Disclosure: The following is a paid review. The reviewer has had no experience with BassaBids.com beyond browsing the web site and trying out the service.

First to clear up some confusion I had when I visited bassabids.com with no prior background provided:

- When I saw the words "auction" and "bid" I immediately thought, "Oh, another eBay challenger". Not so. (A) There is no way to list something of your own on the site (at this time at least). (B) It isn't the highest bidder that wins. The winner is the "lowest unique
bidder". More on that below.

- There are currently six auctions (products) listed on the bassabids home page. At first I thought that this was the list of "featured products" and that I could go see the rest of the products available on other pages. Not so. There are only six auctions(products)
available on bassabids.com at this time. The products are popular ones with a very wide audience.

- Given my experience with most auction sites, I had assumed that it would be free to bid and I would only have to pay if I win. Not so. All of the current auctions cost $1.99 to place a bid (even if you don't win) though their terms of service talk about the chance that
some of the auctions might be free to bid.

OK, so what is the "lowest unique bidder"? To win a BassaBids auction, you need to bid an amount that not one other person picks, AND you need to be lower than anybody else that did the same thing. BassaBids keeps the bid fees forall bidders even the non-winners.

Do the math and you can see how they might make money. If 100 people pay $2 to bid on a $100 product, you don't even need to collect any money from the winner to make a profit. Since BassaBids sets how many bids must be made before the auction is closed, they can't lose.

Bassabids appears to be closer to a gambling site than an auction site. Since this review is paid for, I went ahead and spent $2 of the money bidding for the iPod Shuffle. It reduced the "bids remaining until auction ends" from 91.6% to 90.8%. Since this number stayed
fairly constant before and after my bid, I assume that my bid was probably the only one made during that short time period.

Doing the math (I like math) I estimate that BassaBids is probably hoping to get about $250 worth of bids before they release the $79 iPod to a winner. I can only guess how many bids the Mini Cooper S Convertible needs :)

If you're into getting good deals at auctions, BassaBids is probably not for you. If you're into gambling (I'm not) then BassaBids might be fun.

According to their web site, BassaBids is operated by a company with an address in the British Virgin Islands and you must be 18 or older to use BassaBids.

BassaBids sent me an email the next day notifying me that my bid was no longer unique and encouraging me to submit another bid.

With free bids and where the lowest unique bid wins It is the place to get really cheap goods.