So-called penny auctions are really anything but. Tb participate in a penny auction (also known as a bidding fee auction), you typically must pay the penny auction site forbids ahead of time, typically 50 cents to $1 dollar, usually in packs costing $25- $50. Once you have purchased the bids, you can use them to bid on items listed by the penny auction site (unlike traditional auctions, items are owned by the site, not third parties). Items typically start at or near $0 and each bid raises the price by a fixed amount, usually just a penny. Auctions are timed, and when the time runs out, the last and highest bidder wins the item. Although the price of the item itself may not be that high, the successful bidder will typically have spent much more than that. Unlike a traditional auction, it costs money to bid and that money is gone even if the bidder does not win the auction. The bidder's cumulative cost of bidding must be added to the final price of a successful bid to determine the true cost of the item. The Federal Trade Commission has issued an alert about penny auctions, warning that bidders may find that they spend far more than they intended (Consumer Reports.org, 2013). Examples of penny auction sites include QuiBids, Beezid, and HappyBidDay.