[Be el o ge]

If you used the public transport in Prague recently, especially the metro, you might have noticed commercials of Bonus.cz.

The idea itself is great and for sure pays out for the company running the site. The concept is this: People buy points. For these points they can bid on a product. By biding on a product the price increases. The product is available for at least 24 hours during which the user can bid. If someone else bids in the last 30 seconds however, the countdown resets again to 30 seconds. If no one else bid during that last 30 seconds period, the user who bid last on the product won.

The calculation for the user:
Final product price = Cost for points he needed for biding + final state of the bid

The calculation for the company:
Profit = Cost of all (!) points bid on that product – Price for buying the product

So far so good. The “dangerous” thing here is that most people won’t get that this is pure gambling (like in the casino) and the bank always wins: You buy your tokens and make a bet e.g. when playing roulette. There’s a small chance you win but usually you’ll loose!

So your calculation is not really “Cost for points + final state of the bid”. By trying again and again to “win” you will invest so much money that in the end it’s likely that you’ve paid more for points than you would have paid for the desired new mobile phone, digital camera or what so ever…

There’s a similar site in Germany: www.dealstreet.de and I’m sure you’ll find sites with the same concept in other countries, too.