EDIT: At first I thought they were just putting up dummy back-dated auctions to make the site seem more popular (and the deals better).
But check out the related auctions across the top for both pages -- the same numbers with the same winning bidders with the same (or similar!) products. All of them. So Germans are indeed bidding against US users -- one in dollars, the other in Euros? That doesn't make any sense
So clearly people just get an item "similar" to the one they won. You'd think for the massive house advantage they have, they could at least deliver the exact product that you thought you won.
Yes, that's right. In the TechCrunch thread about this, "Valentin" noticed that this is documented in their FAQ as well. The reason given is that the item being sold off may not be available in one of the countries. I (@dmolnar) gave an example where the US bidders win an iPhone 3GS, while the UK bidders win a 3G. Quite different propositions!
Pierre Carion then pointed out that as far as he can tell, the API doesn't even count the type of currency. So even though it's not remotely fair, a 100 USD bid will beat a 99 EUR bid just because it's the most recent bid.
But check out the related auctions across the top for both pages -- the same numbers with the same winning bidders with the same (or similar!) products. All of them. So Germans are indeed bidding against US users -- one in dollars, the other in Euros? That doesn't make any sense
http://www.swoopo.de/auktion/fujitsu-siemens-amilo-xi-3650/1... http://www.swoopo.com/auction/asus-n90-series-n90sv-x1-18-4-...
Same ID number at the end of the URL. All the auctions appear to span both sites: http://www.swoopo.com/auction/x/194481.html http://www.swoopo.de/auktion/x/194481.html This one actually does the dollars to euros conversion properly
So clearly people just get an item "similar" to the one they won. You'd think for the massive house advantage they have, they could at least deliver the exact product that you thought you won.