Pposh Claims to be in Testing Mode, Questions Remain

I received lots of angry comments (almost certainly from Pposh employees) about my accusation that Pposh is a scam. People in the comments claim the site is still in testing mode and that users were sent an email saying so. I did receive such an email, posted below in its entirety.

"Salutations-

Thank you for signing up with Pposh.com. We are in the middle of testing the site. We do apologize for the inconvience but can you please come back in a few days. We will of course hold your bids and will send you an email as soon as it is ready.

Thank you for your patience and we look forward to seeing you soon!!

Pposh.com"

However, this alone does not clear the site from what I would call dubious practices if not from being an outright scam. First, nowhere on the site could I find a disclaimer saying it is still in testing mode - a huge problem. Pposh lists ended auctions with details about when they were won, who won and for how much. Pposh do you see any problem with posting over 170 ended auctions with full descriptions of the travel packages won with really low prices that were not actually won? That's false advertising if not illegal. Your blog has similar false advertising, which I took a screen shot of and posted here. If you are in testing mode why would you post on your blog "I just won a Caribbean cruise on a new website I just stumbled on and I feel they are going to be very successful ... they have just launched the site a few days ago. Check it out." So you didn't win a cruise 1. because you work at the site, 2. because there is no cruise because you are in "testing mode" and 3. you were OK with lying about this auction to potential customers.

Also, how can you claim to be giving away five "free" bids when you are in testing mode - obviously if I can't win anything because you are in testing mode you can't legitimately charge me for bids. I don't know if users can use bids they purchased at Pposh to bid on these "testing mode" auctions, but when I used all five of my "free" bids this morning I was prompted to select a bidpack and enter my credit card information (again, without ever being told I was bidding on "test" auctions). This is very, very wrong, if not, again, a huge SCAM.

Pposh, we will watch you closely when you claim to leave "testing mode" and see what is going on then. However, in an industry that already has a credibility problem you have dug yourselves a large hole with your lack of disclosure and misleading if not fraudulent information posted on the site. Everything about your site looks and feels like a fully operational penny auction site, if you are in testing mode you need to say so on the site. I really don't know why you would do live testing anyway, except in my honest opinion, to deceive potential bidders.

Pposh - I have not deleted your comments on the previous post and have no plans to do so. However, if this pattern of comments continues and you do not properly identify yourselves as Pposh employees or persons with a vested interest in the company I will delete them. I believe fully in transparency and user freedom of speech, however, if comments are deceptive in their own right than as the administrator of this site I have an obligation to filter them.

Penny Auction Insider community: Pposh has been extremely deceptive, I would avoid the site until it can be verified that they are legitimate. I am not the only one who feels this way, Penny Auction Watch had a similar story this morning. We will continue to follow this story but in the meantime, as Penny Auction Watch stated earlier today, anyone with $150 and a few spare hours can start a penny auction site and anyone with an internet connection can post a comment on this blog. We need to be careful before we spend money on any new penny auction site, unfortunately it's just too easy to defraud people online.

Even Swoopo, the largest and most credible site is getting destroyed by angry users on their Facebook page who claim to have won items and not received them or purchased bids and not received them. I think Swoopo is completely legitimate, but if even the best sites have glitches why would you trust a newcomer that is being deceptive before they even go live? If you have a Facebook account go here to read the comments on the Swoopo Facebook page, it's a mess.
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More on How PPosh is a Scam

Caption: Updated graphic of travel packages fake bidder Shasta1 has won on Pposh, green = hotel, blue = cruise, red = flight. These packages must be used in August or September of this year

I found the new penny auction site, PPosh, yesterday and exposed them for being a scam in this post. Warning flag raised, I could call it a day, content that Penny Auction Insider readers won't fall for this trap. However, pointing out the ridiculousness of PPosh is just too much fun to stop now. Below is a screenshot from today showing PPosh shill bidder Shasta1 bidding on yet another travel package. Apparently Shasta1 is not content with the 18 flights, cruises and hotel stays he has racked-up in the past two weeks and needs a flight from Miami to Mexico before he can call his vacation to end all vacations complete. Shasta1 is also currently the top bidder on two golf packages.


