The Oodles Prize Auctions are Indeed Legitimate

[DialgaChampion]

Alright, so I'll be honest here. I was not one of the people who fancied GSN moving the majority of their more-valuable prizes from the "Buy It Now" section of the Oodles Prize Center into the "Bid For It" section. I found it very difficult to win a Prize Auction, because they are all Silent Auctions and no one is told the Winning Bids of the auctions, so you never know how much you underpaid (or overpaid) for the item you were bidding on.

Similarly, I did not fancy Sweepstakes or "Play To Win" either. Sweepstakes are based purely on luck and the "Play To Win" section involves being very skilled at playing the chosen game for the prize. I don't even know how some people get as high of a score as they do for some of the games on the GSN website. For me, I'll just stick to Nintendo DS and Wii games. Anyways...

Needless to say, I was one of the first people to sign up for the Oodles program back in June 2009.

For the past 2 years and 2 & 1/2 months since the Oodles program came into existence and I've been registered for it, I've been going through a Daily Routine (http://www.gsn.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1900) of playing games on the GSN website and answering Trivia Questions to earn as many Oodles as I could.

Perhaps similar to the strategy of other GSN members, I kept saving up my Oodles. I never bought any real prizes from the Prize Center (only the occasional Oodles Scratch Ticket every so often) and I just kept on saving as much as I could, hoping that one day, I would either be able to redeem my Oodles for a TV, or some other valuable item.

As some of you may remember, the original price for a TV in the Buy It Now section of the Prize Center used to be 167,500 Oodles. Then it was moved up to 425,000 Oodles. And nowadays, the TVs are placed in the Bid For It section and they go for who knows how much (though originally, I found out from the GSN Help team that one TV went for around 624,000 Oodles and another TV later on went for a little over 900,000 Oodles).

Suffice it to say, I thought I would never in all the life of this Oodles program win a Prize Auction with a high value prize, because I kept being outbid by someone else's unknown, supposedly higher, bid amount.

Nevertheless, I have to give credit where credit is due.

Last night (Thursday August 25, 2011), I bid all 502,000 Oodles that I had collected from the past 2 years (and never redeemed for any prizes) on this $200 Walmart Gift Card that I found in the Prize Center's Bid for It section. You can imagine my surprise when shortly after 12 am midnight, I logged into my GSN account (to run through my Daily Oodles Routine again and save up even more Oodles), only to find my Oodles account balance practically empty. Thus, I knew then and there that I had won the Prize Auction.

Today (Friday August 26, 2011) at 10:16 am ET in the morning, I received an email from The GSN Oodles Team.

I'm copying and pasting it here for you all to see:

Dear Scott,

Congratulations, you’ve won a $200 Walmart Gift Card from the Silent Auction on 8/25/11!

Your should receive your prize within 4 to 6 weeks.

Also, would you like to be featured on our site, television network, or one of our fan pages? If so, email us your scanned picture and a testimonial about your GSN experience to winners@gsn.com - we’d love to share your winning experience with the rest of your GSN community.

Once again, congratulations and keep oodling!

Fun Regards,

The GSN Oodles Team

Finally, after a little more than 2 YEARS of saving up Oodles and not buying anything, I had won something of substantial value. Granted, it's not the TV I had originally hoped for, but I can at least use this card for whatever purchases I'd like to make at Walmart. It's not some small $10 or $25 card either, which would be used up quite quickly.

So why am I posting this topic? Well, I'm posting it for a few reasons. First of which, as I said above, I never thought I would win anything of substantial value in a Prize Auction. I imagined that I would have to reach around 700,000 Oodles to get something for my 2 years of spending 1 hour a day, every single day of the week, saving up my Oodles balance.

Second, I want to apologize to the second-highest bidder of the $200 Walmart Gift Card auction, because I know there's someone else out there who most likely bid 500,000 Oodles or 499,000 Oodles and I ended up outbidding them by a small amount. I know this, because this has been what has happened to me for the past 20 or so Prize Auctions with highly-valuable prizes that I tried bidding in, only to find out that someone else outbid me.

The last and most important reason I'm posting this topic is to show anyone out there who's still saving up their Oodles in an attempt to get something valuable out of them, that you can indeed get something. In my case, patience, determination and a little bit of luck paid off. By spending an hour a day for more than 750 days, I managed to save up enough Oodles to win a Prize Auction.

