More reason to not trust online auctions...

A few days ago RL Liquidators had an auction running for a location in northern California. It looked like the same name was high bidder on all if not most of the units. The last hour several people could not get into the site at all to bid. One person I know of, called them and raised holy he** with them, calling them scams, cheats etc. lol...All they kept telling her was they had system problems and it was out of their control. She accused them of having their acquaintances bidding and messing with the site themselves. (or something like that). She told them that IF there had been system problems, why didn't they auction them again. No comment from them. She had them on the phone for quite some time. This is just one of a few things that are odd about this companies auctions. A few months ago there was a unit that looked like it might be worth 700.00 at it's highest and was at that price. We watched the last few bids rolling along and then all of a sudden 2 people shot it up to over 5000.00!!! No way it was worth that from what we could see from their pictures and videos but there you go. I wonder if there's a way to turn them in for investigation...hmmm..."something to ponder"...as my dad would say. ;-)

What, the future of storage auctions had a glitch ? !

I'm sure other companies  which will be offering this type of service will be glitch free though the ability to stop the prices from going off the scale can't be stopped. That's quite a jump from something you valued at $700 to go for $5K plus....I suspect those buyers will get a real surprise when they come to unload the locker.

Yea, that's IF they were legit but it does take 2 to make it get so high and it makes me wonder if their "system" can see how high the proxy bid is set to. Like I said, I don't trust online auctions like that since the prices are over the moon on them anyway. But this was ridiculous. That's one thing that scares me about facilities that take credit cards, you can get yourself into big trouble that way if you're not careful.

If this was a week or two ago the "system problems" may have been legit.  There was some serious denial of service attacks going on between a group of hackers, and a so called "security" company.  Most of it was targeted in Europe but one of the companies HQ is California.

IMO - I don't like internet auctions for storage units, etc.  I will "preview" an auction if they post stuff on the internet but I always go in person to see/bid.  Other then some equipment auctions that do it live w/ internet bidders also we dont' have this in my area....yet.

Well, this post is quite the coincidence. Someone from RL Storage Auctions created an account on VirtualStorageAuction.com this morning at 9:00 AM. Apparently they're checking out the competition. I bet VSA is really going to piss off it's competitors. Here they are charging 10, 13, even 20% to storage facilities and here comes the new guy giving out the same service for free. 

As to the original post, anytime there is money involved there is a possibility for corruption. One of the best things about VirtualStorageAuction.com is there is no incentive for dishonesty because the site is completely free. It makes no difference to me whether a unit sells for $5 or $5k. Obviously though, I want buyers and sellers to get a fair deal.

The 5K bids on the RL site are a red flag. One way a buyer could potentially manipulate the auction would be to set up 2 fake accounts, then place a low bid using a legitimate account. Then use the 2 fake accounts to run the price up to a ridiculous number where nobody in their right mind would even bid. After the auction closes and the fake bidder doesn't make payment, the storage facility will then contact the runner up bidder. Since the runner up is also a fake account, no payment will be made. Once they contact the 3rd runner up (the legitimate account) the scammer pays for the unit which he gets at a very low price.   

One way a buyer could potentially manipulate the auction would be to set up 2 fake accounts, then place a low bid using a legitimate account. Then use the 2 fake accounts to run the price up to a ridiculous number where nobody in their right mind would even bid.

After the auction closes and the fake bidder doesn't make payment, the storage facility will then contact the runner up bidder. Since the runner up is also a fake account, no payment will be made. Once they contact the 3rd runner up (the legitimate account) the scammer pays for the unit which he gets at a very low price.

Thanks for the tip !

Thanks for the tip !

No problem. Now maybe you can stop picking and start buying storage units again. 

I know you're just kidding as am I.

One way a buyer could potentially manipulate the auction would be to set up 2 fake accounts, then place a low bid using a legitimate account. Then use the 2 fake accounts to run the price up to a ridiculous number where nobody in their right mind would even bid. After the auction closes and the fake bidder doesn't make payment, the storage facility will then contact the runner up bidder. Since the runner up is also a fake account, no payment will be made. Once they contact the 3rd runner up (the legitimate account) the scammer pays for the unit which he gets at a very low price.

On the flip side, the selling facility can use this same technique to help run the price up. They can use the fake accounts to start a bidding war then not pay so that it falls back to the 3rd in line and highest legitimate bidder.

On the flip side, the selling facility can use this same technique to help run the price up. They can use the fake accounts to start a bidding war then not pay so that it falls back to the 3rd in line and highest legitimate bidder.

Yes, but if they run it up too high, they may not get a legitimate bid. That brings up another good point about VirtualStorageAuction.com. Since sellers can set the opening bid at any amount, they're less likely to try to manipulate bids.

Well, this post is quite the coincidence. Someone from RL Storage Auctions created an account on VirtualStorageAuction.com this morning at 9:00 AM.
The 5K bids on the RL site are a red flag. One way a buyer could potentially manipulate the auction would be to set up 2 fake accounts, then place a low bid using a legitimate account. Then use the 2 fake accounts to run the price up to a ridiculous number where nobody in their right mind would even bid. After the auction closes and the fake bidder doesn't make payment, the storage facility will then contact the runner up bidder. Since the runner up is also a fake account, no payment will be made. Once they contact the 3rd runner up (the legitimate account) the scammer pays for the unit which he gets at a very low price.

Now this is interesting to me as far as the 3rd bidder. I wondered about that before and now it would make a little more sense to me why it would go so high. Amazing how the evil minds of man (and woman) can run.