Of course! We use products that are supplied to us by reputable UK wholesalers to guarantee that they are 100% genuine products.

Yes! We never send any second-hand or graded items out to our winners – everything is totally brand new with a warranty.

Yes, all of our items come with the standard manufacturer’s warranty or guarantee.

The Bid Bar is a graphic representation of a game’s status (how close the game is to ending).

This countdown timer represents the time remaining on the game. The time may be extended if the Bid Bar is not full when the time reaches zero.

The Bid Price is the cost of placing 1 Bid on the item. Placing multiple bids will incur multiple Bid Price costs.

This is the range of bid amounts that can be placed on each of our games, for example a bid range of £0.01 - £5.00 would indicate that the minimum bid you can place is 1p and the maximum is £5.

If you have placed a bid on a game, we will send an email to notify you that the game is due to close so that you can place further bids if you choose.

At the end of a game an email will be sent to the winner, which details the process of verifying the telephone number and dispatching the item.

First, we need to verify your telephone number that you provided when you registered with us. We will attempt to contact the winner using this telephone number and request that they confirm certain account details. After verification you get to choose whether you would like to pay the final bid amount in exchange for the item, receive the cash alternative or receive the credit alternative. If you choose to receive the item won, we will inform you of the anticipated delivery of your item and you will receive any tracking numbers by email.

The game ends when the Bid Bar is full AND the time remaining clock reaches zero.

This is a game that we have decided to promote to you. The promoted item usually represents exceptional value or is a unique item.

There are a few techniques that you can use to improve your chance of success. Read about these techniques in our Tips and Tricks section.

As many as you like! We don’t restrict any bidding activity on our items (with the possible exception of our ‘Beginners’ section).

A unique bid is one that is placed on an amount that nobody else has placed a bid on.

A non-unique bid is one that has been placed on an amount that another user has also placed a bid on.

Our system will not allow you to place the same bid twice.

This would make both your bid and the other participant’s bid non-unique.

This would make both your bid and the other participant’s bid non-unique.

No, unfortunately not. The games revolve around the idea of bid amounts being secret from other players, so changing your mind after a bid has been placed and discovered to be non-unique is not possible.

You should login to our website and click on the ‘Top-up’ link. Follow the instructions on screen to login to PayPal or pay using your debit or credit card via PayPal.

At present we use solely PayPal to process our payments, so you can rest assured that your payment details are totally safe and secure.

You have two choices. You can pay using the cash balance in your account if there are sufficient funds, or you can pay via PayPal.

A hint tells you whether your non-unique bid is too high or too low in relation to the current leader. Once you have a hint displayed for one of your bids, it will be displayed right up until the end of the auction and will update in relation to the current leader as the leading bid changes throughout the auction.

You should bid early in the auction to get free hints that will help you to target the current leader towards the end of the game.

Hints are provided differently at various stages of the auctions:

• When the Bid Bar is GREEN the hints are automatically assigned to each bid for you
• When the Bid Bar is YELLOW you click the 'get hint' button next to the bid for which you'd like to receive the hint, then check the confirmation popup and choose whether or not to reveal the hint
• When the Bid Bar is ORANGE it's the same as when it's yellow, except that the popup will also confirm the cost of revealing the hint before you confirm
• When the Bid Bar is RED you can't get any more hints!

We don't charge for hints while the Bid Bar is GREEN or YELLOW. Once the Bid Bar is ORANGE we charge you the same amount as the Bid Price to get each hint.

For more information about the colours of the Bid Bar and what they represent, visit the Unique Bid Hints page.

In our free to bid auctions, we've removed the GREEN stage from the hinting cycle completely and left the remaining 3 stages as normal. BUT, we've changed the percentages a little:

• The YELLOW stage runs from 0% up to 49% where hints are free but limited
• The ORANGE stage runs from 50% up to 99% where hints are not free and are limited
• The bid bar will turn RED when it is FULL at which point no further hints can be received

Delivery is always completely FREE for mainland UK. Certain remote areas or islands may incur additional fees, but we’ll never charge you any more than the ‘extra’ costs of shipping to such areas instead of mainland UK.

Our game is restricted to UK residents only, so we will deliver to all parts of the UK only.

We endeavour to dispatch your item to you within 3 working days of confirming your telephone number and receiving your payment.

