HELP
The following are answers to our members’ most frequently asked questions. Feel free to contact our customer service if you do not find the answer you need here.
- How do I purchase a bid?
- What does it cost?
- I won an auction, what happens next?
- Can I return a purchased product?
- What is the Fair Auction Guarantee?
- How does BidAgent work?
- How do I set up a BidAgent?
- What if there are several BidAgents on the same auction?
- Who am I bidding against?
- How many auctions can I win?
- Is this a lottery?
- What happens if the timer goes to zero and nothing happens?
- How do I know Bidrivals won't still bid on these auctions?
- Why does the timer reach 00:00:00 before the auction has ended?
- My auction timers stop constantly and I have issues placing bids, what can I do about it?
- What is Bidrivals refunding policy when you have technical difficulties
- How does Buy Now work?
- Why does the auction price not always increase by 1c for every bid?
- Why are not always the same product offered in all countries?
- Why does the product price sometime differ between countries?
- Why don't you use the exact currency rate between countries?
- How can there be users who seem to have spent more bids in an auction than the product is worth?
How do I purchase a bid?
You can purchase a bid package on the Buy Bids page. When you are logged in, you see that there is always a Buy Bids button in the right column that takes you to the Buy Bids page. You can pay securely through PayPal or ClickandBuy.
What does it cost?
Each bid costs 0.65 USD and they can be purchased in packages of various sizes.
I won an auction, what happens next?
Congratulations! First, you will receive an e-mail confirming your winning bid. Please contact support@bidrivals.com if you do not receive the e-mail within 3 hours after the auction ended.
The e-mail will contain a link to My Account, where you can pay for the product and confirm your home address. We will ship you the product once your payment of the purchase price and all fees are confirmed. We do so within 14 days from the confirmed payment.
Can I return a purchased product?
You can always return a product you have bought from us for whatever reason. Our customer support and will be happy to assist you. Please note that we can only offer a refund on the final auction price and the shipping costs. We can not refund the price of the bids you placed.
Please do not send the item directly to us as that will slow down the return process and delay your refund.
What is the Fair Auction Guarantee?
With our Fair Auction Guarantee you can be sure that we do not use any systems that automatically bid on our auctions (Autobids). We also guarantee that no employees of Bidrivals or their family members are allowed to bid on the auctions.
The Fair Auction Guarantee is our way of showing our users what we stand for, and is an important part of our core values. Bidrivals auctions are for the benefit of our members, and only members can bid on our products.
How does BidAgent work?
BidAgent monitors your bid when you cannot be on line, or when you would like to have bids placed automatically for you. You simply decide how many bids you want to place and the maximum price you are willing to pay. BidAgent automatically bids for you each time someone else places a higher bid. However, BidAgent always waits until no more than four seconds remain before the auction closes. BidAgent will automatically stop bidding when the current bid passes your maximum price.
BidAgent will only deduct bids from your account when you do not have the highest bid and never beyond your maximum price.
How do I set up a BidAgent?
Select Book BidAgent, enter the number of bids you want BidAgent to have access to, and specify the maximum price you want to pay in this auction. Then select Book and see how BidAgent works for you.
What if there are several BidAgents on the same auction?
All BidAgents will take turns bidding until they run out of bids, and the BidAgent that has the highest bid at that point will not continue bidding unless a user places a higher bid.
Who am I bidding against?
In global auctions, all Bidrivals users can bid, regardless of country. Global auctions allow us to offer many more auctions in our network and therefore allow more of our users to buy products at fantastic prices.
How many auctions can I win?
We have limited the number of auctions that each user can win to 2 per 24 hours and 18 per month. We do this so that as many people as possible will have the opportunity to take advantage of Bidrivals’ fantastic savings.
If the win limit is reached, then any set BidAgent will be cancelled and any non placed bids in the BidAgent will be returned to the user's account.
Is this a lottery?
No, Bidrivals is not a lottery.
In this type of auctions, there is no chance or random element and the person placing the last bid is bound to purchase the product at the last bid price reached. Furthermore, there is no element of prize as the last bidder has to pay for the full auction price to purchase the product.
Please read the legal statement from Sabharwal, Nordin & Finkel determining why this does not fall under the lottery definition.
What happens if the timer goes to zero and nothing happens?
If your connection to the Internet has an interruption and does not receive updated information from the Bidrivals system, your browser can go to zero and stop.
If the time reaches zero and stops there could be two explanations:
1. Someone has won the auction, the sold auction sign will appear in a few seconds.
2. Your internet connection has been interrupted. If you reload/refresh the page your time will be updated.
For the timer to function optimally, please close down other programs/windows or anything else that may use your bandwidth.
How do I know Bidrivals won't still bid on these auctions?
