .
But they probably invested a thousand dollars just to get that price for 100 bucks.
Actually, user dlg1025 recently put $201.60 worth of bids toward a Samsung HDTV bundle, to get the price to $265.95. And he/she saved $3,232.44.
Guys, I’m telling you, stay away from this website. It’s a sham, it’s addicting, and it’s going to end up costing you more money than the product’s actually worth.
Uhh, not true! Our Buy Now prevents people from ever paying more than any item on QuiBids is worth. Ever!
OK guys, this is The Crazy Salami, warning you to stay away from Cue-bids.
Again with the name?!
How does QuiBids work?
Have you checked out the QuiBids YouTube page?
We’ve got a few different playlists organizing user-made videos into categories like Unboxing, Tips and Strategy, and QuiBids Testimonials. All great resources for the young bidder!
We’re also currently running a video contest through May 9 where you could win a new-model iPad (not that you’d be interested in that…) just for shooting a video of yourself unboxing your big QuiBids win and posting it to YouTube!
But we understand that not everybody wants to sit and passively accept information being thrown out at them. It’s often much better to lean forward and proactively engage content by reading, so we’ve transcribed the copy from our very first how-to video into the blog post below, and improved it a bit by hyperlinking you to other appropriate resources and updating old information (which we’ve indicated in bold). Happy bidding!
Welcome to QuiBids! Shopping redefined!
QuiBids is where you can get amazing deals on brand-new items, such as laptops, HD TVs, cameras and more! QuiBids isn’t your typical auction site, so let’s take a look at how it works.
You’ll start out by purchasing your bids. All of our bids are sold in bundles called Bid Packs. The first Bid Pack costs $60 and comes with 100 bids.
Now that you’ve purchased bids, let’s take a look at one of our typical auctions. Here we have an auction for a Nintendo Wii. A QuiBids auction starts just like any other auction. The clock starts ticking down and the price starts at zero. Each time a bid is placed, the auction price will go up in increments of one, five, ten, or 20 cents. This increment is always shown at the top-left of the product image. If there isn’t one, it will automatically go up in one-cent increments.
Once you’ve placed a bid, you’re in the lead! Until someone places a bid after you, or until the clock runs out. Now here’s the catch: when the clock reaches the final seconds of an auction, each time a user places a bid, time will be added to the clock in increments of ten, fifteen, or 20 seconds. This gives all the other users an opportunity to top your bid. Much like the “Going once, twice, sold!” of traditional auctions. When the clock reaches zero, the auction is over and the last person to bid wins. Congratulations, you won!
Want to know how much you saved? Just look below, and you’ll see exactly how much you saved off retail price. Most of our winners save an amazing 80% off the retail value!
Once you’ve won your auction, just follow the simple checkout process, by giving us your shipping info and paying the winning bid amount. The item will be processed and shipped within a couple of days.
But wait! Let’s say you didn’t win the Wii auction, but you really wanted it. You might want to use our Buy Now feature.
This is how our Buy Now works: let’s say you spent 200 bids worth $120 trying to win, but you came up short and the Wii went to someone else. Simply go to the bottom of the screen and click Buy Now. When you use the Buy Now feature, we subtract the value of the bids you placed from the value price of the item, leaving only the difference to pay. In this particular case, for an additional $80, you can purchase the Wii.
Let’s do a quick recap.
First, purchase a Bid Pack. Second, find an auction you want to participate in. Bid for the chance to win factory-sealed products! If you win, way to go! But if you don’t, use our risk-free Buy Now auction, so you don’t lose the value of the bids you placed. Lastly, simply follow our checkout process to finish the purchase.
Remember, if you ever have questions, visit our Help section or email us at support@quibids.com. That’s all you need to know! Now go get yourself a win, and thanks for bidding on QuiBids!
