Purses for a Penny! Really? REALLY?? No.
BY Editweapon @ October 7, 2009
There I was, minding my own business on woot.com and I saw a banner ad for PennyPurses.com with the caption, “Designer handbags for pennies. Really.” (paraphrased)
Even though I’m all filled up on man bags at the moment, curiosity got the best of me and I clicked through to check it out. After reading a few pages, I decided I would sign up and try it out because it just seemed too damn good to be true!
Well, in summary, it pretty much is.
Here’s the review I posted to their Facebook Fan page:
The item I’m bidding on, and will surely lose.
Comments are now open for jokes about me bidding on purses. But you have to buy a package of “100 Comment Credits” for $65 for me to publish them.
Popularity: 9% [?]
I learned my lesson the hard way about this site. It really is too good to be true. The only purses you can possibly get for “cheap” are ugly ones I wouldn’t buy anyway. I got in on an auction the other night that went all night long and in the end I used about 1000 bids ($650!) and didn’t win. I could have bought the purse for that (their MSRP was $890). I have lost a few hundred here and there on other purses on there and never won. Unless you have unlimited money to spend on a CHANCE to win a purse then you’re not going to get any deals on there, and even if you do have unlimited money you’d have to spend as much in bids to win it as the bag is worse. They must be raking in the money. You know they aren’t paying full retail price for any of these purses anyway and they regularly get 500 bids on the low auctions. The one I lost $650 on? They got about 5,600 bids on it. Bids are, at the very least .65 each and they go up to .80 each. You do the math.
I hate these total crooks!!! How do they sleep at night? Thank you guys for reporting them!! I was looking into bidding. I obviously would have lost my ass.
These are online gambling sites, you’re essentially buying for pennies against bots for a prize. if you factor how many times people are bidding every second.
These companies are raking $1000’s of dollars.
This is not really an auction, you’re just throwing money on the table until the other person gets tired, or dies at their desktop. All those bids add up and to add insult to injury you still get to buy the product at the so called reduced price.
Stay away.
Wow, thanks for the info. I likewise saw a similar banner ad for a “stupid low” price on something. I clicked thru not because I was looking for a purse, but to figure it out. I didn’t dig this deep, so I’m glad you did.
Thanks,
@AcmePhoto
It’s great if you like the fun of gambling, I mean look at las vegas. People lose all the time (if more won than lost vegas would go broke). Yet the strip is the most valuable place on earth. People go there to lose money and have a good time. Penny purses is a scam? Hardly. It is entertainment! If you want a purse go buy one at Neiman Marcus. If you want a “steal” of a “deal” then look online and buyer beware (caveat emptor). Everybody wants a deal to brag about, that is all this site is doing. Giving bored women something to brag about…
In Vegas, you know what you’re up against. The better casinos even have brochures explaining the rules of the games & the odds upon request. This purse scam is misleading for a reason. It’s a scam!!! Not gambling.
Please check out Penny Auction Watch and discuss your experiences with Penny Purses under our penny purses posts as well as in the forum http://www.pennyauctionwatch.com
http://www.pennyauctionforum.com
Thank you!
I won’t bid on their site again either, I had the very same bid time as the winner yet they selected the other person to win the purse????? How is that fair? I’ve lots way too much and it seems odd that the same people do all the winning.
Question for you all – really 2 questions. First of all, did any of you that were jilted contact Penny Purses to either get your bids added back to your account or more preferably a refund from your forfeited bids due to their “glitches” in the system?
Second question – in the cases where it was an infair ending to an auction, did ou notice if it was a bidder using future bids that may have won against the single bidders?
Has anyone tried to open a resolution dispute through Paypal to get their money back – that is my next step pending the response I receive from Penny Purses as to why twice I lost out when it appears to be their system causing me to lose.
I just signed up because someone e-mailed me how great the site is. I don’t get it , there are 4 ugly purses on auction. I also don’t understand how one bidder lost $650 but never won a single purse. When I go to regular auctions, I only pay for what I won. Why do people love this site?
I cannot speak for Penny Purses, but I can state with absolute certainty that my site, http://www.dime-divas.com, is not a scam. It is not gambling. We auction off designer purses too, but our bidders are rewarded with spafinder.com gift cards just for bidding. So, even those who don’t win the product can still win something! Take a look. I think you will like what you see!
Kindest,
Traci
We would love to hear about your experiences with PennyPurses.com and all other similar penny auction sites on Penny Auction Watch, we offerpenny auction news, reviews, directory and discussion board. Thanks!
Traci, your site is basically a replica of pennypurses.com, plus some gift card spiffs. Wow, how generous of you.
But your site is still, with absolute certainty, a rip-off for the 99.9% of users who bid and never win because bidding costs money! Duh!!!!
People of Earth, a deal that is too good to be true, IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!
Thanks Patrick. You truly opened my eyes to this scam.
Hell yeah penny purses rocks!!!!!!Purses for Pennies Perfect, I Love This Blog keep It up, And Comment More on Whats Going On here
Traci Eskildsen of Dime-Divas (post above), how can you say you “can’t speak for Penny Purses” when you yourself have won a bag from the website? (http://www.pennypurses.com/auctions/view/295)
And also we happily refunded you a bid package purchase because your husband was angry with you?
James:
I am sorry. I never meant to imply that Penny Purses did not operate with integrity. I sincerely hope that anyone who read my post did not take it as such. I was merely indicating that I was not a representative of PP. You guys run a fabulous site, operate with absolute integrity, and are in no way a scam. Please accept my apologies. If I could edit away that portion of my post, I would.
Traci
Penny Purses is NOT a scam. I have won a few purses on there. It IS a form of gambling…(my opinion) but did you really think that the web-host was just going to throw away money and give the purses away for a couple of bucks a piece? It is a business…duh.
Adrian, the problem with PennyPurses is that it’s deceptive. They make you think you can buy a purse for a few bucks, but that’s obviously not really what happens for 99.9 of their users who spend money bidding and don’t win the purse.
Is that the definition of a scam? I don’t know. But it sure isn’t a business model that will get lots of referrals. It’s about tricking people into playing/bidding/gambling — based on their own greed — and then screwing them out of a few bucks.