pete s.

These guys are professional con artists... highly trained at what they do. They played this game so long and they know the psychology behind people after they give their earnest money. They called me back and said "you were not the winning bidder (reserve not met) but auction.com has the authority to negotiate because bids were close to the reserve. As the 2nd place, we're giving you the chance to take it". We took it and gave them $xxk but 2 weeks later they came back and said "oops, seller didn't agree, do you have money you can offer or we will cancel the contract". The bid specialist and their boss play the "good cop / bad cop" roles and these guys have gone through much training to maximize profits by playing the game using psychological techniques.