I want to share my experience as I am currently trying to do a closing. So far I am out 14K (5%) signed the contract on 3/28/14, every time I called to check the status they told me to wait the 15 business days in the contract, that I did my part everything was good. today 4/12 they send an email asking to re-sign as the electronic signature I made with the software they provide, my initials overlapped the text of addendum. That something I had no control of... I asked them to confirm by email that the 15 business days to return the money incase of no response from the seller stays the same as with everything I read here is highly suspicious. I have to add that the contract you sign is removing all your rights on anything in case something goes wrong (ie. the house burn before the closing, the title of the property has an issue, the property is trashed...) If I had knew before I probably would not have moved forward as the risk - reward is not that good. It's like everything as you move toward something is hard to stop but that's not something I would go trough again. There is other way to get properties from a real sale. As everybody said you are bidding against bots and that was my feeling as well during the process. On top of that it is NOT an auction but the right to submit an offer to the owner of the property and he can refuses or accept. I hope I will not have to hire an attorney to get my money back once the deadline expire. will keep in touch to let you know what happen. One thing certain, I will invest a lot of time and money in reviews on internet in case I loose my deposit to be sure people can Google it.

STAY AWAY PEOPLE! Whatever you do DO NOT deal with theses people. Absolutely the worst experience I ever went through. All selling costs are the responsibility of the buyer even their attorney fees. They don't tell you this before bidding on any of their properties. You will solely be responsible for any back taxes or claims on the title that you cannot view. They will say they are going to send you the hud so you can view the closing costs but wont give it to you until the day of closing when your there. They give you 24 hours to sign the contract and send it back or you face losing your earnest money which is a whopping 10 percent. Anything you do not exactly as they say will cost you money but they do nothing that they say and that's ok. Anything that normally gets split between the buyer and seller gets put back on the buyer. It was a horrible experience dealing with them. You all see the one star ratings they have and its for a good reason.

A Complete Sham.
You are bidding against a bot in place by the bank. Case in point; a recent property just 2 doors down from where I live went up for bid. I put in one bid with room for me to clean up the house and still make a profit. Only to watch the biding continue well past profitability for TWO HOURS at $250 increments. Is any real purchaser willing to waste two hours of their time placing $250 bids? Another tell is that they can reduce the bid increment and place a bid in the same instant. In the bid I mentioned, I watched the clock and the bid increment, the site shows a $5,000 increment at 3 seconds left, then the bid jumps by $2,500 and the increment drops to $2,500 resetting the clock. You never see the increment drop without a matching bid increase. Bottom line don't be fooled into thinking this site has any legitimacy!

I watched a property I was interested in get bid up over $325,000 on three separate occasions. Each time the sale ended without the property being sold as the reserve was not met. Imagine my surprise when I saw the sale in the paper for $275,000. The response I received from auction.com was to contact the Better Business Bureau of Irvine, CA. They also claim that they do not keep records of the non-winning bids. I guess if you can wade through the BS you might be able to get a deal but it doesn't seem to happen too often.

I bought a house at auction.com but was fortunate enough to have seen it prior to the auction listing when a local realtor had it. Title insurance is not offered on most of the current auction properties possibly due to my experience! Make sure you have it! I DID! Thank goodness. It will cost you prior to winning the bid provided you can get an insurance company to cover the property. The title search costs & you don't get it back!

Because I had title insurance it cost THEM over $79000 to get me a clear title (almost as much as I paid for the house) and had I not noticed the foreclosure notice in the local paper thru a local bank attorney, my property would have been auctioned on the courthouse steps to some unsuspecting person. It took me over 9 months to get it straight. I had moved in and sunk over $150,000 into the house over the cost (auction). Mine turned out OK but not before suffering thru months of living in limbo due to stopping improvements to the house, many sleepless nights, legal expenses, anxiety attacks....

No one has ever told me if I would be able to recoup the additional money I spent on improvements from the Title Insurance Company had this backfired. I suspect not!

