PublicSurplus

They charged a dollar for address verification. For what? To get money. They are scammers that have high jacked this business. Buyer beware. They charge more than the additional 10% as well. And when you talk to them they have the accents of the regular scammers. Beware who you give your card info to. Not a trustworthy company. There are 100s of other auction company's GO SOMWHERE ELSE.

I recently asked PS to delete my bidding account & all personal information, when the PS database was hacked & private customer email addresses & bid information obtained by criminals attempting to defraud bidders. I received realistic fake emails from this criminal enterprise attempting to to persuade bidders to send funds. It was pretty obvious the PS firewall had been breached. I hope credit info doesn't show up on the dark web.

Site lacks basic features that a buyer would expect from an auction site in 2010 let alone in 2022. They offer no way to create saved keyword searches that generate email notifications. The only option is to subscribe to category based email notification but inexplicably when you view a specific item they do not list what category it is in, so you are left to "best guess" if you decide you want to receive notifications for similar items. They also offer to sellers the ability to hide completed auctions so buyers cannot see them. I'm not sure how hiding this benefits the seller and it absolutely does not benefit potential buyers.

Also, for the record I have won auctions on the site. I've been happy with the purchases. I'd like to actually buy more (but per above) they don't seem to want to make it easy for buyers.

If you want to win an auction, there is a good chance you will have to outbid a fake bidder, public surplus employee, or another shill bidder just trying to increase the price for the profit of public surplus or the seller. It worsened years ago when public surplus started hiding the bidder names with asterisks and has worsened again now that all bid history for an item has been hidden. Be wary of using autobids now that public surplus can just increase the "bid" because you can't even see if another person is bidding against you if you retained the max bid. If you lose a listing, there is probably a 50-50 chance or more that it will get relisted because the winning "bidder" or public surplus/seller employee does not pay. If you do win, you will probably have to overpay and will be bidding against that same "bidder" that did not pay the last time it was posted. Now that you can't check the history, the employees don't need to invent new bidder names to shill bid. Next step is to hide the winning bidders name, so you can't even tell if you are winning and can run yourself up. This has become the worst online bidding platform.

I used to check this for those "rare finds" and sometimes it would be good but like any other auction site, it's very easy to be over bid. So it's hit or miss. Now the quality of the "junk" being auctioned off isn't worth it's weight in scrap. Also, if you default on ANY auction event after providing a justified reason such as medical emergency, family death, etc, you will be banned from placing bids FOR LIFE... it is very difficult to have it removed so really it's not worth the hassle and headache for the support staff to actually think for themselves and help you. You can find better quality stuff on ebay. Even the motor pool. Don't waste your time. I find this business to be nothing but used car salesmen mentality selling outdated garbage that would cost you more to fix than buying new. It's insulting to human intelligence. And it also gives local and state governments tax breaks and more money to spend poorly. Don't fall for the scam.

When the top bidder didn't pay, they simply made me the top bidder at my highest reserve price (Not the point where I outbid the person below me). Then I read their reviews and realized this sounds a lot more like shill bidding. It's their software, so if they want to see where top reserve bids are, it's a license to print money (simply run bids up to your max). I tried to talk with them, but they refused and said they could communicate online only and that provided no resolution.

They think their S__t does not stink. Don't dare question them or you will be put in cyber jail for life. You can get your account deactivated but not deleted when you offend them. That means you have no idea if they retain your credit card information. A person could cheat on a spouse, and it would be easier to repair that relationship than fixing one with surplus sales. SS thinks they have a lock on all public owned property that goes up for auction. They may be correct on that as most gov surplus sales programs have their heads up their A__.

I bid on an auction for my employer. My account listed my employer but was technically in my name, so PublicSurplus required that I use my personal credit card to pay instead of being able to use my employers business card. If they're going to require you to pay with a card in the name given, they should mention it when registering and offer an option to have a business account.

I bid, I won, they reset auction over, I bid I won, they reset auction over, how crooked is that, so they can increase bids, mean while holding bid deposit. I'd never use this site, then they'll say it's the sellers option to reset it over and over. Who wants bid, win, and then don't because it's reset 3 times. Alone if item is actually what you bid on, when you pick it up. Public surplus, City of Caro, very deceiving practices.

I have had several negative transactions through Public Service Auctions. There is very poor communication between the company and the sellers. Most of the items sell for more money than they are worth

They are an aweful fraud and they horribly discriminate.
No policies or customer support to protect buyers.

Forget contacting any of these auction posters, you might get a 3 word reply that never addressed your question IF you get a reply at all or they just completely never reply which is 99.9% of the time. But what should we expect from a bunch of LAZY Government agencies and employee's. Most items don't come close to matching their description and most of it is pure recycle junk. Pay attention to the fine print or you'll get burned and NEVER buy any Automobiles without previewing them first! You'll be sorry if you buy without seeing it first.

They do not publish terms on the auction! Before bidding read the fine print buried many layers deep. Everything is not listed clearly such as payment terms. Beware they will require wire transfers so the will ad another +30 to your final auction purchase. If you call for help they will not answer the phone. After many tries, you will get someone that you cannot understand and all they tell you is there is nothing you can do. Very frustrating.

