Liquidation.com Scan seal bid auction , Internet

Here's a warning for everyone, liquidation.com sealed bid auctions are a scam. I just bid on 5 of them. I was the only bidder and when the auction closed on 4 of them I was still the only bidder.  Now if you read their buyer and seller policy there are no reserve auctions. So I looked at the closed auctions and 4 of them said seller had the right to reject bids. Okay, thats a bunch of B.S. but it was on there before I bid. So they basically do have a reserve they just keep it a secret, which by itself constitutes fraud. But one auction did not have that so I emailed them. This is what I got as a response.

Thank you for contacting Liquidation.com,Your bid may be too low and therefore not accepted. Please keep in mind the following terms of a sealed bid:

During a sealed bid sale, each bidder submits an irrevocable bid without knowledge of the bids submitted by other bidders. When the auction closed, all bids are opened simultaneously, and only the highest bid is accepted, ***as long as it meets the conditions of sale established by the seller.*** The winning bidder will be notified immediately thereafter (during normal business hours).

These criteria can be found in the "Summary and Descriptions" tab within the auction, by clicking on the question mark by the Auction Type. Unfortunately, your bids did not meet the conditions established by the seller.

In the future for Sealed Bids, it might be prudent to enter the maximum (or near maximum) amount you are willing to pay for the item(s) within the auction/lot. Since a bid of $100 or thereabouts is generally not enough to satisfy the conditions of sale for auctions that are high-value.

So I went back and checked as they said and under that particular auciton it did not state the seller had a right to refuse bids. I even printed out time stamped screen dumps incase they tried to change the listing or anything.

So, apparently they do not feel the need to honor their own rules, yet will be more than happy to stick you with the 15 percent if you fall out of the contract. I would suggest you not bid on sealed bid auctions as you have no real waying of knowing the true value of the item. And it's a waste of time because apparently they are reserve autions without telling people it is or what the reserve is.

And after looking at a few hundred auctions, I might agree with some of the other reports about shill bidding on certain products. Such as anything made by apple, or xbox 360, or playstation 3. It seems these auctions consistantly get bid up way above what a reasonable person would normally pay for salvage. And it seems this weekend it was the same bidders who managed never to actually win.