This site works in conjunction with the banks to dump properties that are not salable in the open real estate market where disclosures are legally required. For example, if a property has black mold or doesn't have a clean title, it states in their 'terms and conditions' they don't have to disclose this and in order to bid, you waive them from all liability. Almost all of their deeds are 'general or special warranty deeds' which means the titles are NOT required to be clean. In other words, there could be liens attached to the title and you are taking on that liability. If the property owes $200k in back taxes or condo assessments, even if the property is only worth $100k and you win it for $90k, if you 'buy it' and a lien is attached, YOU NOW OWE THAT $200K LIEN!! Or let's say the bank foreclosed on a condo and assessments are attached for a new roof of $50k, you are now stuck with that bill. Or in some cases, like in Miami, county codes may require the property be brought up to code (because it isn't to code) and you could get stuck with that bill for tens of thousands - maybe you have to pay to raise it if it's in a flood zone, etc. In almost all cases, there are problems that keep these properties from selling at market value so banks are so slimy - instead of selling at a deep discount, they try to stick it to a buyer and trick people into thinking they are getting a bargain and afterwards, maybe even YEARS LATER, they discover the problem or problems. Banks are so crooked, sometimes they even instruct the lienholders to 'wait' 3 - 5 years to come out of the closet so the statutes pass and they can't get sued. I would not recommend anyone buy a house from this site because you have zero protection and you saw how the mortgage meltdown stole people's homes that were defrauded, it was the largest transfer of wealth in American history but the public doesn't know the half of it. Trust me, the banks own the courts, the politicians, etc. That's why these guys haven't been shut down yet. And they won't be. Unless you hire an attorney to do complete due diligence, get title insurance (I don't even think they allow it) and know how to scour the dockets, courthouses, etc. for liens, find title problems, etc. DON'T BUY FROM THIS SITE.

As realtor for a property put on Auction.com by lender, I shared Disclosures of environmental contamination, mold reports, and over $70k in liens. Auction.com refused to put certified reports om their site.
They also put the home's "highest past value' at over $2M when all short sale offers were under $200k, and no homes nearby have sold over $500k in the best of shape.
Auction.com is fraudulent, Great deals, but Buyer beware on everything. They misrepresent everything.

I was the winning bidder on a property. This was suppose to be an Auction, after winning the auction, I was rushed and pushed to enter a conventional sale and put down $4900.00 ernest money deposit. Now I cannot contact anyone at Auction.com and have not heard anything after giving them my deposit. I'm out 5 grand and have no house. Please stay away from these people.

These people are snakes. I was looking to bid on a house, had black mold testing done on the house, which proved to be positive, sent auction.com the results and they did not post it on the house's auction site. How irresponsible. Not transparent. Slick carpet baggers.

I read the reviews here and figured I was wasting my time but took a chance because it was my dream home. Customer service got ahold of me right away, Closing was expedited by Auction.com. I kept waiting for my realtor to call my and say sorry......but it never happened. There was a lot of entities I never heard of involved in this transaction but they all seemed to work well together. I paid 510000 for my house and with all the other fees it was 547000. The house is worth around 600k-629k but I have no intention on selling it. Do your homework and keep your eyes open and maybe it will work for you too.

They said they are not the seller?? Guess that tells me that I can go "around them" and deal directly with the bank who DOES OWN the property in question. Do the same thing they do to us. :)

Should be Zero - what is the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOING ABOUT THIS SCAM SITE???? Are they asleep at the wheel? site has zero transparency, does not provide a log of bids and does not show winning high bid - 99% of listings have reserves much higher then the start price - waist of time and money. Fed should shut it down.

This site should get negative zero stars, I won a bid, paid my earnest money, and was assigned a closing attorney. After waiting 15 days, I was told the seller(bank of america) had not signed the contract, after waiting 20 days, I got a rejection notifcation letter, I was told by the closing attorney to contact aution.com, I was told by auction.com, maybe I should submit a counter offer, this site is a real.... joke, do not waste your time.

it doesnt build a lot of confidence in an online site if you know you are bidding against bots/shill bidders.

Since we are not talking about pennies here, rather tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars im guessing it will only be a matter of time before:

A. the feds catch on
B. daily paper shows tons of boxes being carried out of their headquarters
C. the two sides announce a (steep) payment from auction.com that doesnt admit to wrong doing but promises to clean up their act

I wish I could give zero stars.

google auction.com reviews
pissedconsumer.com
ripoffreport.com

I won a property above reserve(reserve MET) provided funds and within a few days my funds were returned cause they changed their mind. (back door better offer?)

it sold for 2x my bid later and then flipped for 2x again...


tried to bid on local properties. they went higher than my bid but reserve MET... next auction around-they were up for sale again.

customer service a JOKE!!!
chat ended by agent before my questions were answered.

