Jul 3, 2008 4:00 pm US/Eastern
3 On Your Side: Cashing In On Typos
PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ―
Are you always in search of deals when shopping on the internet? Well have we
got a deal for you. 3 On Your Side found an unusual way that you can snag
bargains online. You can uncover hidden deals and cash in because of other
people's typos and bad spelling!
Trisha Fox loves to buy brand-name
products at rock-bottom prices. She often visits online auction sites. "I'm on
there around about once a week," says Trisha.
But some of the best online
deals are hard to find. That's because the listings are misspelled and don't pop
up during searches.
CNET editor Jeff Bakalar says, "Leave out the 'y' in PlayStation, it won't
basically come up as a search result."
Misspelled items are common, but now there are services that search for
typos to help you uncover hidden treasures. Simply visit one of the search sites
and plug in your keyword. "They will take your search term and run it through
their sort of software algorithm that will generate literally hundreds of
different misspellings for the search term you inserted," says
Bakalar.
Most of the services are free and primarily scour eBay, but some
also find bargains on Craig's List. They even provide links to the deals.
According to Bakalar, "It's really designed for that bargain hunter, must have
the best price, that kind of shopper."
Trisha used auctionbloopers.com,
but there are others, including fatfingers.com, auctionspeller.com,
typobuddy.com and missing-auctions.com.
Those typos have saved Trisha hundreds of dollars over the past few years.
She says, "I picked up some absolutely phenomenal deals."
There are also
a number of software programs that work the same way that can be downloaded for
free. But be forewarned -- our expert says these programs often contain spyware.
For links to the sites mentioned in this report, click below.
RELATED LINKS:www.auctionbloopers.com www.fatfingers.com www.auctionspeller.com www.missing-auctions.comwww.typobuddy.comwww.misspllr.com www.typobay.com
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