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Ahem, actually it's just a scam, in it's purest form. No, it doesn't qualify as gambling because your chance to win is not determined by luck but solely at the

by moe 17y ago

Ahem, actually it's just a scam, in it's purest form. No, it doesn't qualify as gambling because your chance to win is not determined by luck but solely at the discretion of the people running the show. Imagine you enter a casino and someone offers you the following game: There's a red button, one push costs $1. Anyone may push as often as they want and can afford. If the button isn't pushed for one hour then the last person who had pushed receives $1000 USD (fixed). Fine you may think, I'll come here at thanksgiving when nobody is around and push it then. Except that there's always this one sleazy guy lurking in the corner, even at thanksgiving, with that strangely swollen thumb and an seemingly unlimited budget...

cesare 17y ago
Exactly. Maybe there are people working for them by placing bids until they win every item. It would explain this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=700250 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=700250 Even with the new option to buy the products at full price, it would still be a scam since they've acquired customers by cheating them into thinking they would have the possibility to buy at a discounted price. Anyway, there's an issue with the transparency of their operations which is not required in an auction site like ebay since on ebay the winner of the auction must be real, in order to buy the item from the seller.
- moe 17y ago
  In reality you don't hire people for that, way too risky. You simply have a few "good friends" run a bidbot-script on some leftover machines. That's near impossible to detect (just create new accounts and cycle credit cards regularly) and makes the scheme entirely bulletproof.
  - wlievens 17y ago
    I'm sure that falls under the definition of what he meant by "hire".
ars 17y ago
It's not a scam, because they are not cheating or fooling you. It "smells" bad - but I can't logically find anything morally wrong about it.
- Kadin 17y ago
  Well, I agree that there's nothing morally wrong about it in the abstract (but I think gambling is quite all right too, if the rules are on the up and up), but we don't know that they're not cheating. They could have people acting as shills, "winning" the items and ensuring that no goods ever have to actually be delivered, or even exist at all. This would be impossible for a casual user to detect.

by moe 17y ago

cesare 17y ago

Exactly. Maybe there are people working for them by placing bids until they win every item. It would explain this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=700250 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=700250 Even with the new option to buy the products at full price, it would still be a scam since they've acquired customers by cheating them into thinking they would have the possibility to buy at a discounted price. Anyway, there's an issue with the transparency of their operations which is not required in an auction site like ebay since on ebay the winner of the auction must be real, in order to buy the item from the seller.

moe 17y ago
In reality you don't hire people for that, way too risky. You simply have a few "good friends" run a bidbot-script on some leftover machines. That's near impossible to detect (just create new accounts and cycle credit cards regularly) and makes the scheme entirely bulletproof.
- wlievens 17y ago
  I'm sure that falls under the definition of what he meant by "hire".

ars 17y ago

It's not a scam, because they are not cheating or fooling you. It "smells" bad - but I can't logically find anything morally wrong about it.

Kadin 17y ago
Well, I agree that there's nothing morally wrong about it in the abstract (but I think gambling is quite all right too, if the rules are on the up and up), but we don't know that they're not cheating. They could have people acting as shills, "winning" the items and ensuring that no goods ever have to actually be delivered, or even exist at all. This would be impossible for a casual user to detect.