JEETLE
The site is performing gambeling - unethical activity

Dear Friends,

The note written here is not a complaint, but just an effort to make you aware that though jeetle.in claims to be an auction site, in reality, it is performing a money circulation scheme which is inspirit illegal. The framework of an auction game that they have come up is a gamble, where they charge the betting amount to all the people participating in the game through the bid fee. The game which they declare is a reverse auction is nothing but just a criterion which is as random as selection of the winner from the pool of people participating into it.

On most of the items under auction, the company is accumulating much more money than the price of item under auction in form of bid fee. I believe that the company has very smartly found a way of circumventing the law (which I am not sure if there is any that avoids gambling in India) by charging the administrative fees instead of gambling directly with the money. Since the company always makes much more money, there is no way a person will be able to recover his bidding fee even if he keeps on playing this game for long.

To have a more concrete argument, let me quote a bid/auction listed on jeetle.in. The item under auction is Honda Jazz. The MRP of this car as listed on the website is Rs 6, 80, 000. Total bids required for the auction of this vehicle are 1, 00, 000 with a bidding fees of Rs 10. Which means that the company will accumulate a total of 10 lacs out of which it will payoff 6.8 lacs and pocket a difference of 3.2 lacs as their own profit.

If we think rationally, then this is even worse than gambling where the profit kept by the company facilitating bets typically keeps a profit in a range if 2-5% and remaining amount is disbursed as the profit for the winner. Jeetle, on the other hand, keeps an handsome amount in the range of 30-40% as its own profit, which is indicated in the bid of Honda Jazz. Hence, the chances of winning in jeetle are already reduced by 30-40% (the amount of profit they are keeping).

Further, there is no transparency on the no of bids received for an item. And also on the winner of that item. Lets assume that for a particular item, if the company receives less number of bids which are insufficient to cover the cost of item itself, there is no way to figure out to whom the product is awarded. It is very much possible that either the company doesn't even give that product to anyone by not disclosing the winner of the item or the company might give it to one of their own person from whom they can receive a declaration that he received the auctioned item by paying him a nominal amount.

In light of above, this is a sincere request for all the people participating into auction on jeetle to give it a second thought because what, on the face, appears to be a great concept might not be as rosy as we expect if analyze it from a critical angle.

Company: JEETLE
Country: India

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