Auction shenanigans

EvilMCT · May 25, 2005 11:00PM

I recently placed a bid in an online auction. Upon placing my bid, I was found to be the high bidder. This lasted for several days until I received an email stating that my max bid had been beaten. I went back to the site and it shows that the current winning bid is the same as my max bid. How can this be? If I was the first to bid the amount, how could someone bidding after me beat me with that same max bid? I've seen it explained before how the bids can be beat when competing against the floor bid, but I've not seen this online before? Has anyone experienced else this?

Ken

PerryHall · May 25, 2005 11:06PM

Sounds strange to me also. Call the auction company and ask them. Let us know what they say. Also, which auction company are you dealing with?

pharmer · May 25, 2005 11:42PM

I think I know what firm you are speaking of, same thing with me. $100 starting bid was highest for a few days, got the emal, checked my bid list, same amount but said I was not high bidder. But then I went to the item, and it was at $650. So, I decided it's just their software, doesn't do a good job of telling you where you stand. At least I found out the current bid. It's not as user friendly as Heritage, that's for sure.

BillJones · May 26, 2005 12:05AM

The only time I had an odd situation was when an auction lot sold for less than my maximum bid. I contacted the auctioneer and he told me that he had made a mistake in posting the bids to the book. He had lost my bid and the lot went to someone else for less. He claimed that I would not have gotten the lot anyway because the person who won had bid more than I had.

Still it piqued me off that someone could buy the lot for less than I bid. And if I had been the consignor, I would have been ONE UNHAPPY CAMPER if I ended up with less than I should have gotten from the sale.

I had done business with this firm before and have done business with them since. Given that I had to take it as an honest mistake.

SmallSizedGuy · May 26, 2005 12:30AM

I once bid $720 on an item on the Internet with an estimate of $1000 to $1500. At the time of my bid, I was the high bidder at $600. The item closed on the internet at $600 with me as the high bidder, with floor bidding to occur the next day. I had someone at the auction tracking the lot for me. Magically, the lot now opened at $720 on the floor! No one else bid on the item and I was the winner of the lot at $720.

Wonder what happened there? I know what I think...

RYK · May 26, 2005 12:53AM

Ken,

That has happenned to me before and could easily happen again.

Let's say that you are the current high bidder on a coin at $900 with a max bid of $1000. The next bidder bids $1000. Despite that you bid it first, that is the next interval, and you lose with some auction companies. One must manage one's bids to make sure that you don't lose the coin at a price that you were willing to pay. In my example, if you had upped your max bid to $1050 (which they will usually let you do online), the next bid after $1000 would be $1050, and you might have won the coin.

Robert

EvilMCT · May 26, 2005 3:50AM

Thanks for the responses. I plan on calling the auction company for clarification. I suspect that the scenario that Robert has mentioned is what occured. I haven't mentioned the specifics because the auction is still ongoing. I put in my max bid and do not mind if someone else wins. But, if the auction is won with the current bid (which was my max), I will chalk it up to experience and simply deal with other auction companies.

Ken

RobJ · May 26, 2005 5:29AM

And nobody names the company?

sinin1 · May 26, 2005 7:40AM

some auction companies apply the reserves incrementally

your high bid did not meet reserve, and there is yet another reserve bump to occur at closing

Auction shenanigans

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