Nana Shares Her Secrets for Scoring a Bag of Crap

Readers of this blog have heard before of my obsession for Woot and for scoring a Bag of Crap.   I recently scored my third Bag of Crap.  After six months of unsuccessful efforts at every Woot- Off,  I have scored three in a row, most recently on 8/20/10.    I am now obsessively checking FedEx for shipping updates and watching the Woot Forum to see what the other Wooters received in their BOCs.   Most of the fun in a BOC is the anticipation.  It's sort of like waiting for Santa Claus...you hope he'll finally bring you that pony, but Christmas morning you find the usual toys.  I haven't had a big score yet, but I remain eternally hopeful that the Woot gods will smile on me and deliver a box of spectacular technology.

The anticipated delivery date of my latest BOC is this Saturday, September 2.  I won't be home to open it, I'm going on a week long cruise to Alaska.  I have left strict orders for my son not to open it.  While on the cruise I will imagine that my pony is waiting for me under the tree.

I notice that my first Bag of Crap post written several months ago continues to get hits.  I decided to write about how I was finally successful.  So, how did I do it?  How did I finally get a Bag of Crap?  Here's my secret...well, not so much a secret as the procedure that finally worked for me.

After my first experience with a Woot Off I started using a couple of different trackers.  Several of them have a feature that lets you set an automatic buy feature when the BOC comes up.  The first several times I used the trackers I wasn't successful.  I had almost decided to give up.  After staying up all night waiting for the mythical BOC, I was tired and frustrated.  Then I read a comment on one of the Woot forums.  The Wooter said that he was successful because after hitting the buy button, entering the required information and hitting the ridiculously large buy it button...HE DID NOTHING ELSE. 

Several times I had gotten through to the buy page and got anxious waiting for the order to process and I re-hit the button, or I opened another screen and tried again...none of these strategies worked.  But when I hit the final button and did nothing else, I was successful.

It's worked for me three times now.  Make sure that you are logged in to your account and check that your credit card or pay pal info is correct...you don't want to waste time updating during a BOC buy.  I keep my credit card handy so I'm ready to enter the secret code.

 Wooters.us is the tracker that I use.  Test the alarm and the buy function and make sure your pop-up blocker is off.  And when you're successful in getting that BOC...send them a donation.  I did.

Good luck...and let me know if it works for you.  Happy Wooting!

Nana Scores a Bag of Crap!

My husband has a hard time buying me gifts. He says it’s because I “don’t do anything.” To him “doing something” means fishing, hunting, or trap shooting. By his way of thinking, it doesn’t qualify unless it happens outside, preferably in extreme weather conditions.

When I was working and raising children there really wasn’t time to develop hobbies. For years I was going to graduate school nights and weekends. In my spare time I did the laundry and occasionally ran a vacuum cleaner over the big chunks on the carpet.

The children grew up and went off to college, and then I retired. I have no interest in outdoor activities, guns or ammo, bowling or fishing. I like cozy indoor activities. I read. I write.  So in retirement I expanded my interests. I started to blog, and I discovered Woot!

Woot is an online deal-a-day site. They sell one item a day. When it’s sold out, they don’t post another item until the next day. The exception to this is a Woot-Off where items are put up for sale one after another. Some items sell out in seconds, others (known as woot-killers) linger for hours. During a Woot-Off the Woot forum is a lively gathering place for Wooters. Woot is a quirky culture with its own specialized vocabulary and strange customs.

During a Woot-Off thousands of people sit on-line waiting for the opportunity to buy a “Bag of Crap.” Known as a BOC, it is what its name implies, a mystery purchase with no guarantee of quality. Waiting for the BOC to show up is half the fun. Wooters post strange pictures of cats, Star Trek characters and monkeys and keep up a constant banter about how it is the “worse Woot-Off ever.” Last month, after a year of trying, I finally scored my first “boggy old creature.” I was one of 3,000 people who made a successful purchase. The item sold out in seconds. A Bag of Crap costs $3.00 plus $5.00 shipping.

There are tales of BOCs shared in the Woot forums, videos on YouTube, and websites dedicated to reporting on Woot Bags of Crap. The fun doesn’t end with securing a BOC. The forum discussion continues through the delivery of the BOCs. Wooters anxiously check FedEx shipping to find out the weight and dimensions of their boxes. Many times the first deliveries are video taped and posted for all to enjoy. Woot legend includes BOCs with high-end electronics. Sometimes wooters receive hard drives and computers…some work and some don’t.

I received:

•  1 wine bag
• 6 copies of Disney princess software for a camera I don’t have
• 1 Marvel comics tin toy
• 1 Star Trek action figure-Nero
• 1 Snowman speaker with lights that flash to music that hooks up to an i-pod

Pretty much crap!

On the forum I anxiously read about the three people who received letters in their boxes which apologized because part of the order was too large to fit in the box and was being shipped separately. These Wooters were the lucky recipients of Pallets of Crap. The POCs are legendary. Some people get big screen tv’s (2 people did this time). Once a Wooter got an entire pallet of car wax. Another time a Wooter received cases of “Band of Brothers” action figures…cases and cases of the same figurine.

In the last Woot-Off the forum crowd waited on-line with the POC recipients for the FedEx trucks to arrive. Video and pictures of the prizes were posted.

It’s fun. It’s like being a kid and waiting for Santa to come. You never know what you’re going to get. You just hope it’s not underwear.

There was another Woot-Off this week and I scored my second Bag of Crap!!!! Now I’ve got a week of anxious anticipation of the delivery, checking FedEx for updates, reading the forums to see what other Wooters received in their packages of similar weight and dimension…and maybe, just maybe, I’ll hit the jackpot and get a letter. There could be a Pallet of Crap in my future!

All this fun for only $8.00. And my husband says I don’t have hobbies.