EBay is old news. What’s new is penny auction sites. Sharky Bids is one  of the  several new ‘penny auction’ sites where consumers can bid for flat-screen TVs, laptops, cameras and game consoles as well as jewelry and gift cards for prices that start as low as a penny,”

The catch is there is a fee to place each bid, between $0.40 and $0.60. Users buy packs of 20 to 600 bids at a time, then can dole them out on items they crave.  All the prices on the site are converted automatically to your local currency depending on your IP address. The site highlights auctions that are in their final seconds.

But here’s another catch. On SharkyBids.com , users can pre-program bids using a “Auto Bidders”  which waits until the final few  seconds to place your bid. But every time a bid is placed, the time left on the auction jumps up. So it can be quite exciting – and frustrating – to watch the an item’s price continue to climb as the countdown actually counts up.

Critics of penny auction sites say it is as addicting as gambling and dub them an “evil eBay.”

But…I may try it, just once. I swear I’ll be able to quit!

On the other hand, if paying $7.34 for a $1850 Nikon D90 digital camera, or snagging a $1299 Apple 32GB unlocked iPhone  3GS  for $8.06 is going to get you addicted, fogettaboutit!

Thanks, Ahmed!