Now for you mathematicians out there, based on my win, here's something to think about:

If you divide 500,000 Oodles (which is essentially what I paid for to win the auction) by the $200 that I won as a Gift Card, you end up with $0.0004 per Oodle. So in essence, one could surmise that each Oodle in your account is worth about $0.0004, but that's just an assumption.

In addition, as I said, some luck is involved. I know for a fact there are other GSN members here who have more than the 502,000 Oodles that I had, yet I won the auction. Which means it's partly based not on how many Oodles you have, but also who else is watching that auction and placing a bid. Seeing as it was Thursday night, I think I was fortunate (in my experience, at least on eBay, most people tend to watch auctions on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays).

So there you have it. 2 years. 502,000 Oodles. And the result being a $200 Walmart Gift Card.

To every other GSN member out there who is in a similar situation, having saved up so many Oodles but not knowing what to do with them, please know that at least from my experience, it is indeed possible to win something of high value in a Prize Auction. But to do it, you will need to save every Oodle you earn, get at least 500,000 Oodles (which took me over 2 years to accumulate; hopefully you'll be able to do it faster), and then bid all of your Oodles in one shot for either a $200 or $400 Gift Card, or some other prize of equal value, such as a TV.

I know there are skeptics out there for the Prize Auctions. I know this because I was one of them. This is why I'm posting my long story here for you all to see and read. So if you have 300,000 or 400,000 Oodles saved up, keep on saving them, because once you hit that half a million mark, you'll finally have a shot at winning a Prize Auction with a high-valued prize.

My piece of advice to all of you other GSN Oodlers out there? I'll take a page from Expedition Impossible and say: "Stay Strong, Never Give Up and Never Surrender."

If any GSN member has any questions on my experience of winning a Prize Auction, please let me know in this topic and I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability.

[rachelrunt]

congrats

[squishmar]

Yes, congratulations to you! I've been on a spending spree lately. I've won two auctions for smaller items... I finally decided to just go for it because it really didn't look like buy-it-now was making a comeback. So, I won a blu-ray DVD and a Restaurant.com gift card. That last one, I'm not too happy about. They have the winners of prizes listed and they have the value of the prize won. For the $25.00 card it says the approximate value is $25.00. Not so. On the site, you buy a $25.00 card for $10.00 cash. So, I think they should make that clearer on the auctions for those cards. The value is actually $10.00 not $25.00. But another thing that I was really happy about this week was the Book of the Week. It was "The Help" and I bought it. It's the newest book they've had there for a long time.... maybe ever. I was very excited and can't wait to receive it (I'm sure a lot of people who wanted to read it already own it but I wasn't one of them).

[pamalam62]

The only problem with this is that the longer the oodler program is around the smaller the prizes and the less disirable prizes are offered, I too have been a member since the 2009,and as soon as I would get enough oodles to redeem for a tv or decent gift card they would raise the oodle (price)..or no longer offer them., so if I continue to save for another year or so to get to 500,000 ,Im sure there wont be anything of value or interest to get..so Im about done with gsn and the oodle program...seems like a bait and switch to me...(heres the good prizes keep collecting oodles, well we better quit offering these prizes someone may have enough oodles to get them).and this Restaurant.com gift card is a joke ..its more like a almost worthless coupon that has too many stipulations., it looks like a gift card and it is called a gift card but its not.

[squishmar]

Hi back at ya, Frogcookie!

I'm so happy that you won the $250.00! And I'm also glad that you're okay... I was a little worried about you after your "sign-off"...

In general, I need to stop obsessing so much over this site. I have a tendency to be a little obsessed and I'm trying to wean myself away from this site and not be so compulsive about *having* to answer all the questions, play all the promos, etc. Yes indeed, it would definitely do me some good to get outside and off my (rapidly expanding) butt.

[RavenBlackX]

For the $25.00 card it says the approximate value is $25.00. Not so. On the site, you buy a $25.00 card for $10.00 cash. So, I think they should make that clearer on the auctions for those cards. The value is actually $10.00 not $25.00.

