(Telling me not to bid on these auctions is not helpful - I know what I'm doing, these types of auctions are a way to monitor and sometimes acquire oddball out of business better than basement slabs - as long as you set a fair price and don't go auction-crazy... a '39 Walker in high-AU/low-MS for $40 is about a $5 slab premium... they've sold for $20-$70 on fleaBay the last few months) I bid on three lots in an auction hosted on LiveAuctioneers that ended on Saturday. Friday I had received an email that I was outbid on two of the lots. I had bid a fair price, I was outbid, it happens a lot. End of day yesterday I received notification that I had won all three lots, but the two I was outbid at sold at my maximum. It certainly seems - but the platform doesn't show - that somebody overbid, retracted the bid and then walked me up. I've emailed the auction house asking what's up... Does anybody have any similar experience?
Yes, @gronnh20 they do - https://mainhost-prod.liveauctioneers.com/help/bidders/retract-bid.html - but they don't say if it shows on the bidding history. They also don't show who bid (even in a blinded way like fleaBay does). So I can't see if the same person bid say $100, retracted it after finding my maximum and then bid up to one increment below...
And yes, I know they are scum at least based on the 1/10 of 1% who flame (I mean write online reviews)... https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/new-york/...-auctioneers-llc-0121-123530/customer-reviews The thing is, if you read the reviews, most of them are about the auction houses not LiveAuctioneers itself which is just a platform for auctions.
If you are using your bid to get alerts about the auction, I would just put in a really low bid just to get you on the board. Then use your max bid at <2hours left in the auction. I have had people run up my max bid by putting it in too early.
I've bid on a coin or two and been outbid but a week later the auction house calls me and says the winning bidder backed out or refuses to pay or some other excuse so I'm offered the coin at my high bid price. I've never refused to not but that coin at my high bid price. I've heard that some places will offer you the item but at the higher price. That's a no thanks as my high bid was all I was willing to do. At least it hasn't happened to me but I expect it will one day.
So I've been back and forth with them, they've shared the day-of transcripts - to me - it pretty clearly shows what happened. Retracting bids is a feature of their platform up to 2 hours before the start of the auction. Net-Net I won't bid through them again. Friday I receive an email out-bid notice which I ignore. This does, however, disclose my $55 and $50 maximums to anyone who looked at the pre-bids. Saturday during the auction, the floor bidder bids the coins up to one increment below my maximum, $50 and $45 respectively. If somebody thought they would upgrade, they would have bid $75 or $100 and topped me because the coins would be worth $125 each. If you think they're accurately graded, then I paid $5 over fair money. I'm not that upset about the specific coins, they were worth $45 and $40 respectively and the extra $5 for the PhotoSlab is fine by me. I'm just POed because the 3rd lot I won for $30 and it was "worth" $40 too. The shill bidding cost me $20 or $30 bucks, which could have bought a 4th coin.
I had issues with LiveAuctioneers this weekend too. First day no problem bidding bought one item. Not coins. Second day wouldn’t approve my bidding at all and there was several lots I’d have bought