WOW... same experience as with phone support.

I guess if you have monopoly on foreclosure auctions-you can treat customers like trash.

too bad.

how many of these positive reviews are by employees getting a free lunch for every positive comment or review?

Total scam. The website lists the homes as financable, then changes at auction listing time. I suspect it is a matter of months before another real estate market crash. The bankers are limiting supply to build demand. Of course, the suckers are biting on the bait and buying at unreasonable prices. Amazing how short the memory of some people. Have people really forgotten about the real estate collapse that was less than 7 years ago? I will be renting....

They deserve no stars. They use terms as "available" means "required". They said the Fannie Mae property was Auction.com's asset. They changed the terms for proof of funds 7 times and still will not submit the winning bid to Fannie Mae. Their listed real estate agents has no information. They refused to put in writing what they said verbally. If it is not a scam, than they are poorly operated, lack professionalism and knowledge. n t

I only give this site one star because there is no option to give it zero. They talk about transparency because they tell you up front that they can rip you off by bidding on behalf of the seller to increase the bid price up to the reserve. Just because they tell you doesn't make it right. Somebody with a gun may tell me they are going to rob me but they still should go to jail. These people should go to jail! Beware of their accuracy of listings. I was looking at a house that was extremely damaged by a foreclosed owner. Nothing was mentioned in the description besides that it would be great for any buyer. I notified them of the inaccuracy but nothing showed up and bidding went on. Some state's attorney will have a field day with them one of these days!

I'm in the same situation as bill j.. I have a contract on a house,waiting on the bank approval,they are holding my earnest money and I realize yesterday that my house is on auction.com!! How can this be legal? I'm contacting my attorney first thing Monday. I'm not gonna bid on a house when I have a binding contract. Also isn't shill bidding illegal?? It's not allowed on eBay ,what makes them any different...hmm

I put a fair market offer in on a short sale. This offer was accepted by the seller and I have completed over 2 months of the process with the bank. The bank had already gotten 2 separate BPOs (Broker property value opinion). It appeared that everything was on track and we were just awaiting the bank to accept our offer or counter… dun dun dun… the plot thickens.

Enter the illustrious Auction.com into the equation. The bank which is based out of CA said that they often use online auctions through Auction.com to verify that offers are “fair market”. So in essence my certified offer would be used as the reserve price for an EBAY like auction. This is a total BS scenario for several reasons…

1. The house is not in CA! It is in the rural northeast! The market does not support auction based selling!!! It is done the old fashioned way… you know with a realtor!

2. The owner/seller accepted my offer! As long as that offer is accepted the bank should not be able to entertain any other offers let alone an Effin auction!

3. How is an online auction even to be trusted?

So here is what happened. Auction.com contacted me and told me that I MUST register for the auction but if I bid even $1000 over my current offer that I would have to pay then a 5% commission on the total sale price! Well that eliminated me from the bidding process since 5% would have been a substantial amount. The irony here is that if the bank had negotiated I would have been willing to go up another 10-15k but the 5% commission eliminated that. Auction.com mandated that the seller agent have an open house even though the house was technical “under contract” and not even listed! As expected only a few ppl showed up. The auction started very low and the bid increment was 50k. After the first day it appeared that several bid came in but the bid was nowhere near mine. The next day more bids came in and the bid amount was sitting at 5000 less than my offer. There was only one day left and it looked as if my offer would stand. As the clock ticked down, the bid increment was still at 10k and as the last few seconds ticked, mysteriously a bid of 5k more came in to tie my offer. This reset the clock to 2 min and the bid increment was lowered to 5k and it still said “reserve not met”. As the clock ticked down to 1 second another bid came in for 5k putting it above my offer BUT it still said “reserve not met”??? The bid increment dropped to 2500 and with one second a bid came and the clock reset, “reserve not met”. Bid increment dropped to 1000 and with exactly 1 sec left the clock reset… “reserve not met”. The bid increment dropped all the way to $250 and this continued for almost 2 hrs and then the listing just disappeared??? By this point I was smelling a rat big time! The next day I called and inquired about the house and posed as a bidder rather than the offer holder. I explained the bidding war at the end and how the listing just disappeared. The rep looked it up and said the reserve had not been met and the house had not sold??? So I had the seller agent contact all the people who registered for the open house to see if they bid and guess what… ONLY ONE BID! They bid once and it was a very low ball bid! This means that auction.com was doing the bidding itself in an attempt to get us to bid and pay them a 5% commission! They have total control of the bidding and the “perceived” reserve amount! As a buyer you are not only bidding against other buyers but against the effin site as well! And get this… even if you win the seller can decline your winning offer! The whole thing is, in my opinion ethically and morally WRONG!

