"DealDash, one of the largest and best known "penny auction" websites, has been accused of operating an “illegal gambling site” and using a “widespread deceptive marketing campaign to lure customers” to the site, according to the advertising watchdog group Truth in Advertising (TINA.org).

Earlier this month, TINA.org filed complaints against the company with the Federal Trade Commission and with attorneys general in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.

“DealDash’s marketing claim — that consumers can generally expect to win items on the cheap — is simply not true,” Bonnie Patten, TINA.org’s executive director, told NBC News.

And in April, a California man filed a federal lawsuit against DealDash that also accuses the company of using deceptive marketing, and running what it calls “perverse lotteries in which U.S. consumers have lost tens of millions of dollars in [a] fraud-induced pursuit of sham merchandise.”"