Auction.com

I bought a house at auction.com but was fortunate enough to have seen it prior to the auction listing when a local realtor had it. Title insurance is not offered on most of the current auction properties possibly due to my experience! Make sure you have it! I DID! Thank goodness. It will cost you prior to winning the bid provided you can get an insurance company to cover the property. The title search costs & you don't get it back!

Because I had title insurance it cost THEM over $******* to get me a clear title (almost as much as I paid for the house) and had I not noticed the foreclosure notice in the local paper thru a local bank attorney, my property would have been auctioned on the courthouse steps to some unsuspecting person. It took me over 9 months to get it straight. I had moved in and sunk over $150,000 into the house over the cost (auction). Mine turned out OK but not before suffering thru months of living in limbo due to stopping improvements to the house, many sleepless nights, legal expenses, anxiety attacks...

No one has ever told me if I would be able to recoup the additional money I spent on improvements from the Title Insurance Company had this backfired. I suspect not!

Auction.Com a scam? Possible Non Transparent? Definitely. I have had numerous purchases with them some successful, some a total failure.
Decided we would try to bid on one of their short sales two weeks ago. After being the winning bid, customer services called me to start the contract. That is when I was informed that there would be a $125 non refundable administration fee for the escrow company that would hold my 5% deposit while the offer was submitted to the bank. Once I received the contract it was also stated that if the deposit was returned there would be a $25 wire or overnight fee. Now you are stuck with accepting their contract or forfeiting your $2500 deposit.
Well the bank did not accept the winning bid, so we are out of pocket $125 admin fee, $30 wire fee from my bank (your choice is to overnight a cashier check or send your deposit by wire), $25 wire fee for my returned deposit and $15 wire fee from my bank for receiving the wire, total $195.
People keep complaining about them, send letters to your local realtors association, and the department of real estate and even the district attorney. With enough complaints someone will eventually listen. There was a bill brought to the California Senate by the California Association of Realtors requiring that their contract be changed that they need to assume liability of the sale, not only the seller. They fought it and lost. As a CA Realtor what they are doing is skirting the laws and if there are enough complaints the laws will change.

I sat and watched them counterbid themselves 3 times in a row in order to drive up the price on 2 different houses. THAT is just a dishonest practice.

This site is "ALMOST" a scam. I say almost b/c you can buy something from it and they are honest about the property (usually, about as accurate as eBay and Amazon) and you know the price. You won't be happy with this website or product, trust me. If you are on this website with high hopes to buy a cheap, good, property then you are fantasizing. Here is how it works:

You buy some bids (very expensive):
Find a great property and place your first bid. (say 1,000)
You get extremely lucky and no one else notices (this is best case scenario)
Bank selling the property notices and the computer automatically starts bidding.
You, thinking this is someone else tries to outbid it. (You can but the computer won't stop until the bank is satisfied with the price that they want to sell, since they are controlling the computer bidding against you).
So in the end if you try to outbid it you will not pay 1,000 dollars for a 150,000 property but from 100,000 (if the bank has failed several times to sell this house before and want to get rid of it) to 180,000 (if it is the first time trying to sell this property).

Better of buying with a real estate since he/she charges 10 times less than the bids

I've been trying to bid on a house on this site - it had a starting bid of $20,000. The auction came up on a Friday to end on a Monday. No chance of calling a lawyer/tax advisor/ or anybody for information. Auction.com does not work on Sundays, they don't answer phones, although you can leave a message and your call will be returned "the next business day" - which means Tuesday after the auction ends, the "chat with us now" is only an e-mail that gets sent, no chatting, and no response to e-mail. The whole time I kept looking at the bidding history, there were no bids, at the end of the auction? Highest bid $92,000. So no bid show up, no bidding history, and at the end there were bidders?
I really don't see the "transparency" they say they try to have, when a company is offering something so important as a home, no matter the price, they should answer calls, and e-mails in a timely manner, especially when the auction is over a weekend, and no government agency, is open, so all those warnings to check with your tax advisor/lawyer/etc. Is worthless when there is no time to do so. Unless of course the purpose is to have the buyer get all excited and then default when they check with their lawyer.

I should be leaving a bad review because this way, everyone reading it will stay away and that will leave more chances for me to buy another home. But I believe in a good review for good service. I found a home through another website and the next week it was removed and placed on Auction.com. I was furious and now I had to give a deposit and do my homework on this site. After getting over my fears I bid, and though I was scared of being scammed, my fears were relieved once the process starting really getting underway (about 3 weeks after winning bid) then they used a third party closing company (service link) and about a month and half later I was signing my closing documents. When doing a search only look for Bank owned Properties, this way your dealing with the bank that own the property. Also don't expect to buy a gem. It's going to be a diamond in the ruff, or maybe you have to knock the property down because it's too far gone. But either way bid accordingly and you should be more than satisfied

I won a bid on a property for $104K that was listed 3 bed room 2 bath but the property was 2 bed rooms and 1 bath. After notifying them of this they still would not take my winning bid. Then i offer them $110K and was told by auction.com the bank counter offered for $110.5K but then and hour later i received another call for auction.com stating the bank excepted my offer. After i recieved the contract for the property for $110K for auction. Com they then call and told me that the contract they sent me was a mistake and the new price was $110.5K. Well that was enough for me they are a scam and also have people bidding for them so be aware also any question you have in reference to the property they will not answer and will give you the run a round do not buy from them and make sure you inspect the property first because they list false info about their property

I participated this BS online auction for a house estimated for $230 000. I was the highest bidder with $225 555 when auction officially ended(+ you have to pay additional 5% over the final bid if you win when the "auction" ends). Then after few seconds I received a call from a person that said bank is next to him and how much more can I pay!? So the "AUCTION" started to keep adding minutes and the bank's reserved price was never met till "THE AUCTION" really ended. House was "sold" for $246 555.
After 2 weeks house came back online for sale.
IN TWO WORDS-DONT WASTE YOUR TIME! THE RESERVED PRICE OF THE BANK IS THE MARKET VALUE OF THE PROPERTY.

They are listing property of mine which is NOT up for foreclosure nor for auction. It is owned by my husband and myself. They have the wrong address and refuse to correct it. They have a photograph of my property on their site which has been picked up by Zillow and other home sales sites, so they are now showing my property as if it were for sale. It is not. It's not in foreclosure, it's not up for auction. I have contacted them three times and each time I talk to a different customer service rep who is shocked and dismayed and promises to do something about it. Nothing has happened yet. I would never trust Auction.com with anything, because it's obvious they don't care if they post inaccurate information. The fact that I have contacted them several times to tell they they have inaccurate information has moved from "inaccurate" to "intentionally deceiving the public". I am considering legal action against them. Posting a photo of property which is not up for auction is not only an invasion of my privacy but it will cause a problem for a bidder who thinks they purchased this property, when in fact they haven't. The property is Pole 134 Lakeside Drive, Harvey's Lake Pa. I repeat, this property is NOT for sale, it's NOT in foreclosure, and it is NOT up for auction.

I won the bid on a property in Waynesboro, VA - the company told me they cancelled the purchase because I am an investor - then sold it to another investor - rude customer service rep - BUYER BEWARE!