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Penny Auction Site Pposh.com is Complete Scam

I rarely blow the whistle on penny auction sites, frankly because we can almost never know for sure whether a site is legitimate or not. Even if Swoopo users like their experience and receive their products, how do we know the site doesn't throw in an autobot every once in a while just to give the house an extra buck? Well, fortunately for penny auction players, the sites that seem to be complete frauds make it pretty obvious.

The latest one, Pposh.com, is so pathetic it's almost funny.

Pposh.com is a penny auction scam site that claims to sell vacation packages; everything from flights to cruises to rental cars and even Hooters gift cards.

While winning travel packages sounds more appealing to me than electronics, they present a logistical nightmare for penny auction websites. Vacation packages which include flights, hotels or cruise cabins are time sensitive, they include components that change in price and that need to be reserved so the seat or room doesn't get overbooked. Also, departure locations will need to depend on where the bidder is located, another logistical challenge. For these reasons auctioning off vacations is very difficult and will likely draw a very small audience. Take a recent example from a Pposh.com auction which was for a round-trip flight from Orlando to Pittsburgh or vise versa. Orland to Pittsburgh or Pittsburgh to Orlando, are you kidding me? A site that just launched and has such low traffic it isn't even covered by compete.com can't auction off a product that is only of interest to people in Orlando and Pittsburgh (and who have an interest in visiting the other city) and who want to fly in August or September (the terms of the ticket being auctioned).

So Pposh is trying an innovative penny auction concept that seems deemed to fail, but why are they a fraud you ask? One Pposh penny auction for a Disney vacation is going for $31.22 which sounds suspicious - really Pposh, you've had more bids on this item than pageviews to your whole site?

I was pretty sure at this point Pposh was a scam but when I looked at the ended auctions I started to laugh. First, the site has over 170 ended auctions, which seems high for a site that's only been open for a short while. But if you look at the bidders you see one user, Shasta1 seems to win quite a bit. This might not seem that odd if the items were electronics, but how many vacation packages, hotels and flights can one person use? Let's review what travel auctions Shasta1 has won on Pposh (feel free to laugh out loud).

1. 8/13 - 3 night Bahamas vacation
2. 8/13 - 2 night stay at a Sheraton in Philadelphia
3. 8/13 - a second 2 night stay at a Sheraton in Philadelphia
4. 8/13 - 2 night stay at a Hilton in Paris, France
5. 8/13 - roundtrip airfare from New York to Miami (or vise versa) to be used in August or September
6. 8/13 - 2 night stay at a Sheraton in Boston to be used in August or September
7. 8/13 - roundtrip airfare from New Orleans to New York (or vise versa) to be used in August or September
8. 8/13 - 2 night stay at a Sheraton in Cleveland to be used in August or September
9. 8/13 - 2 night stay at a Hilton in Tel Aviv, Isreal to be used in August or September
10. 8/13 - roundtrip airfare from New York to LA (or vise versa) to be used in August or September
11. 8/13 - 2 night stay at a Sheraton in Dallas to be used in August or September
12. 8/14 - 3 night stay at the Bellagio in Las Vegas to be used in August or September
13. 8/14 - roundtrip airfare from Boston to Ft. Lauderdale (or vise versa) to be used in August or September

Then Shasta takes some well deserved time off, presumably to enjoy his recently purchased vacations, before coming back 7 days later to purchase more.

14. 8/21 - 3 night cruise to British Columbia departing from Seattle to be used in August or September
15. 8/23 - roundtrip airfare from Atlanta to Denver (or vise versa) to be used in August or September
16. 8/23 - 3 night stay at the Marriott in Orlando to be used in August or September
17. 8/23 - 2 night stay at the Hilton in Chicago
18. 8/23 - a second 3 night cruise to the Bahamas departing from Orlando to be used in August or September

Shasta1 is quite the jet-setter now isn't he? I thought I'd plot his travel plans on the map below to help make sense of all those vacations! (green = hotel stay, red = flight, blue = cruise)


Pposh also has a blog with three entries on it. Two of the entries announce the new site and the third so funny I had to show you instead of tell you, see image below. Note the person who posted the comment and if you click on the link to the ended auction (you need to go to the Pposh site to do so) you will see the winner was none other than Shasta1.

I rest my case. Since I first heard about Pposh in the comment section here on Penny Auction Insider, I hope the owner of Pposh sees this post and responds. I will also ask Penny Auction Watch to chime in on this site because they seem to have a knack for uncovering fraud from the bid patterns on sites.

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