Bottom line… auctions like this should be illegal! Proceed with extreme caution! Auction.com is not to be trusted.

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Peter C. [Auction.com Rep] Hi Bill J.,
Thank you for taking the time to post about your experience with Auction.com. While I can't speak to the reasoning why the bank decided to use our platform, I did want to take this opportunity to say I'm sorry to hear of your frustrations with the way our platform works. In all cases Auction.com is not the buyer, or the seller, but simply provides this platform for those two parties to communicate. Therefore, Auction.com has no control over which offers the bank, and/or seller, accepts. Due to our privacy policies, I cannot discuss the details of your situation on this open forum, but I would like to point out that we encourage all our customers to closely read the terms & conditions of our platform, as well as the specific terms & conditions for each property. As disclosed in section 3 and where allowed by law, Auction.com acting as the auctioneer, may bid on behalf of the seller up to the reserve price. I've included the first paragraph from Page 3, Section 3 of our Terms and Conditions page for your reference below. I'd also be happy to further discuss your particular situation, and to discuss how you feel we can improve our platform so please either message us via our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Auctioncom ) or contact me (Peter) or my Customer Service Managers Yamir Gonzalez or Vicky Hernandez at our customer service line 800-793-6107.

Thank you, Peter Chevalier
Director of Customer Service

Auction.com terms and conditions: Page 3, Section 3 - Auction.com Terms and Conditions Reserve Auction.
This is a reserve auction, unless otherwise noted in a specific Property listing, and all Properties have a reserve price (“Reserve Price”), meaning the Seller of each Property can accept or reject any bid and has also established an unpublished, minimum selling price. The starting bid is not the Reserve Price. Except where prohibited by law, during a live bidding event (online or otherwise) the Auctioneer may open bidding on any Property by placing a bid on behalf of the Seller and may further bid on behalf of the Seller up to the amount of the Reserve Price by placing successive or consecutive bids for a Property, or by placing bids in response to other bidders. If no bidders meet the Reserve Price, the Seller is under no obligation to sell the Property (see “Subject to Confirmation” section below). The Seller may withdraw a Property at any time prior to the announcement of the completion of the sale by the Auctioneer. Auctioneer is not acting as an agent for any Bidder in any capacity, and is acting exclusively as the Seller’s agent as an auctioneer.

10/4/13

I registered and bid on an auction. It kept saying reserve not met, then when I tried to bid more it would not let me confirm a higher bid and then the time ran out. After the "auction" the listing disappeared and even the local listing agent could not tell me what happened. I will not be using auction.com ever again.

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Peter C. [Auction.com Rep] Hi J P,
Thank you for sharing your experience with auction.com. It is difficult for me to comment on your situation without further detail. I can tell you if the reserve was not met, then the seller most likely pulled the property down after the auction was over. However, I would be interested in finding out more detail regarding your not being able to confirm a higher bid. Due to our privacy policies, I cannot discuss on this open forum but I would appreciate the opportunity to speak with you regarding this matter. We strive to provide the most transparent process as possible on our online marketplace and are always looking for ways to improve the customer experience. If you could please message me via our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Auctioncom ) or call our customer service line (800-793-6107) and ask for me (Peter) or my customer service managers Yamir Gonzalez or Vicky Hernandez and we’d be happy to speak with you.

Thank you,
Peter Chevalier
Director of Customer Service

10/1/13

It keeps amazing me how deceitful these people are. I bid on a property up to 40k, It got bid higher up to 45k within 2 minutes after the auction ended they called me and asked me to raise my offer 2 k. I told them no and then they said they would get the seller to take my offer anyway. When I asked them what happened to the other bidders they said they did not perform. Really? In 2 minutes they didn't perform. Obviously they are bidding these up on their own. Also don't bid more because the reserve isn't met. Its a trick they will still take the highest bid in most cases, you will literally be paying thousand more than you need to. Stay away!!