QuiBids as Vegas — sort of
While there are plenty of reasons why participation in QuiBids auctions avoids the legal definition of gambling (you can read them at QuiBids 101), success on our site can never be completely guaranteed. It requires the benefit of chance associated with shrewd decision-making and often simply being in the right place at the right time. Many people call this “luck,” but these decisions and choices can actually be controlled by the user to a certain degree, in order to facilitate improved chances of winning. Many of them are strikingly similar to the choices a gambler makes when he or she heads out to Las Vegas in search of a big payoff. 
While we realize that comparing bidding on our items to sitting down to a poker table in Vegas probably doesn’t do much to help dissuade the notion that shopping with QuiBids isn’t gambling, we think it’s still a valid, vivid means of comparison that illustrates how to take advantage of our business model. From this point on (in this post, at least), it helps to bear the Buy Now feature in mind, as it guarantees that you’ll never have to pay more than a product’s retail price, should an auction not go the way you hoped. And that — unlike a casino’s slot machines — the odds aren’t always set in the house’s (read: QuiBids’) favor.
QuiBids as Vegas Comparison #1: Never walk into the Palace without plenty of ammo
Who carries pocket change into Casesar’s Palace — or The Palms, or MGM Grand — expecting to win big? Delusional people, that’s who.
Likewise, QuiBidders expecting to reign a big-screen TV with just a couple of bids are thinking pretty optimistically. Not that customers don’t win big with just a few bids — they do, we see it all the time — but they’re considerably less likely to win such an item at a discount if they’re not willing to pump in a hefty amount of bids.
QuiBids as Vegas Comparison #2: Different players have different styles
We bill ourselves as an entertainment shopping site, so customers’ ultimate goal should boil down to something as simple as “Have fun and get stuff,” right? Well sometimes users develop more involved, complicated (and even sometimes perplexing) strategies to deliver that goal.
A common one we’ve noticed is very similar to bluffing and losing. In poker, sometimes getting caught bluffing can be a useful thing, assuming you don’t lose too many chips: it proves to your opponents that you won’t sit idly by, waiting for a good hand. Then, they may be less likely to believe you when you do wind up with a straight flush. You win some to lose some.
Similarly on QuiBids, some users are willing to take a loss on certain auctions just to establish a reputation as being difficult to defeat. A user may spend 300 bids for instance, just to win 250 Voucher Bids. It is a bit of a bully tactic, and doesn’t make much sense within the immediate context, but it can pay off dividends if it means that other customers are scared to bid against you. We think it’s a good strategy to generally avoid these people, but to also bear in mind that a bluff is just a scare tactic by somebody who’s got nothing. Sometimes challenging them on their bullying can blow up their whole persona.
QuiBids as Vegas Comparison #3: Don’t expect to win your first trip to the table
A lot of people watch professionals play poker on TV and think, “That looks easy — all I’ve gotta do is sit still and keep a really stern face and toss chips in the pot!”
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Each person at that televised table spent years of experience calculating odds and analyzing them against the behavior of their opponents. It’s incredibly nerve-wracking and stressful, and miles above the level of competition at your buddies’ weekly poker night.
Major product auctions on QuiBids often draw these sorts of players — the so-called “power-bidders” — who spent a lot of time in front of their computer screens, trying (and often succeeding) at winning our products. Building up to their level of skill and confidence requires a lot of time and bidding, so don’t expect to win a computer or major in-home appliance on your first try, at least without the help of Buy Now.
QuiBids as Vegas Comparison #4: Smaller auctions are
If big-item auctions draw the big-time players, then it follows that smaller-item auctions are less-trafficked, right? [Now’s the part where you nod your head in the affirmative.]
It helps to think of an auction like a poker table: your odds of winning increase if you only have to beat two opponents instead of nine. Look for items being bid on by fewer users and the odds will ever be in your favor!
QuiBids Product Spotlight: HP Pavilion g6
Since March 31 of this year, QuiBids users have won 16 of these babies, and they’re proving themselves to be a pretty popular auction. And no wonder! With a Blu-ray player, 640 gig hard drive, HP webcam, nearly six hours of battery life, and a Microsoft Office Starter kit, what’s not to like?
