ZBiddy Spam to Promote ZBiddy Scams?

Recently I’ve come to notice an influx of spam coming from a sender named “Newsletter” that always seems to advertise “awesome” deals on electronics.

Now, seeing an Apple iPad advertised for just $23.07 - or any other electronic for ridiculously cheap prices - just screams “scam” at me, but I was more curious as to what the actual scam sales pitch was.

As it turns out, it was nothing more than an unsolicited email advertisement for a penny auction website called ZBiddy.

Here’s the ZBiddy-related spam email received:

The sender of the spam message  is “Newsletter newsletter[at]onestephosting.com” & majority of the links affiliated with the email are associated with twostephosting[dot]com.

The email is mainly made up of a large image that shows some of the “amazing deals” available on ZBiddy, which despite it being October of 2011 already, are advertised as a part of a “2010 Inventory Closeout” and feature the Apple iPad (not the iPad 2), Dyson Ball vacuum cleaner, Amazon Kindle, & a Nikon D90.

Clicking anywhere on the image will take you to a page similar to this one:

The page is littered with news company logos (to help build credibility), eBay comparisons (I notice they fail to mention “bid” purchasing on the comparison chart), testimonials from alleged penny auction winners, a couple of obviously fake recent auction wins, some items you can still bid on, and a registration form at the very end.

If you really are still interested at this point, I’m sure you’ll lose interest on the next page.

After entering your details, the next step is to stomach another bloated page that’s still trying to sell you the ZBiddy way, distracting you from the fact that you’re going to have to pay to bid on those “cheap” auctions advertised.



At $0.60/bid, you’re forking over $159 for the initial 265 [non-refundable] bid pack that’s cleverly snuck in right above the shipping information form fields.  I bet plenty of folks missed that part.

Still, I’m wondering how they managed to get my email address as I’m positive I’ve never bothered signing up for a penny auction website.

Come to find out, affiliate networks are paying $30/lead to those who promote ZBiddy offers!

Why wouldn’t a spammer take them up on the opportunity to spam people, knowing someone is bound to find the offer irresistible – leading them to earn a cool thirty bucks per sign-up?

If you happen to receive one of these ZBiddy spam emails, it’s advised that you:

• Avoid clicking any links in the email or signing up for the program offered. Traffic and sign-ups are the sole reason the spammers are sending the emails in the first place, so don’t encourage them.


• Flag the email as spam by clicking the ‘Spam’ button in your email client or moving it to the junk folder.


• Forward the spam email – along with the full header information – to the Federal Trade Commission at spam@uce.gov. The FTC will use spam emails stored in this database to pursue legal action against the spammers.

Hopefully this will make a big enough impact so that spammers will lose interest in flooding inboxes with ZBiddy emails.

Until then, don’t feed the scammers by signing up for ZBiddy via spam emails.

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