- Report: #970911
Complaint Review: Proxibid - Internet
Reported By:
Bad Auctions -
Auburn, Washington, United States of America
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Proxibid
Internet, United States of America
Phone:
Web:
www.proxibid.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
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Proxibid Auction companies the provide pre bid information to. They provide prebid values to auction companies that then star auction bids at those top prices. Internet
I noticed the other day that in very small print that proxibid provides prebid information to auction companies that request it. I became suspicious of this practice when a number of auctions I had bid high prices on for items I really wanted closed at that price, and could not have been bid up incrementally to that price. My suspicions were confirmed today when I was watching a live auction today and low and behold the auctioneer called out my high bid as the starting bid when the actual starting bid on proxibid's site was far lower.
When I spoke to proxibid's customer service rep today while closing my account, I asked him about this and he said under some UCC law the auction companies were allowed to see these prebids but "were not supposed to use them as the starting bid" in the live auction. When I asked him if anyone was policing this practice, he said no and it was up to the consumer to work with the auction company if they felt this was happening.
It's pretty obvious this leads to illegal and deceptive business practices in the auction industry, and that they and their clients (proxibid/auction companies) benefit from this practice and loophole at the expense of the consumer/bidder.
When I spoke to proxibid's customer service rep today while closing my account, I asked him about this and he said under some UCC law the auction companies were allowed to see these prebids but "were not supposed to use them as the starting bid" in the live auction. When I asked him if anyone was policing this practice, he said no and it was up to the consumer to work with the auction company if they felt this was happening.
It's pretty obvious this leads to illegal and deceptive business practices in the auction industry, and that they and their clients (proxibid/auction companies) benefit from this practice and loophole at the expense of the consumer/bidder.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
shad
Tennessee,USA
Prebids on Proxibid
#2Consumer Comment
Fri, November 20, 2015
I work for an auction company that uses Proxibid for our live auctions. Our auctioneers do not see the pre-bids when we start an auction, however, we have a Proxibid employee onsite who acts as a ringman for bids, they are always sitting right by the stage and are communicating directly with the auctioneer, they are the ones stating there is a bid on the item. When I realized this was happening, which was actually causing a major problem because many times the person who bid on the item is not watching the live stream to confirm that what they bid on, is in fact, the item they bid on, and not something that was changed out at the last minute. For the last several auctions, I have been telling the Proxibid employee to ignore all pre-bids and only take live bids and that works out better. Using pre-bids has never worked out for the better for us during an auction, we have lost sales on prebids more than anything, which in turn has cost us money. So in response to your statement "that they and their clients (proxibid/auction companies) benefit from this practice". We have not once benefitted from this at all.
Ladyauctioneer
Shreveport,Louisiana,
United States of America
Only Certain Companies
#3Consumer Comment
Wed, January 09, 2013
Just in response to your letter, I do not work for and have never worked for Proxibid but I am an auctioneer with an auction company that runs my auctions on their site.
It is true that "some" auction houses can see your pre-bids but not all. It all depends on the auction house. Our company chooses NOT to see pre-bids so we are not allowed to see them. Some companies choose to see them but I agree that I do not think they should allowed to be able to. You can always check to see which company can see them and which ones cannot by reading the very first line of that auction company's Terms & Conditions so you can protect yourself by checking this out first. THX!
