We at MAW were interested to receive an email from one of our faithful followers regarding Madbid (www.madbid.com) the UK based penny auction house.
It appears that a few people had written some negative comments on the Madbid forum http://madbidforums.com/index.php?/topic/95-strange-winners-report/ regarding a few suspicious user names including some comments from a “AuctionWatch” which I will point out right now is not MAW. Madbid went on to say that their data is monitored and they are compliant with Information Commisioners Office (ICO) (which I will assume is a UK regulatory office).
Our follower took it upon himself to write to the ICO and this was their response:
Sent: Mon, 19 July, 2010 9:33:22
Subject: Enquiry reponse from the Information Commissioner’s Office
19 July 2010
Case Reference Number ENQ0319992
Dear Mr Collier
Thank you for your email dated 26 June 2010, attached.
Your enquiry
I understand from your email that you have been informed that the Information Commissioner’s Office keeps a record of all bidders or indeed can monitor any bids on any auctions run by a particular website. This is not the case.
We do not routinely hold information on behalf or public authorities or private companies. Indeed we are unaware of any company called Madbid. I have set out below what this office does.
About the Information Commissioner’s Office
The Information Commissioner is a UK independent supervisory authority reporting directly to the UK Parliament. The Commissioner enforces and oversees the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 within the UK and the Environmental Information Regulations and Freedom of Information Act 2000 within England , Wales and Northern Ireland .
You can find out about your rights as an individual under the legislation we oversee by visiting the section for individuals on our website at http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_the_public.aspx.
Reporting possible scams
If you are concerned that a UK organisation is operating an online scam, you may want to contact the Office of Fair Trading to report the scam and seek advice on your rights as a consumer.
The Office of Fair Trading can be contacted via their website www.oft.gov.uk. There is a list of known scams on their website at http://www.oft.gov.uk/Consumer/Scams/default.htm.
Consumer Direct is a telephone and online consumer advice service, supported by the Office of Fair Trading -
Website: www.consumerdirect.gov.uk
Telephone: 08454 04 05 06.
I hope that this information is helpful. If you have further questions on this issue, please either respond to this email (leaving the subject line unchanged) or contact our helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Yours sincerely
Case Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office
Hmmm. Do you smell the same rat as me here? Its well and good quoting facts but when these quoted facts aren’t entirely truthful why quote them in the first place? I must admit we are becoming more and more sceptical of one or two penny auction websites including Madbid. We did read an article recently where Madbid claimed they had over 70,000 winners and that they have over 100 auctions per day. Well what a pack of lies that it is. The FACT is: MadBid may now have 100 auctions per day (lets all monitor this claim from Madbid) now but certainly from their inception in 2008 this was not the case. In fact during their first 12 months of operation they averaged 43 auctions per day FACT. So lets assume that their second year they had 100 auctions per day (and I would stake my life savings on the fact that this is not the case and that they have now conveniently made a few cosmetic changes to their website to say they have over 100 auctions per day because quite a few people had questioned their claims on the number of winners they have advertised against the actual number of auctions) it still does not add up. Take a look for yourself at their claim http://uk.madbid.com/about/
Lets look at the mathematics. First 12 months of operation August 2008 – August 2009 Average number of auctions 43 per day (even less in the first few months!!!). August 2009 – June 2010 number of auctions 100 per day (and I am being generous with this estimation). Unless I cannot add up that means they had 15695 auctions Aug 08 – Aug 09 and 33000 auctions Sep 09 – June 10 inclusive (includes Christmas Day, New Years Eve Grans Birthday etc.) giving us a grand total of 45,695 auctions since their inception in August 2008. I have a problem with this. You see they claim to have had over 70,000 winners since they started yet they have only ever held a maximum of 45,695 auctions. Dont tell me Madbid that you have had numerous double winners or something!!! They claim these figures on their own website http://uk.madbid.com/about/ yet they are way off the mark.
Perception is a subject that should be treated with kid gloves. I understand that Madbid have had a major financial injection recently and as a result they have been advertising globally it seems through all media channels. DO NOT BE FOOLED. Nothing is straightforward with Madbid or in the responses they give to claims or criticism. One sure fire way of confirming if Madbid are as big and legit as what they claim they are is to take at look at their annual accounts submitted through Companies House in the UK. Even that is not straightforward as I suspect the accounts will not be filed under Madbid but under their Holding Company name. You do the maths yourself based on the average profit they apparently make on each auction and I will bet a dollar right now that the accounts figures (assuming they have been filed lol) will come nowhere near what you and I calculate their T/O to be.
I smell a BIG RAT with Madbid and we at MAW are going to continue our efforts in trying to unearth more ‘scratch your head time’ facts about Madbid and any other scrupulous penny auction websites that may appear on our radar no matter where they are located in the world.
WATCH THIS SPACE!