Denny,

Thank you for using SiteJabber to notify Proxibid of your concern/question.

Proxibid joins buyers and sellers together in the safest place online to purchase highly valued items. Sellers on Proxibid must adhere to a myriad of local, state, and federal, banking, auctioneer, and consumer protection guidelines, rules, regulations, and/or laws depending on the types and locations of sales they are conducting and items they are selling. These reputable sellers business models can change based on various consignment agreements, estate requirements, federal contracts, and more.

Proxibid makes as much of your experience with sellers as transparent as possible by providing sellers Terms of Sales and appropriate Proxibid disclosures, when applicable. When participating in an event, a buyer agrees to the Proxibid Unified User Agreement and the sellers specific Terms of Sale posted for each event. Terms of Sale will vary from seller to seller and from event to event; therefore, Proxibid encourages buyers to carefully review the Terms of Sale tab within the catalog to understand the legal provisions they are agreeing to when participating in each event.

When a seller has requested to place bids in their own events or to see bidders maximum bids, Proxibid will place clear disclaimers at the top of the events Terms of Sale, respective to the sellers specific request. You will notice only a few sellers engage in these activities. Although we do not have full control over the sellers, we make every effort to ensure all buyers are aware of which sellers are bidding in their auctions or reviewing maximum bids. The disclaimers are as follows:

PLEASE READ: At the request of the auction company, this auction permits bids to be placed by the auctioneer, an employee of the auctioneer, or the seller or an agent on the seller's behalf. While Proxibid's Unified User Agreement prohibits this behavior, in accordance with UCC 2-328, this auction is permitted to engage in this activity by providing this clear disclosure to you, the bidder.

PLEASE READ: This auction company has requested and been granted access to see all bids placed including any maximum pre-bids. This auction is permitted to engage in this activity by providing this clear disclosure to you, the bidder.

While Proxibid does not fully agree with allowing sellers to bid in their own auctions, there are numerous scenarios where this activity is completely legitimate and necessary. Additionally, the seller is not engaging in illegal or fraudulent activity in accordance with Uniform Commercial Code 2-328, paragraph 4, as the disclosure is transparently being provided to participating buyers as part of the Terms of Sale, and buyers can choose whether or not to participate in the sale with this advanced knowledge.

Legitimate scenarios Proxibid comes across when a seller chooses to bid in their sale would be to represent bids for certain bidder demographics including buyers who placed an absentee bid directly with the seller prior to the sale by phone or in person, representing bids from alternate platforms or marketplaces, or buyers with limited or no access to an internet connection during live or timed bidding, such as those traveling or in rural locations. We highly discourage sellers from running up bid amounts or manipulating bid increments in a deceptive manner and will take appropriate administrative action when identified.

When a seller has requested to review maximum bids, covered in Section 3.5 of the Proxibid Unified User Agreement, Proxibid has identified this action is not requested for deceitful purposes, but rather to help protect the platform. We have seen sellers reach out to buyers who erroneously placed maximum bids in wrong amounts to correct the bid, preventing them from being held to a higher amount (example: buyer placed a $1,000 bid instead of $10.00). Another scenario is typically seen when an auctioneer wants to ensure Proxibid internet bids are faithfully represented when onsite or other internet bids are frenetically coming in during a timed or live event. For example, preventing delays between a ringman relaying bids between the auctioneer and/or operator of the Proxibid software application. The same can be true if the seller uses another platform in addition to Proxibid to receive bids. Additionally, many sellers do not treat the maximum bid information received from Proxibid any different than receiving an absentee bid directly from a bidder onsite, by phone, or from another platform.

We are sorry to hear you are unhappy with sellers having the ability to take this action; however, Proxibid actively monitors sellers engaging in this activity to ensure the disclaimers are present and to determine if there are indications of fraudulent behavior, at which point we will take appropriate administrative action, and ensure we continue to offer a fair platform buyers can continue to trust.

We hope this information answers your question and addresses your concern. As always, if you need help or have questions about Proxibid, please visit our Contact Us page at the bottom of our website or call us toll-free at 877-505-7770. One of our friendly Client Services Professionals will be happy to help. Again, thank you for assisting with our commitment to excellence. We appreciate your business and look forward to seeing you in the Marketplace!

Gabriel S.
Proxibid & APN Payment Network Customer Support Supervisor