Shill bidding on Bring A Trailer?

No sale results are much different from asking price private sale ads. No sale results mean someone publically bid the price up to a value, which was below the stated reserve (asking price), but nonetheless denotes the knowledge of a binding offer. It's not tyre kicking, therefore it can be used as a market indicator for a particular car in a particular condition. That's the whole point with auctions, to determine a public selling price for a good. There have to be statistical indicators for market value, and the most "reliable" ones come from auctions, although the entire discussion here is to say that in practice shill/chandelier bidding artificially inflates these values.

 

I'm sorry but I have to speak up and say something, this is not good advice.

No bids can ever be taken seriously if the car did not sell, prob 90% of them are fake or shill bids that owners have their buddies bid up their cars so they can say, the last auction it brought $300k but I turned it down when in reality the last real money bid was much lower.

Don't use nonsale bids as market prices or you will get burned 90% of the time, only go by actual sale results and the market is changing fast right now, it took longer than most thought.

 

Would you please care to explain how exactly can one verity any bid, especially those resulting to no sale at any given auction, either physical or virtual venue, is actually made by legit/real bidder and not some kind of shill or chandelier ?

As in “market indicator”(?) for one car in its current condition at the time of the sale, nothing more, nothing less, right ?

I see and here I’ve always thought, apparently mistakenly, the main point of auction houses being that they’re in the business of selling anything & everything for highest possible price, especially when their income revenue is mainly generated by (percentage) commissions of those sales.
I never knew or realized they’re expected to establish and maintain public values for goods.

 

You're right! That's why in my first post I said it's going to happen anyway! In theory it should work as I said, but in practice it doesn't - and there is no way to verify this. So there is no escaping shill bidding, and no-sale results become unreliable. *Theoretically* it shouldn't work this way, but it does.

 

There is so much corruption going on with shill / fake bidders and has been for a very long time.

(sorry I missed your first post)

 

I think I covered a few point here in my answer to Chip, but I also want to say that I am not talking about Auction Houses, which are definitely part of the problem for the reasons you stated. I was talking about auctions themselves as a way to sell something transparently and publically. Think public auctions, if that helps, like those for seized goods.

We're in agreement, I'm just trying to lay out the theory behind auctions vs private sales & their differences.

 

I don’t “hate” either (or anything for that matter), just acknowledging reality.
Besides, I have to work too hard for my money to approach or consider buying or selling anything, including vintage cars, whether through auctions or privately, as a “game“ or entertainment.

 

I think some of those big first bids are done to depress the number of bidders. Were I auctioning a car, and employing a shill bid strategy, I would not employ outsized initial bids. I would want to increase participation, and then use competitive forces to drive further engagement.

 

Seem like lots of pump it up comments from the peanut gallery too on BaT, avoiding real issues that are obvious in the photos.

 

"great buy... great investment.. will be million dollar cars... sure to double in the next 5 years"

i've got copyright apps out on all the above

 

The good thing about BaT is that the commission commensurate with your bid is charged and held by credit card until the end of the auction. Bidders have to have some skin in the game. What I dislike is the number of worthless comments by blowhards with 2000 posts who have never bid on anything.

 

Its a cult. Or a bunch of bots.

 

A cult of bots more like it...

BaT was fun to browse early on when they posted external links of unique cars for sale. Once they started the auctions and the external car postings were buried far down (maybe entirely gone now?) it went downhill quickly. I don't bother checking that site anymore...

 

Oh so much +1

 

Its an auction.

Auction houses put it right in the terms and agreements that they WILL bid the car up to or close to reserve. They reserve the right to bid on the car themselves as well.

Bring a trailer has had its moment in the spot light and all the rookies think its some new way of buying and selling something... its not. Its an ebay auction with a peanut gallery... Which is all a live auction is as well.

Bring a trailer is not all the great.

As far as paying the 5%... I am in the car business... its worth it to spend that 5% if you do a no reserve say on a 50k dollar car. I can easily spend 1500 bucks advertising a car. So another grand for a possible home run on BAT... its worth it alot of the time.

Bring a Trailer does nothing to help collect on the sale. Plenty of auctions are won and don't ever get paid for... Lots of new people to the platform keep it afloat for now

 

People saying that high bids are shill bids are simply clueless..the proper way to actually win and auction and discourage others from bidding is to go in strong with a high bid thats close to the cars proper value...bidding on a 458 $50,000...$100,000 obviously won't be near its true value, but if you go in first bid lets say $130-$140 you may discourage others from getting emotionally involved in the bidding thus possibly eliminating competition...Thats how it works and thats how people who know what they are doing bid!

 

Huh? So you believe that there will always be shill bidding at David Gooding/RM Sothebys/Bonhams Auctions?

 

Yes, shill or chandelier bidding.

Just what I think. No proof, other than some time working in the art world...

 

Now that is an industry with very little transparency.

 

Exactly. I tried to say the same thing, but you did much better. Big, huge, on the money, early bids are definitely not shills.

 

Except imo when the bid comes from someone with 0 history and never bid after. I can find u quite a few examples on BAT. Happens everywhere


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Nice thing about BaT is you can see the profile and bid history of whoever is bidding.

Some of them, IMO, are clearly shill bidders.

 

Yes and no. I have watched 100 auctions on BAT and have yet to place a single bid. Eventually I will find a car I want. When I do, I will place a large first bid, and I will end with the car. I haven’t made any comments either. Not hard for me to believe that there are others like me. Guys that can buy cars and do buy cars, but just haven’t pulled the trigger on BAT yet.

 

I'm still waiting for the right Alfa GTV to show up on BAT to get me motivated enough to register.

 

On the contrary, while obviously not the case in every auction or offered lot, the auctioneers ability and at times practice to provide(?) chandelier/shill/bogus/fake bids below (usually unknown) reserve is an attempt to "encourage" bidding and/or to see if any (real) bidders might have serious interest within reasonably close to "reserve" that potentially can be used as starting point for post-block sale negotiations.

While I'm not very interested nor heavily invested in the "markets" of collectible/specialty/vintage cars, I have attended or observed auctions specializing in them for past 4 decades and on more than few occasions noticed lots with pre-sale estimate or presumed reserve/value being at, let's say 120K, getting bid up to, let's say 100K with seemingly no real bids whatsoever or last apparent real one perhaps at, let's say 42K, I've become more than skeptical of some of their practices and reported results.

Heck, I can still recall attending one of the AZ auctions, maybe 15+ years ago when a collection of 8-10 similar (i.e same makes/models but consecutive years) vintage cars were being hammered off one after another and while all received bids seemingly close to their perceived "market value" and were called as "sold", only to find out couple of months later that the consignor (a private collector) still had all for sale and each were offered at asking prices far below those supposed “sold at...” indicated by the auctioneer couple of months earlier.