I too was irked by this - plus even then it's not nearly $10 value because I wouldn't have spent even $5 on any of the $25 "gift cards" for restaurants in my area. They aren't gift cards, gift cards don't come with a minimum purchase rule - they're coupons. Expensive coupons. Expensive 33% off coupons for things that are more than 33% overpriced to begin with.

In fact, not only wouldn't I have spent $5 on it, I wouldn't even spend $0 on one of these "gift cards" - I won it for $0 and there is not one single restaurant COUPON available that I would use. So does anyone want my alleged "$25 restaurant.com gift card" that is actually a pretty crappy coupon? I'll send the code in a private message to the first person to reply here.

Edit: There might be worthwhile options for it in another area I guess. Also, reply then send me a private message, I'll probably forget to check back otherwise.

[swm28wv]

I too was irked by this - plus even then it's not nearly $10 value because I wouldn't have spent even $5 on any of the $25 "gift cards" for restaurants in my area. They aren't gift cards, gift cards don't come with a minimum purchase rule - they're coupons. Expensive coupons. Expensive 33% off coupons for things that are more than 33% overpriced to begin with.

In fact, not only wouldn't I have spent $5 on it, I wouldn't even spend $0 on one of these "gift cards" - I won it for $0 and there is not one single restaurant COUPON available that I would use. So does anyone want my alleged "$25 restaurant.com gift card" that is actually a pretty crappy coupon? I'll send the code in a private message to the first person to reply here.

Edit: There might be worthwhile options for it in another area I guess. Also, reply then send me a private message, I'll probably forget to check back otherwise.

I wrote you a PM earlier today. I agree that there aren't many options with the coupons. In my area, it's mostly "fast food restaurants" 15 minutes each direction, and the local pizza joints. Looking at the website, I would have to travel 45 minutes to find a participating restaurant. On the same token, good shopping is poor in this area, and I travel to the area where the restaurants are located anyway.

So, the website must be an advertising venue for businesses in a highly saturated restaurant area, which are struggling to get customers. That is my best guess to why restaurants are few and far between.

[squishmar]

I too was irked by this - plus even then it's not nearly $10 value because I wouldn't have spent even $5 on any of the $25 "gift cards" for restaurants in my area. They aren't gift cards, gift cards don't come with a minimum purchase rule - they're coupons. Expensive coupons. Expensive 33% off coupons for things that are more than 33% overpriced to begin with.

In fact, not only wouldn't I have spent $5 on it, I wouldn't even spend $0 on one of these "gift cards" - I won it for $0 and there is not one single restaurant COUPON available that I would use. So does anyone want my alleged "$25 restaurant.com gift card" that is actually a pretty crappy coupon? I'll send the code in a private message to the first person to reply here.

Edit: There might be worthwhile options for it in another area I guess. Also, reply then send me a private message, I'll probably forget to check back otherwise.

I sent you a PM. Yeah, you can subscribe to the threads, but there's no way to know if you have a private message. They should send you a notification in your email if you have one...

swm28wv...there were actually a LOT of different restaurants within 10 miles of my home.... Some I've even been to before. I just didn't like the misrepresentation of the "gift card" and its value. I never would have bid on it.

[gumbyjim]

I've had some very good experiences and some not so good experiences with Resturant.com coupons. They have sales every once in a while, where you can buy a $25 coupon for one or two dollars. What i've found is that not all the resturants listed honor the coupons. Make sure you call the resturant before you buy the coupon.

[squishmar]

You'd think they'd keep the site updated for restaurants who no longer accept them. It's just more trouble than its worth it seems. Maybe not if you eat out a lot... I don't know. I just don't want that kind of worry and effort over something that should be simple. It's good to know that you've had some good experiences, though!

[proudmary043]

Thank you for sharing your story. I myself have been skeptical about the bidding thing also. (So if you don't win; you keep your oodles, they don't keep them? ) Congradulations on the Walmart card. Maybe you can win another and put them together for a T.V. Good Luck and thanks again you had answered most of my questions. Mary

[DialgaChampion]

Thank you for sharing your story. I myself have been skeptical about the bidding thing also. (So if you don't win; you keep your oodles, they don't keep them? ) Congradulations on the Walmart card. Maybe you can win another and put them together for a T.V. Good Luck and thanks again you had answered most of my questions. Mary

Hi Mary.

