MadBid

I too was hoodwinked and was relieved of £99.96 after registering for what I initially was led to believe was a £1.00 registration fee. However after a seies of e-mail exchanges where I was repeatedly told my money would not be refunded I have now been promised a refund of £49.98 in respect of rapid top ups only after e-mailing the ceo and threatening him with Trading Standards and also Small Claims Court action. Had I proceeded with this course of action I believe I would have been successful and a very interesting precedent may have been set.

They pose themselves as a normal bidding site but in fact they not.
I get scammed into buying credit into your account and you start off by bidding on some items.
Mostly all people run out of credit to bid as you pay X bid credits per bid without noticing it.
When you run out of credit you go research why and you find out in their terms and conditions you get buying credit for your used bids. That would be ok if you could buy something at a reasonable price but their items for sale are about 400% more expensive than Ebay. And on ebay you get free delivery but on madbid you still have to pay delivery on top of an item that costs 400% more.

Again like others have just purchased £49.99 credits, was bidding to win another amount of credit, after reading that this was best way to gain on the site. Just when the bidding was getting close to closing i got the message i had run put of credits!... couldn't believe it!... i was furiously looking around site to find out what happens as i had read something about getting some type of discount using the credits spent... but it said i didn't have any available... and even if i had it could only be used against extortionately priced items i could never afford to 'buy now'... It is blatantly a scam and i'm MAD at Mad-bid and myself for being a sucker!

There are a lot of bad comments on here, but all I will say is watch and understand how the site works before you fly off the handle.
I have won a few auctions which include Camera Laptop iphone6s and other items and found it lots of fun and easy to use once you study the site. You cannot expect to win every auction you enter, anyway you get credits back in the form of Discounts Earned which you can spend on site if you wish.
Customer Service is Very Helpful and always return emails within 24 hours.
Delivery is fast and efficient about 4 to 5 days.
Over all it has been a very Positive Experience
I will continue to use the site for all types of Tech goods and other items
Blazer7890

Thanks everyone for your reviews. I had just signed up and before spending any money I thought I'd see what other people thought about it. I got the message over and over and over again. One star and "scam" seemed to appear in 90% of the reviews. Thanks again.

So... you join up and then find you have to spend at least £30 to buy a few bids. You set your privacy settings to make sure they keep your info confidential and start.
It costs you to place a bid. If you do something crafty like wait till there is only a second or two before the auction ends... it backfires as the timer resets and gives everyone else plenty of time to bid. At 1p a bid, when it shows the current bid at £200 that means they have already earned £200 from all the 1p bid charges. If you win, you have to pay the winning price and you've used up loads of bid credits to do it.
I closed the account within an hour of opening it... and although I can't prove anything... It's a strange coincidence that an old email address I rarely use and has been quiet for years suddenly becomes the subject of every timeshare and credit card seller on the planet.

An unbelievable scam. Stupidly I bought £50 of credits, watched some auctions to get a feel for it. When a couple of weeks later I returned to the site to try my luck I found I had no credits in my account. I may or may not have touched an Auto button, either way it used all my credits bidding for an item I had no interest in without me knowing about it. As you would expect from a scamming company the answers to my questions as to how this can happen are nothing short of insulting. Steer clear of this company!

Warning, whatever you do, do not fall for MadBid! I did, and I never got anything for my money. It was all swallowed up by making bids. Can you believe it? They charge you to bid on items and you don't get anything in the end. They take all your money. Don't believe all the hype about things being cheap they are definately not. No one lets you know how much money they spent to actually bid on the item. They only tell you what the item was sold for. For example, It might cost them $250.00 to put bids on an item and then if they win it for $75.00, then it cost them a total of $325.00.

Misleading you pay for the rite to bid so the credits you purchase are a waste of money because you pay twice for your purchase there are only a few items at a time to bid for as this is a vast sit there are probably hundreds of thousands of people bidding on the same item you have more chance of winning the lottery! Take a look at closed auctions you will see items sold at a reasonable price so use this as a guide and bid on same item in the next auction very soon the price will rise well above the previous closed auction. AVOID 0

Every time u bid your balance will be deducted, whether u win the bid or not.(In most of the cases u can not win the bid at your price) So ultimately u have to go for buy of more credits and u have to make further payments. This is the only site where u lost money without getting any thing. U waste the time as well as money. There are fake bidders who will not allow u to win the bis at lower price.

