Proxibid

It's important to know that proxibid doesn't actually sell anything. Proxibid is simply a platform for auctions and payment processing. It's the individual auctioneers who sell and describe items, set the shipping prices, and set the buyer's premium.

I buy and sell antiques, so auctions are a big part of my life. I like live auctions, but I also like online timed auctions, too. As a platform, proxibid is great. It's easy to search for specific items, specific auctioneers, regions, dates, etc. It's also easy to watch specific items.

What I don't like about proxibid is their auctioneer's policy. Auctioneers are allowed to charge whatever they want for a buyer's premium and the standard has now become 20%-25% which is just absurd.

That's bad, but that's not the worst thing about proxibid. The worst thing is auctioneers are allowed to run up your bids. So long as the auctioneer discloses it in the terms and conditions, the seller is allowed to anonymously bid on anything. Because names of bidders are anonymized, this comes very close to being considered "shill bidding" which is illegal.

Proxibid takes 10% from the seller's end, so the higher the hammer price, the more money the site makes. For that reason, proxibid has no incentive to change anything.

I still use proxibid because it's easy and convenient, but I only participate in auctions within my locale and ones with a low buyer's premium. There's no way to know if it's an auctioneers running you up or it's just a popular auction, so I only visit the auctions I know are reputable.

Quoted from Proxibid's User Agreement:
"Buyer expressly acknowledges that Proxibid owes no duty to Buyer to obtain the lowest possible price on behalf of the Buyer and Buyer may be able to enter a successful bid at a lower price if Buyer were to actively participate in the event.
3.5 Disclosure of Maximum Pre-bids to Seller. Buyer acknowledges and agrees that a Seller may have access to and knowledge of Buyer's maximum pre-bid and may determine the starting bid based in whole or in part on the amount of the
Buyer's maximum pre-bid; as long as the Buyer will be provided notice that such access to maximum pre-bids has been enabled by the Seller prior to Buyer's submission of the maximum pre-bid.
3.6 Due Diligence. Proxibid is not responsible for any errors or omissions in titles, descriptions, images or videos of items provided on this website or in Proxibid's bidding application. Buyers are solely responsible for verifying the condition and
Description of any items when considering placing bids or making purchases on this website.

I purchased a few items from an auction from Las Vegas Liquidations on ProxyBid.com. After winning the auctions I get a call from Las Vegas Liquidations with an outrageous price for shipping for these items. I buy items on other auction sites, and have for a long time, so I know how much shipping should be. They quoted me $65 to ship about 13 lbs. in items when it should have been $24 through UPS. After attempting to discuss this with the owner, Frank Odeh, he just hung up on me. Next thing I know he reports me to ProxyBid and my account gets a black flag. I called ProxyBid and they basically told me there's nothing I can do and I am done bidding on their site. I can't file a complaint against the seller, I can't do anything but pay that shipping amount to get my account back - there's nothing I can do.

With other sites out there that are reputable ProxyBid just isn't worth the headache. Also, when you go to ProxyBid.com on Google Chrome you get an alert from Google telling you the site isn't safe. Beware putting your credit card info on a site like that!

Easton Auction is a sham!

I recently bid on and won a silver panda bullion coin, 1 troy oz. When I received it in the mail I knew the moment I held it that i had been sold a fake. It was so light anyone who deals with coins regularly would also know it was a fake. When I called this auction company to let them know about selling me a counterfeit coin, I was pretty much told to pound sand. Any reputable auctioneer would have immediately apologized, been remorseful and offer to refund me my money. Not these scammers. There excuse was they didn't weigh it, blah, blah, blah. Very lame excuses for being in a business whose job it is to know value of items.
I've reported them to Proxibid and will also be notifying the federal authorities, as it is a crime to pass counterfeit coins from any where in the world.
Beware folks, if they will so blatantly try to sell counterfeit coins what other lowball tactics are they committing.
Along with their 17% buying premium I was charged an $8.00 handling fee to ship 1 coin and of course shipping costs. A 40.00 bid eventually cost me 61.00 plus for a counterfeit coin. They don't get any lower than this folks. Are these guys slimy or what?
Yikes - did a more thorough search on Easton auction. There are lots of complaints for them selling counterfeit coins. This is a very shady company. Hope the feds bring them down.
Another Yikes - They are rated F, the worst rating by the Better Business Bureau.

More yikes, further google search shows they are probably fradulent with baseball cards also.
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It turns out this company is trying to do an auction site using auto auction management tactics. It doesn't work. It is not computer user friendly!

It is like trying to work with several companies at the same time and each company doesn't know what the other is doing. One company tells you one thing and that is not the way it actually works in their own company let alone the others.

You have a company that listed the item, usually a internet listing company, Then Proxibid which doesn't do much, many items I bid on did not have an adequate description or info.

Then you have to arrange payment that has to go through the listing service, not the auction company.

I won an auction item for $155. By the time the listing service and auction sites had added their fees, it was $197! And I had not paid for shipping yet. At this point I can only guess what the total could be. Say $222. That is almost the cost of the item!

Although you are supposed to be able to see the estimated shipping cost before hand, I was not able to do so. Even after paying for the item I wasn't able to see shipping charges!

Each time in the process I had to call Proxibid or the listing service! It is not user friendly and a real pain to deal with.

Many times they had so much junk in their agreement, the new legaleze and verbiage terms were obnoxious, you just through up you arms in disgust!

What is really weird, you never know the actual person or company that own and is selling the item!

I will never use this site again!

Auction house claimed car was "solid body" and "good floors" and only posted glamour shots and day of auction the pictures went dead and then after auction the auction house posted new photos. When I went to pick the car up the floors were gone and the new photos showed it. Two vehicles purchased form this auction house and both less than what was listed. Rust was so bad on one "restorable" vehicle I had to sell it for parts and now this one needs an additional $2700 to get it even close to what they made claim to. Tried suing them in local court, but now have to go to state of where sale was to sue them there. They are so bad they showed up to court, but did not want it tried due to technicality of jurisdiction. What a coward! Auction House is Vanderbrink she lied to me and after I showed her proof, she said "I can't remember that it was almost 2 years ago" try 13 months and it was in her writing! Stay Clear of her auctions as she even states in her advertisement she is out for the seller. Her email is ": salvageprincess" What a piece of work.

Proxibid has done nothing to assist and their escalation department is a guy by the name of Stephen, who never responds to emails, phone calls or letters. So don't think you will ever get support if one of their scam auction houses screws you.