Thanks for the response and you're very welcome. I know it was a long read, but I had a lot on my mind to say about my experience with the GSN Auctions. And you're correct. If you don't win the Auction, you still get to keep your Oodles, but you're out however many Oodles you paid for the Entry Fee to place a bid in the Auction.

However, with that being said, ever since I won the $200 Walmart Gift Card on August 25, 2011, I have stopped doing my Daily Oodles Routine. It's just not feasible nowadays, with the amounts of Oodles the Prize Auctions are going for, as you can see from my experience. It took me over 2 years to accumulate 502,000 Oodles from doing everything I could possibly do every single day, 7 days a week, to earn Oodles. Even now, with the recent cutbacks to the Oodles program (it seems like the 21 Daily Trivia Questions are gone, and the Deal or No Deal and Double Trouble games no longer provide Oodles for playing them), I don't want to spend another 2 years (or longer) accumulating 500,000 Oodles again in the hopes that I'll still be able to get something worthwhile from them at that point in time.

Oh, and for those of you who are interested, I won the $200 Walmart Gift Card on August 25, 2011 and I just received it in the mail yesterday (September 14, 2011).

So it took less than 3 weeks for it to arrive.

[squishmar]

I'm in a tougher spot because I've been spending my oodles. I've really only been hardcore "oodling" for about 18 months or so, and even then, I was still learning new things to do (I joined Dumbville solely for Garbage Grab but didn't start that until about 8 months ago).

Anyway, I've renewed my subscription to Entertainment Weekly four times... I'm paid up until 2014! That was a good prize for me. I've subscribed for over 20 years so really that literally was one less bill for me to pay... I paid it with oodles! Also, I've gotten several books of the week that I've really enjoyed. And then last year for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday Gift Card Extravaganza I got three gift cards plus some stuff here and there in the buy-it-now section and I finally broke down and did an auction and won a blu-ray DVD.

My point, (and I do have one), is that you now have a clean slate. You could stop now and just not start again with the oodles. I kind of envy you that.

Right now I have around 200,000 oodles and I'm still waiting for something to appear in the buy-it-now category. I don't have enough to bid on any big-ticket items and I don't want to fritter away my oodles with exorbitant price tags in auctions for smaller items. I feel kind of stuck. Although, I must say I was super happy to be able to buy the Book of the Week a few weeks ago ("The Help"). It's one I've wanted for a long time and it was great to see it for the Book of the Week. I think it's one of the newest books they've ever had. But meanwhile, I feel almost compelled to come here and earn whatever oodles I can for what reason, I'm not really sure.

[1stAmericanRose]

I used to love it when they had the smaller USEFUL Prizes to Buy NOW! The Dog Real Meat Prizes, the Real Maple Syrup & The Black Diamond Spot Headlamp. Over the 2 yrs that I have been on GSN, I have BOUGHT a few of each as gifts The DOG Treats were handy for training the Dogs that we Rescue. We won a couple of times on GSN Live. I guess I keep Playing for the BUY IT NOW items that we have won in the past. BUT, they have now STOPPED listing the 3 items, so I am just waiting a while to see if those USEFUL Items ever return. I will be really sad if they don't as I will not be able to justify the hours on GSN if they don't! Housework will all get done then! anyone else have the problem of Clicking on a prize and it does not show up, but the page goes back to the first page of prize listings appear? I GUESS it's a way of telling me that they are "sold out'? I keep hearing about DUMBVILLE is the way to win a lot of OODLES, However, I refuse to join the 'social Networking sites'.. so I guess if I don't join Facebook, you can't play correct???

[rachelrunt]

anyone else have the problem of Clicking on a prize and it does not show up, but the page goes back to the first page of prize listings appear? I GUESS it's a way of telling me that they are "sold out'?

yea, that means the item is sold out and the prize page hasnt updated yet

I keep hearing about DUMBVILLE is the way to win a lot of OODLES, However, I refuse to join the 'social Networking sites'.. so I guess if I don't join Facebook, you can't play correct???

yea, you can win alot of oodles through dumbville, and you do have to join FB, but most people make their FB profiles just for Dumbville and dont use them for any other purpose, you can even use a fake name.