We wanted to highlight this particular item for a different reason, though (you can find out more about its specifications below), and that’s the bipolar pattern at which it’s been selling.
Of the 16 HP Pavilions sold, the prices have ranged from $1.35 all the way to $82.02. It’s not uncommon for items auctioned on QuiBids to sell at such a dynamic range, so that’s not really the oddball thing here. It has to do with the weird, inexplicable gap in the middle, between the half of the items that sold for less than $14 and the other half that sold for $33 or more. Observe.
Here are the prices of the eight Pavilions that sold for $33 or more. They’re ordered from greatest to least:
$82.02
$79.16
$72.56
$64.36
$47.05
$42.90
$36.20
$33.14
Here are the prices of the eight Pavilions that sold for less than $14. Again, ordered from greatest to least:
$13.55
$13.35
$9.07
$6.85
$6.02
$5.12
$4.31
$1.35
That $20 gap in the middle is a pretty telling limit, and a good rule of thumb for participating in auctions for this item in the future. There’s about a 50% chance that the end price will wind up at $13 or less. After that, $80-$33 is a pretty wide range, so you’d be best served to concentrate your bidding in the early going, on the off-chance that the bidding doesn’t get too heated, as was the case with Nessiebot, who spent 18 bids and saved $637.84. Not too shabby for that tabby.
Features:
- Intel Core i3-2350M processor
- 2.30GHz, 3MB L3 Cache
- 4GB DDR3 SDRAM system memory (expandable to 8GB)
- Gives you the power to handle most power-hungry applications and tons of multimedia work
- 640GB SATA hard drive
- Store 426,000 photos, 182,000 songs or 336 hours of HD video and more
- Blu-ray player and SuperMulti DVD Burner
- Watch movies, and read and write CDs and DVDs in multiple formats
- 10/100Base-T Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN
- Connect to a broadband modem with wired Ethernet or wirelessly connect to a Wi-Fi signal or hotspot with the 802.11b/g/n connection built into your PC
- 15.6″ HD BrightView LED-backlit display
- Intel HD Graphics 3000 with up to 1696MB total graphics memory
Additional Features:
- HP webcam
- 2-in-1 memory card reader
- 3 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x headphone-out, 1 x microphone-in, 1 x RJ-45 Ethernet port, 1 x VGA port, 1 x HDMI port
- 6-cell lithium-ion battery, up to 5 h 30 min battery life
Software:
- Genuine Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition (To learn more about the features of Windows 7, click here)
- Microsoft Office Starter 2010: Includes reduced functionality versions of Microsoft Word and Excel, with advertising. PowerPoint and Outlook are NOT included. Purchase Office 2010 today and get the most out of your new PC. (To learn more about the features of Office 2010, click here)
- Norton Internet Security 2012 (60-day subscription)
- HP Recovery Manager
Support and Warranty:
- 1-year limited hardware warranty
- Restore discs are not included (unless specified by supplier). We recommend you use the installed software to create your own restore and backup DVD the first week you use the computer.
Return Policy: Within 30 days in the original packaging
The Top 5 Customer Complaints on QuiBids
We’re not exactly wild about the fact that “scam” is one of the words that comes up early and often when customers look for information about QuiBids on the Internet. In fact, we take a healthy amount of offense, since our customers win thousands of steeply-discounted items on our site every day and sound off about it regularly via social media. 
Now nearing our third year of operation as an entertainment retail auction site, we’ve heard loads of complaints about QuiBids — that it’s a scam, a rip-off, that it’s not legitimate, and so on. Sometimes we do receive really well-considered and friendly criticisms of how the site works (which we always take into consideration, thank you very much!), but the bulk of user complaints are so casual, general, and unfocused that they obviously stem from users’ failings to understand our auction model, which is carefully explained in the QuiBids 101 section of our website. We hear a lot of the same stuff over and over again, and while our Customer Support Team is always happy to help users out, we fear many careful online researchers get scared away before they even get the chance to place a bid, much less win a laptop for $1.99.