Our entire business is based on customers winning premium products at fantastic prices. We rely on customers who win to spread the word. We recognise that without repeat business and word of mouth our business will fail.
We will never place bids to raise the price or keep an auction running. It doesn't make sense commercially and none of our team would ever support this practice. We all joined Bidrivals to build an exciting new auction platform in the fairest and most transparent way possible.
Why does the timer reach 00:00:00 before the auction has ended?
All bids are governed by the bidrivals servers. When a bid is received before the auction time on the servers reach 00:00:00, the bidrivals servers accept the bid, verify it, then send a signal to all current users.
There are a number of reasons why the timer on auctions may reach 00:00:00 before the auction has ended.
1. The connection between your PC and the bidrival servers is lost.
If the connection is lost, your PC timer will continue to count down as it has not received the signal from the bidrivals servers to reset the timer.
2. The browser you are using has used up it's available resources
Bidrivals site is unique in the way it constantly communicates with the servers, whereas typical websites download a page once our site constantly communicates with the servers to receive bids and manage the auction timers. Older versions of internet browsers or browsers with many plugins may freeze after hosting the site for a long period of time. We recommend using the latest internet browsers and reducing the number of plugins or add ons.
3. Due to the time it takes for bids to reach Bidrivals' servers, and in order to allow all users the same opportunity to bid regardless of geographic location, Bidrivals' servers will wait for an additional 5 seconds for any placed bids to reach Bidrivals servers before closing the auction.
My auction timers stop constantly and I have issues placing bids, what can I do about it?
Due to the constant communication with the bidrival servers to manage the auction timers and bids, some wireless or satellite internet connections are not stable enough to deliver acceptable use of the bid rival auction site.
Please try the rebooting your wireless modem to see if the connection quality improves. Some of our customers use the BidAgent when the connection quality is bad, bid agents are registered and run on the server, so you can bid regardless of your connection quality.
If the connection is unacceptably unstable, please email us and we will happily refund any unused bids.
What is Bidrivals refunding policy when you have technical difficulties
In the unlikely event that a technical issue occured and an auction closeed pre-maturely, then all users that placed any bids within 10 minutes before the auction closed will have all bids that they placed in the auction that closed pre-maturely refunded. Bidrivals reserves the right to decide when an auction has closed pre-maturely.
How does Buy Now work?
You never have to walk away empty handed from Buy Now auctions.
Buy Now allows you to buy the auctioned product using 100% of the value of the bids you have already spent in that auction. It gives you the option to purchase the product by paying the difference between the value of your spent bids in that auction and the product value.
PLEASE NOTE: You can only use the value of your placed bids up to the product value. If the value of your placed bids is higher than the product value, then the bids in excess of the product value can not be counted towards Buy Now. The Buy Now purchase price can never be below zero.
You can buy the product at any time when the auction is online and up to 14 days after the auction has closed.
When you decide to buy the product you will no longer be able to take part in the auction, and any BidAgents you have placed on that auction will be cancelled and the remaining BidAgent bids returned to your bid account. The auction will continue uninterrupted for all other users.
In some auctions, we have restricted the number of bids you can use to buy the product. The value of each bid will still be 100% but you may not be able to count all bids up to the full value of the product. The total value of the bids that you can use ("Maximum refund") to buy the product is indicated under the Buy Now price calculation.
Why does the auction price not always increase by 1c for every bid?
The global nature of our auction platform is affected by currency exchange rates, and the 1c increment is currently slightly more than 1c. Therefore, due to rounding to two decimals for the auction price, it sometimes appears that the action price was increased by 2c when a bid was placed. However, the price is always increased by the bid increment.
Why are not always the same product offered in all countries?
Bidrivals strive to offer the very exact same products to all users regardless of their geographic location. However, sometimes a product or a special version of a product can not be supplied in certain regions. In those cases we match the products to be as similar as possible and have as similar value as possible.
Why does the product price sometime differ between countries?
Product manufacturers often sell their products at different prices in different countries, and that is nothing we can influence. Bidrivals will keep compatitive pricing on a local level, but we can not offer prices that are below our own purchasing costs, and may sometimes have to offer products at different prices depending on where the user is located.
Why don't you use the exact currency rate between countries?
Currency rates change constantly. Bidrivals strive to keep the pricing as fair as we can, and we update the currency rates on a regular basis. However, if a currency has fluctuated a lot recently, then that change may not be exactly reflected in our pricing.
How can there be users who seem to have spent more bids in an auction than the product is worth?
Sometimes we have to offer products at different prices depending on region. We have to do this when our own purchase price differs significantly between regions. Our bid price is based on actual market currency rates. Therefore, if a user in one region has a higher product price and that user places bids up to his/her regional product price, then for a user in another region (where the product price is lower) it may seem like the other user has placed bids for a value higher than the cost of the product.