If your item is damaged upon receipt, you must inform us immediately so that we can discuss the issue with our courier. If the package appears damaged from the outside, you must make a note of this on the proof of delivery. If your item is faulty, then contact us in the first instance so that we can discuss the options available to you. DO NOT return any item to us until we have advised you to do so under any circumstances.

In the unlikely event that the item you have won cannot be delivered to you, we will contact you to discuss your options. Usually, we will offer you an equivalent item of equal or greater value. If you choose to decline the equivalent item, we will make a payment to you equal to the RRP of the item won (as published on our website).

If you decide, within 14 days or receipt, that you do not want to keep the item, you may return it to us for a full refund of the final bid amount and any ‘extra’ delivery costs paid by you for delivery to remote areas of the UK. The cost of returning the item to us is your responsibility in this instance.

Yes, simply visit your profile area when you are logged in and choose 'update my personal details'.

Simply click the 'Forgot Password' button in the top right hand corner of each page and provide your email address - we'll send you a reminder of your username and password to your registered email address. If you don't remember your email address, then contact us and we'll help you recover your details.

Your email provider or client may have filtered our email as spam or junk, please check in these folders for the email that you were expecting. To prevent this happening in future be sure to add system@bidbudgie.co.uk and *@bidbudgie.co.uk to your address book.

Simply visit your profile area to view your account balance.

Within your profile area of the website, simply click on the link 'view my active games' to view all of the games that you are currently playing or have previously played.

You may request a withdrawal of your funds using the link in your profile. We will review your request and issue the refund due to you within 2 working days.

Your credit balance is made up of promotional credit awarded to you in association with one of our promotions. This credit balance may be used to pay the Bid Price on our games but you may not withdraw it from your account.

We use your cash and credit balances in proportion. For example if your balance is made up of 20% credit and 80% cash, then your bid price will be paid by 20% credit and 80% cash.

To change your details, simply visit your profile area on the website and choose 'update my personal details'. For security purposes you are not able to change your registered telephone number this way, you should choose the 'request a phone number change' within your profile area.

No you cannot. We offer new members free promotional credit when they join BidBudgie, so holding more than one account is considered to be an abuse of this offer and is prohibited.

Simply visit your profile area on the website and choose 'update my personal details' then tick or untick the subscription box.

You need to be 18 or over to participate in our games. You also need to be 18 or over to hold a PayPal account in the UK.

We need to verify that you are who you say you are – so we require a telephone number from you that we use to verify our users. Anyone found providing false telephone numbers will have their account(s) blocked and will forfeit any winnings.

You need to be a UK resident with a UK postal address, have a valid telephone number, have the ability to pay us using PayPal, and be 18 or over.

Unfortunately not. Our games are only open to UK residents.

The simple answer is 'as many as you want'. We don't impose any restrictions on how many of our main games you can win in any given period (unlike our competitors).

We limit participation in our free auctions slightly. If you win one of our free auctions, you may not participate in any of our other free auctions until such time as you have made a cash deposit into your BidBudgie account.

During the registration process you will be asked to cast a vote for your favourite charity from the 3 that we are supporting.

You can change your vote at any time by visiting your profile area on the website and choosing the 'change my charity vote' option.

You can read more about the charities that we donate to by visiting our Charitable Donations section.

We donate 5% of the profits generated by this website across the 3 charities that we support. Read more about this in our Charitable Donations section.

We would recommend using either Internet Explorer 7 (or newer), Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (or newer), Google Chrome or Opera 9 (or newer).

AOL browsers prevent cookies by default and BidBudgie uses cookies to track your bids and your login credentials when navigating around the site. We would recommend changing your browser to use one of those recommended above.

Please click here for full instructions of how to enable cookies for the major internet browsers

Yes. We use PayPal to process all payments on our website to protect our users’ payment details.

No email sent by BidBudgie will ever ask you to provide your password via email or via telephone, so any email that asks for such information is not from us – so DO NOT GIVE YOUR PASSWORD TO ANYONE!

Any email from BidBudgie that contains any personal information such as your account balance or details of transactions on your account will always contain your Full name and your username. If you receive an email that does not contain these details, please notify us immediately here.

You should contact us with details of the email that you believe to be fake or spoof and if you are in any doubt DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS WITHIN THE EMAIL. You can always access your account securely by typing the BidBudgie address into your browser (the address is www.BidBudgie.co.uk).