As you can see from the huge volume of 1 star reviews public surplus is really problematic! They allow small town governments and school districts to post items which are often not even remotely close to the descriptions they provide & then allow these crooked little governments to hide behind pages & pages of legalese absolving them from any responsibility for their lies. Prior to purchase, I specifically asked if certain hard to find components were present in a lot I just purchased, they promised that they were & when I went to pick up the gear those very same components were missing in half of the items! If you cannot inspect the items that you are buying absolutely, positively, do not purchase ANYTHING through public surplus! & even if you can inspect the items it's highly likely the stuff will be different when you go to pick it up then it was when you inspected it!

I tried to buy a police auction vehicle but it was not as described. But when I got there the vehicle was a piece of junk. Remember they are no guarantees and they will unload their junk onto you.

One must understand that buying salvage products that there is risk involved. What may be junk to one man may be reusable equipment to another. Descriptions given are usually given by untrained people doing the best they can. They are not auctioneers. They are folks doing their jobs. With that in mind, be specific. Ask questions about what you are buying. I've always gotten straight answers. I've used this websight many times and have not one time been disappointed when We unloaded the delivery truck.

After going through and reading 10 or so negative reviews, I had to chime in. The website's customer service may be lacking, I don't know however because I have never needed the service department. And I have purchased about 20-30 auctions lots from the site and have always had a very good outcome. Usually the stuff I've gotten was far beyond the scope of what i was expecting. I try to buy stuff from universities. Their stuff is golden and I've made a small fortune.
I was a small business owner and almost anything i needed, Generators, vacuums, steam cleaners, buffers, compressors... I found almost all of it on this site for pennies on the dollar. I picked up those auctions I won from the listing agencies themselves. From local colleges and police stations to government buildings. The site is not a scam. It's legit. It's not eBay and they don't ship. I think everyone is so used to amazon and eBay that they expect the same level of service. But if you're willing to go the extra mile, literally, to pick the stuff up, in my opinion, it's hard to lose.
I bought a dodge ram 1500 for under a grand. I used that as my lead fleet vehicle and drove that for 8 years then sold it for 3800. 00. I bought Minuteman vacuum that i had been looking for for $15.00... And the retail of the vac that i needed had i found it elsewhere? $972.00! I still have that vac and use it almost daily. I have story after story with the same happy ending. Don't listen to the whiners giving 1 star reviews because some clever bidder waited 6 minutes prior to the close of the sale and got what they wanted... That's the game. It's an Auction after all. I honestly thing some of those reviews are other bidders trying to keep people from joining the site and bidding up the auctions they are watching. Just a thought.
Jesse Thomas
Owner at Attention-2-Detail

Something as simple as updating billing information seems to be beyond the chat persons skills I spent 30 minutes tiring to update information and still no use. TERRIBLE customer support!

All the counties are switching to using public surplus to buy over the counter parcels that do not sell. This limiting the type and amount of people that can participate. I went to gila county and tried to buy a property otc and was refused because they are doing an online auction next year. The schools in our small town have less money because the county subcontracted the work to a private business. This is plain wrong. Many people of my county do not have high speed internet and to make a community have less chance to buy in their own communities. It makes no sense to put a private business in between the tax payers and the federal government. This is a loop hole for employees and auctioneers to control the price of the properties and allow more people to bid even government employees.

Bid on an item & had troubles arranging shipment due to covid. Tried contact the seller for 1 week with no luck. Reached out to Public Surplus who promptly blocked my account. Said to reach out in 4 months for account reinstatement.
Waited 4 months & was told to reach back out in another 4 months. Public Surplus can go to hell! Hope they go bankrupt.

I've bought about 5 items on the website. All were said to be of "unknown" condition but when I brought them home, they all worked fine. Just needed to reinstall operating system. The buyer needs to understand that they are buying surplus equipment. So the equipment may or may not work. You should be able fix it if you bid on it. I love this site and would recommend to others. Best deals on used equipment. May need some fixing. But you can't really buy an 27 inch iMac for $400 anywhere else!

When winning an auction u have 5 business days. Business means monday through friday. If any of those days are a saturday and sunday the count does not include those days. They have been demanding payment 2 days into the auction threatning to disable your account if not paid at the end of the second day. Maybe this is why not alot of gov entities are not posting with them.

I will keep this short and sweet.
1. Created account
2. Placed My Deposit
3. Placed My Proxy
4. Won
Nightmare begins. I tried to pay with same credit card. Notice popped up that there was a problem. Tried to contact. Only a chat. Went round and round. 5 day default getting closer and closer. My card was frozen to the point of having to send in my drivers license and take restriction off my card. Credit card company suggested I have a whole new card issued. Deposit showed pending on my online card statement. So my card was good enough for hold but not for payoff. Hmm.? Finally started getting some response for these crooks after I cut and paste negative reviews. Then they told me if I defaulted I would not only loose my deposit but be charged added penalties. Don't think so. Then they suggested I try another card or wire cash. Ah! Nope. Then I asked to deactivate account. I was told not till I default on my purchase I'm trying to pay for. What? Then they wanted all kinds of added info on me to deactivate my account. Contacted seller and was told this is what this company does. Nice! Wrong! Get the picture. Don't ever use this company. SCAM SCAM SCAM