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Peter C. [Auction.com Rep] Hi Phil,
Thank you for taking the time to post about your experience, and I'm sorry to hear you're unhappy with our processes. While our policies prevent me from discussing the specifics of your particular situation online, I wanted to reiterate that we strive to be as transparent as possible with our online marketplace and encourage all of our customers to do their due diligence in reading all our policies. The bidding process you are referring to is outlined in our terms & conditions. As disclosed in section 3 and where allowed by law, Auction.com acting as the auctioneer, may bid on behalf of the seller up to the reserve price. I've included the first paragraph from Page 3, Section 3 of our Terms and Conditions page for your reference below. I'd also be happy to further explain our process and policies, and to discuss how we can improve our platform so please either message us via our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Auctioncom ) or contact me (Peter) or my Customer Service Managers Yamir Gonzalez or Vicky Hernandez at our customer service line 800-793-6107.

Thank you, Peter
Director of Customer Service

Auction.com terms and conditions: Page 3, Section 3 - Auction.com Terms and Conditions Reserve Auction.
This is a reserve auction, unless otherwise noted in a specific Property listing, and all Properties have a reserve price (“Reserve Price”), meaning the Seller of each Property can accept or reject any bid and has also established an unpublished, minimum selling price. The starting bid is not the Reserve Price. Except where prohibited by law, during a live bidding event (online or otherwise) the Auctioneer may open bidding on any Property by placing a bid on behalf of the Seller and may further bid on behalf of the Seller up to the amount of the Reserve Price by placing successive or consecutive bids for a Property, or by placing bids in response to other bidders. If no bidders meet the Reserve Price, the Seller is under no obligation to sell the Property (see “Subject to Confirmation” section below). The Seller may withdraw a Property at any time prior to the announcement of the completion of the sale by the Auctioneer. Auctioneer is not acting as an agent for any Bidder in any capacity, and is acting exclusively as the Seller’s agent as an auctioneer.

9/24/13

this house has been on acution three times. pulled off the first two for Unknown reasons per auction.com, someone sent them a email telling them to do it.
The realtor attached didn't have any information and refused to show the house, then when we complained she showed us and knew all about the inside of it,,,hmmm, how could that be? you said you knew nothing about it.
third auction time, bidding jumped from 50,000 to 110,000 then 160,000 they said it was a mistake and took the website down for "maintenenace"
web site comes back up and it is showing the same, customer service now says it is correct.
while im talking to him it jumps to 210 and then to 285,000 suddenly the "Bid increments" went from 50K to 25K. now they are going down? and is still says reserve not met. really?
this place is crooked....this home is nowhere near 285,000 it only fair markets valued at 148K and that was in the best days of the real estate market.
RIDICULOUS don't waste your time and make sure you call to REMOVE the hold of the deposit on your credit card account.

Auction.com is primarily a source for banks to unload foreclosed properties. The "deals" are not exceptional and any perceived value you feel you may gotten with a winning bid is is illusory with the buyer premium and other undisclosed costs which will add 8%-10% to the cost of purchasing a property.

I have won bids with the reserve met and then their seller never approves the sale therefore it is just a waste of time. Then I have been asking for my $2500 deposit back now for 2 weeks. They are a joke.

This site is "ALMOST" a scam. I say almost b/c you can buy something from it and they are honest about the property (usually, about as accurate as eBay and Amazon) and you know the price. You won't be happy with this website or product, trust me. If you are on this website with high hopes to buy a cheap, good, property then you are fantasizing. Here is how it works:

You buy some bids (very expensive):
Find a great property and place your first bid. (say 1,000)
You get extremely lucky and no one else notices (this is best case scenario)
Bank selling the property notices and the computer automatically starts bidding.
You, thinking this is someone else tries to outbid it. (You can but the computer won't stop until the bank is satisfied with the price that they want to sell, since they are controlling the computer bidding against you).
So in the end if you try to outbid it you will not pay 1,000 dollars for a 150,000 property but from 100,000 (if the bank has failed several times to sell this house before and want to get rid of it) to 180,000 (if it is the first time trying to sell this property).

Better of buying with a real estate since he/she charges 10 times less than the bids