So here for you, we’ve assembled the QuiBids Customer Support Team’s Top 5 Customer Complaints to explain why some people accuse us of all that nasty stuff, and why it’s simply not true.
1. “I didn’t know I was spending real money!”
We’ve heard this one since we launched QuiBids in October 2009: it’s the most common culprit behind accusations of scamming and illegitimacy. A lot of customers breeze past information resources like QuiBids 101 and the company blog and fail to understand that — unlike eBay — you don’t recoup your bids if you lose an auction. The “How does QuiBids work?” page at QuiBids 101 is a good place to start if you’re looking for more information about this.
We always recommend that you Buy Now in cases like this. This feature guarantees that you’ll never pay more than the listed price on QuiBids — even if you don’t win an auction — so long as you choose to use it!
2. “Where are my items?”
Next most common is the more understandable complaint regarding the whereabouts of your won items. We advise that you hit up the Shipment & Returns section of our FAQ, and that you bear in mind that most items arrive within 7-10 business days of payment. You can usually track your shipments at the Order History section of My QuiBids.
If you haven’t received your won item 14 business days after payment, then we advise you to contact our support staff.
Also, in the event that you win an item that we no longer carry in stock, you may choose between a list of comparable items (provided by QuiBids) or to simply have your bids refunded, per our Shipment & Returns section.
3. “QuiBids uses bots and shill bidders! It’s a scam!”
Much like a college basketball game, the last twenty seconds of an auction often get dragged out for much longer than that. While coaches call timeouts to strategize whether or not to foul a key player or run a particular inbound play, experienced QuiBids users typically bid the most at this point in the auction, sometimes extending it for over an hour.
Users often misconstrue this last-minute bidding technique as evidence of bot or shill bidders (illegitimate scripts written into an auction site meant to increase the number of bids in an auction), but that’s just not the case. Our site rules forbid their use: in fact the rules are so stringent that our own family members (sorry guys!) are even forbidden to use the site. It’s all a concentrated effort to preserve QuiBids’ fairness and legitimacy.
For a little more than our assurance, we recommend you check out the Better Business Bureau, which has accredited us since September 2010. We’re very proud of our “A—” rating.
And while it might not make for the best bedtime reading, here’s a PDF containing an assessment conducted by Grant Thornton LLP (an Oklahoma City independent auditing firm), which concluded that “bids on auctions are placed by bona fide users, that QuiBids does not manipulate the bidding process to inflate the bid price or affect who wins the auctions, and that winning auctions and ‘Buy Now’ orders are fulfilled.”
4. “I thought I won!”
One of the more confusing parts of running a business online is dealing with computers’ lag time across the Internet. Users sometimes report that they clicked Bid in the closing seconds of an auction, but didn’t win the item. For the record: we don’t recommend waiting until the last few seconds of an auction for precisely this reason.
This unfortunate phenomenon is caused by lag time or data transfer delays between your PC and QuiBids’ servers, which can be augmented by any number of factors, including dated operating systems, old versions of Internet browsers, or a slowed-down Internet connection. If this is the case, you needn’t worry about losing a bid, because we didn’t receive it.
To make sure you’re up to date on your technology, we recommend the Technical Problems page at our FAQ.
5. “QuiBids is making way too much money!”
Customers, bloggers, and critics have pulled out their calculators to try and nail down just how much money QuiBids earns on a given item. While we appreciate their interest in our business model, the occasional accusations of profiteering are unwarranted, as they rarely account for Voucher Bids (which are free) cast in an auction, nor the number of customers who choose to Buy Now. The latter feature does eat directly into our profits, but it’s worth it to provide an out for customers who lost money bidding in an auction.