GrabSwag.com
Complaint 8440 Details

On July 19th, 2011 I was presented with a website that had some news reporter clip where she was talking about how great a deal she got at GrabSwag.com using their penny auction.

Can't remember how I got this site, I think it was an email from an affiliate marketer.

So after reading over the landing site and watching the 1 minute video, I click the link and was presented with the web page at GrabSwag.com and then found out to get involved in the penny auctions, I had to buy a Bid Package. The smallest one was $99.00.

Once I purchased bid package, I then come to realize that for every penny I was bidding it would cost me 75 cents. No I did not read the fine print. Who does right?

It was then I came to realize that this did not smell right. I wish I would have done a better job of sniffing before buying. This website scambook.com would have been good to look at.

So I called on the same day I signed up and ask for a full refund. I had already tried the bidding thing on a $50 Amazon Gift card. After seeing that every time people bid the clock reset 15 seconds, the auction would never end until everybody gives up and the last one standing would be the winner. After all, they pitch it that "everybody is a winner!"

I was told by customer support that they did not offer a full refund (per their cancellation policy) and they credited my account $49.50 which was half of my spend. Plus when I signed up I had 30-40 FREE bids given to me. So I ended up getting 140 bids for $49.50.

So I decided to use up the other $50.00 and try to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card. After bidding 27 times, I quit. I used their Grab It Now feature where they apply the bids (27 x .75 = $20.25) to my purchase. I was thinking that the remainder of the $29.75 plus the shipping of $1.95 for a total sales of $51.95 would be subtracted from my account.

I wanted out and figured if they will not refund me, then I will spend the remaining money and get out. At least I thought I would.

Upon check out, I had to pay $31.70 from my credit card to make up the difference. So I could not spend down my unused part of my account, it was either lose $20.25 or spend $31.70 more to get the gift card. So I spent the extra money. Kind feels like extortion at this point.

The item was to ship within 3-5 business days. On Aug 2, 2011 I call customer support only to find out that they "had an over whelming response" and ran out of gift cards. They told me they would ship next week sometime. No definite day.

They had already charged my credit card the $31.70. No real promise when I would get it. Things started smelling real bad by now. How do you sell something you do not have? Ask Washington, they know!

So I called my credit card company and ask them to reverse the charges. They put me through a series of questions about cancellation policy etc. I admitted I did not read one, maybe they have it on their site, but I did not read it. After all, who reads the fine print right?

So the credit card agent called GrabSwag using the phone number on the cancellation policy they provided when applying for a merchant account. The people on the the other end of the line said they were a Lock Smith company!!! Can you believe that?

So my credit card company has put a flag on their account so they can not charge my card again.

This thing will be going down, my guess is they are collecting credit card numbers to sell or use for themselves from the Cayman Islands or something.

Get out folks, when you think about this a $50.00 gift card sells for $10.00 at their so called penny auction (mine sold for $11.33), that is 1000 bids (pennies) at 75 cents each. In my book they sold a $50.00 card for $750.00. Hey, nice markup!!

Then they have the nerve to say they ran out!! Wow, was I duped. I'm ashamed of myself. I hope this post helps save others.

Jeff