Proxibid

UPDATE: I have been speaking with a representative with Proxibid. She said that her company was very sorry about this incident and wanted to make amends. They have offered to refund all of my expenses in this transaction and an sincere apology. They understood my frustration and dissatisfaction. This came from Proxibid, not A & W Surplus. A & W Surplus has yet to do anything about this and I strongly suspect they won't. Crooked is as crooked does. I will continue to do business with Proxibid, but I would advise anyone and everyone not to do business with A & W Surplus and Auctions.

Regarding A & W Surplus and Auction Company: This company is something else. They hold auctions on Proxibid, show a photo of the item you are suppose to be bidding on, but that isn't the item they send you. All three items that I was suppose to received were not what they claimed they were. Instead, you get a broken version, incomplete version, smelly, dirty, dead insects, missing parts, broken parts, and not the items they showed in the auction photographs. Then, when they bill you, they do it in 2 separate billings; one thru Proxibid and the other thru PayPal. They do this so that if you decide to dispute the charge thru PayPal, they
Escalate it to a claim and since the dispute is regarding the quality or since you did receive something from them, PayPal automatically rules in their favor since it was not an Ebay auction. It's a way to circumvent the system to their advantage. I have published a blog that shows the emails sent from them to me and vice versa as well as photos showing what I was suppose to be bidding on and what I received instead. Also, as far as they are concerned, the matter is closed. As far as I'm concerned, this is just the beginning. I am posting this to each and every place I can find and reporting it to each and every agency I can find. A scam is a scam. Here is the link to my first blog and I will continue blogging until hell freezes over:

http://msrozz-complaints.blogspot.com/

I have all emails, invoices, receipts, photos too!

Surprise! I bought a junk non-running car for which I thought was cheap until I got the invoice with sixty-two percent added on for their scumbag ripoff fees.
Then, they claim I bid on a truck, which I did not. They called me and I told them they got the wrong guy. The btch loudly told me that I was blacklisted and hung up on me.
I looked at my email to find an invoice for an extra $7,200 in fees added to that price! What the F?
About half hour later I get a text from my credit card company saying they charged my card $3640 in fees plus another $250 they claim for not buying a truck I never bid on.
The credit card they charged wasn't even on my proxibid account!
I called my card company immediately and filed fraud charges. They closed my account and now all my automatic bill payments not getting paid and it's a total nightmare.
I noticed the same truck listed the following week and the shill bidder seller had the exact same high bid amount as before. I thought shill bidding was illegal.
NEVER EVER USE THESE CROOKED PEOPLE! NEVER USE SIERRA AUCTION! THE WHOLE
OPERATION IS A TOTAL SCAM!
Plus everything they sell is defective in some way and they rarely disclose any of it.
You will hate yourself for getting ripped off by this huge scam.
AVOID THEM IF AT ALL POSSIBLE!

Great deals at pennies on the dollar need I say more. Guess I do need to say more you can find alot of stuff you need really cheap.

I've used Proxibid for a couple years now. They have a large number of auction house throughout the US and Canada. Proxibid is simply provides a service to bidders by listing a large number of online auction houses. They get their money from the sales of the auction items - therefore, Proxibid's loyalty is not to prospective bidders but to the auction houses. They don't seem to vet auction houses for honesty and don't seem to advocate in the interest of the bidder. You can, and I have had problems with disreputable auction houses on their site. However, I have had good experiences as well. Proxibid is similar to the old school phonebook - they really don't guarantee or warrantee the quality or honesty of the house and don't seem to regulate this either. I have placed significant bids (without reserve) at a Proxibid auction company online auction, only to have the item pulled. When I complained - there is a button to do so - there was acknowledgement of my complaint but nothing happened, no response after the initial auto-generated acknowledgement. I have had some of the companies misrepresent items but this is a bit what happens with auctions because its buyer beware. One must work with an auction house with a few transactions, if they are satisfactory, then you may limit your interaction to those. Some auction companies have little or no scrupples, others are great. Given this context, Proxibit does a good job of listing companies but could be much more active it making sure the companies they list follow a basic code of conduct and that their bidder clientele have an advocate with the listers. I have begun looking for other similar services that are more customer service (bidder) oriented. I will use Proxibid for those companies I trust and will be suspect for any others. Hope this helps.

Have spent thousands on this site across probably 10 different auction companies. There are some major problems that Proxibid knows about and even encourages. I don't know the exact fee structure but obviously Proxibid is getting a percentage otherwise they would remove the scammers.
First of all the auction companies set their own terms, meaning they decide their premium, shipping and handling costs, how long they have to ship items, return policies etc...
There are a select few auction companies on there which mostly give accurate listings and don't overcharge for shipping and handling but they are few and far between. Just like Proxibid, the auction houses don't own the things they sell but they get a percentage of the sales which incentivizes them to get as much money as they can.
So in all auctions there's an incentive to hide flaws, but in this situation unlike Ebay Proxibid does everything they can to protect dishonest sellers.

The most common tactic the auction houses use is shill bidding. They use a house bidder to bid items up to people's max bids. Proxibid allows this as long as the auction house makes a disclosure in their terms of service.

Also they exaggerate things quality and value, to the point of fraud in the listings, they don't disclose mechanical problems on vehicles. They sell coins and collectibles which are listed at a much higher grade than they actually are. I've personally reported the worst sellers to Proxibid and they said if I don't like it don't bid in the auctions.

Proxibid protects the sellers, by telling you to work it out with the seller when 9 out of 10 times the seller knows about it and will just say all sales are final. They don't make feedback comments public and they let the sellers inflate their feedback by buying their own stuff. You'll notice most scam companies have thousands of 4-5 star feedback. They don't make the comments public so people who are mentioning the scam don't ruin it.

To be honest statistically, if you buy on the site more than a couple times you will get scammed. They can make a lot more money this way so even the auction companies that start out legit usually start scamming as well. I went back to Ebay to source my items. At least they have buyer protection policies there.