Wednesday 6 August 2014

Beware of Scam Auction Site Swoggi.co.uk

You've no doubt spotted adverts on some websites stating how can Swoggi sell iPads (iPhone, iMac etc) for £30.  I'll let you into a little secret, they can't!

Firstly let me explain what swoggi is. It's basically a gambling site where you have minuscule odds of winning a desirable gadget at a very low price.  The reason it's gambling and not a true auction site is that you have to BUY bids before you can bid.  Yes, that's right before you get anywhere near buying the item you wanted, you have to spend money to have a chance of winning it.

Then there is the auctions themselves, a standard ebay auction will have a timer, which when ended will show who the winner is and how much they have bid.  But not at swoggi.co.uk, they have a unique (money making) feature which lets bidders (or possibly the site owners) extend the time of the auction.  So there you are, 10 seconds away from winning that iPad Air you wanted, the countdown is approaching zero, then bang someone mystical adds another 2 minutes and 30 seconds to the auction, which allows more bids from more users and you guessed it, more money for the site owners!

They also steal images of real people and pretend they are winners on the site, when in fact they are real photographs of somebody who is nothing to do with swoggi.co.uk!

Example here Seb Bell, a guy you've probably seen used on swoggi's adverts, but is in fact nothing to do with them and his image was taken from here http://www.schoolpartnershipmarketing.co.uk/2010/08/06/newsroom/ipad-competition-winner/ after he won a real ipad in a competition unrelated to swoggi.

I have just watched an auction lot which had ten seconds remaining that is still running an hour (plus plenty of bids and time extension fees) later.  If you want a cheap iPad then please buy one from a reputable retailer and don't be sucked in by this complete and utter farce.  You will end up paying many times the original selling price and will probably never win anything due to shill bids and bid bots no doubt.

If you have been scammed out of money by swoggi.co.uk then please leave a message and try and save as many people as possible from being led down the garden path with their hard earned money.

You have been warned!

The company behind swoggi.co.uk is Juniper Global Ltd, run by directors Mr Azhari Eltigani Elsheik and Mr Rimon Yousif as you'll see from the company accounts if you click the name above the company isn't massively successful.