A great site where the race is always on to get a great deal on some incredible products. If you are an electronics buff this is the site to go and try your hand (and a bit of luck) at becoming the owner of the best tech

Not the best site but it seems to be getting better I have try a few sites but understand that you have to be ready for the auction to be a winner and unless you bid on small items to then get to the big things

One of my friends used to work at Madbid and says he knows the company pays people to bid against legitimate customers in order to make them have to rebid to use more credit. The site is absolutely ripping people off and anyone with anything good to say about the site is more than likely one of those paid employees who bid against proper customers.

I joined Mad Bid after reading a 'review' on daily mail online! You would have thought that it was ligit! WRONG, it was an advert written to look like it was a reporter having won an iphone for silly money. I joined, then it asked for £50, not much info to tell me that my £50 only bought me bid money! Now I have all this money and lots of bids available but nothing that I will even get close to winning due to the way it is set up.
Waste of money, time and should not be allowed to 'look like editorial' on Daily Mail online... shame on you... you money grabbing shisters just like the website Mad bid!

This is getting to the point of being ridiculous. These penny auction sites are designed to be a gambling site and to make money off people just like casinos. Even worse, venture capitalists are getting in on this game and investing big money into these sites. Makes sense I suppose, all of vegas is one big company now. I think the bad part is that these websites are just not regulated. At least the nevada gaming is regulated by government.

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/07/26/penny-auction-site-madbid-secures-4m-funding-from-atomico-ventures/

Bought several items that were listed as open box, not listed as used or like new. The Nuwave Duet pressure cooker was used and nasty! The smoker was missing pieces, and the air mattress was not the mattress that was supposed to be in the box and it smelled heavily of cigarette smoke. The air mattress also would not hold air!
I'm HIGHLY disappointed and will not shoot here again.

It is a very new experience for me, this way to buy new things. But it is very funny, and also kind of tricky, because you need to know very well how and when make an offer. But once you know how to do it. It is very easy and entertaining.

This site is what is advertised as a "penny" bid Auction. It is nothing of the sort. To bid on this site you must buy "credits" To get enough to bid they want your card details. When you get your "credits" and start to bid you will find the so called "credits" disappear very very quickly, so now you buy more. Get the idea. And when you find that you have been outbid and lost the object you wanted, you have also lost your credits. Unlike a true auction where you still retain your money. So now you have to buy more. So monitor your card statements very closely.

Their headline is you can save upto 80% off rrp which is complete lies as you have to pay to bid and unless you've been dam lucky to win an auction with one bid it's going to cost you a hell of a lot more, probavly more than buying from a reputable shop in the first place for some items.

They even make it look like they are doing you a favour by offering the Auto bids function, of course they want you to use it as it keeps the bids increasing and using all your credits up, then they have the auto top up (max £100 a day) just to screw you even more.

There's also the rookie auction scam that's offered to you as you sign up, probably the only auctions that most will win but by doing so exempts you from receiving your credits back on auctions you didn't win as conditions are that you can't have won any auctions to get your credits back.

Don't believe the adverts, would be better to spend your money on some lotto scratchcards

It's a con, pure and simple. You buy credits and then these credits are used to bid with. If you actually manage to win a bid you then have to pay for the item you have purchased separately, regardless of how many 'credits' you have. It's win win for 'madbid.com, but lose lose for us poor suckers.

I wish I had read these reviews before I parted wth £49.99. I agree with just about all of them. I emailed madbid for a refund of the balance but was informed that as I had partially used the funds I was not entitled to any refund. I was bidding on something and was on for over 30 minuits and lost the will to live, so gave up when I realised what their game was. I agree they are the only ones to make money out of this. I've put this loss down to experience. SAVE YOUR MONEY.

Been able to win countless items I could never afford from the High Streets. Moreover it's a nice way to pass that free time when there is nothing to do. With a bit of patience, you could be walking away with some awesome BARGAINS!

I won canon eos 1200D kit for just $90(including shipping) on 24th February, 2016. But I get this product in June, 2016. I like bidding in madbid but the main problem is delivery of products. They are taking so much of time to deliver the products. My second won auction sony smart watch comes in two weeks. We will definitely get our products but the delivery time is unpredictable.