Questionable Practices at Bring A Trailer ( BAT )
 

I think it's time for a thread about this website.
I just came across some shady withholding of information about a vehicle. It's not a Porsche but a good example of how the owners of BAT may be taking part in withholding information.

I had a 70 Bronco Sport and am still a fan. Shocked at the popularity of them now.
I was looking at one and noticed the rusty windshield hinge in the main photo. Fairly normal area; I had to fix mine 20+ years ago.
There were no questions about it, plenty of pointless comments, so I asked for a better picture.
Before the owner could respond BAT posts up two more pictures of the area that they already had but neglected to include.
That's some B.S. right there.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1974-ford-bronco-17/

I hear you but I don't know why it would be worth their time/effort/reputation to withhold that information. What is your theory? The pictures will not let it hit reserve?

That’s why it should be referred to as Bring a TrainWreck now. There are some seriously shady biz practices going on. My posts were totally erased from an auction, and I was blocked from posting on it from there on out due to a heated back and forth with a shady seller that I was calling out for some of their lies. I’d never buy a car on that website, I think their reputation is taking a real beating of late.

Shocking.

The seller likely saw your reply and added them to the gallery. When you have an auction, you have a permanent "upload" link from BaT to add any additional photos.

So if you, the seller, upload pictures later a post from bringatrailer shows up that pictures were added?
It sure looks like BAT responded and added the pictures, but thanks for the clarification.

Nov 19 at 9:27 AM
Broncofan74 (The Seller) 8
I will take some photos of the vent boxes tonight and have them uploaded.

Nov 19 at 9:25 AM
bringatrailer
Additional photographs of the windshield frame have been uploaded to the gallery.

Did someone say Bronco ?


https://tribzap2it.files.wordpress.c...onco-chase.jpg

Correct. Your auction has a staff member assigned to it who cursorily reviews your submission then they inform the chat that additional photographs were added.

They completely, utterly, and on-purpose withhold it - until it becomes relevant to the auction, and then it's conveniently added when it becomes so obvious that it would damage them more not to do so.

They do it all the time. I remember they did it probably a year and a half ago on two BMW Z3 Ms - with the rear body mounting. People call it the "subframe" but it's not a subframe. It's the unibody that tears under the trunk where the rear end attaches. One of them actually was cracked. That's when I really got a bad taste in my mouth.

It's a joke show that I am no longer apart of.

I have sold a number of cars on BaT and it's been a good experience. I recently submitted 4 cars for consideration. Although not 911's they were all interesting cars. They rejected several of them for the life of me I don't understand why. Looking at some of the real clunkers or very ordinary cars that get listed, I am a little miffed.

Congratz to the guys who started and built the business. Maybe it's time to sell it to someone who can run it like a business instead of a hobby.

Great catch.

Looks to me like the seller read your request and already had some more photos of just the frame then just sent them in and BAT posted them. He didn't have pictures of the vent boxes and said he would take some and send them in tonight. Not sure where that problem is.

Two separate actions. You asked for frame photos which the seller had and sent in right away. You asked for vent box photos which the seller didn't have and said he would take tonight.

No, that isn’t how it works. BaT doesn’t withhold or edit photographs and they certainly don’t conspire with the sellers to withhold information.

If anything, if they smell dodgy photography or details they will will ask clarification before or during the auction process to enhance transparency.

Oh look, a live BAT test !

More please.

More ...

let's see how many more before you get the boot.

I've had good experience and annoying experiences with BAT. Both of the cars sold but the back and fourth as to the value of my cars was bulls**t. They tried to make an argument using old data, fortunately I was able to back up my value and the second car sold well above my ask. It seems to be a hit or miss but are no worse then ebay or any of the big auction houses, heck even wholesale car auctions can be worse. Proceed with caution (as you always should) but I would not completely write them off.

Can be worse? I was convinced that wholesale auctions were the absolute worst of the worst, the ****tiest cars with the least information, the sketchiest characters and the most rampant adverse selection. Is that not the case?

That was my perception as well.

No you are right..that is the case:D

Again.

I have never sold on BAT, the response from BAT that photos were uploaded shortly after my question seemed odd.
It appeared that BAT had them.

But MrBonus advised me that the owner uploads the pictures and BAT posts the reply.

My mistake.

Ultimately the seller was setting on the pictures and withholding an obvious issue until someone asked. He had the pictures all along.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This BaT topic is older then the hills.
This has been discussed many time.

Buyer Beware applies to BaT, the system is not in the buyers favor, first most bidders never actually see the car live in person....BIG MISTAKE

Never buy any car on the internet based on pictures and comments from people you do not know..for Pete’s Sake.

BaT intentionality withholds information that in anyway hurts selling the car for their profit. Is this wrong? no, they control the sale, END OF STORY.

Lastly most comments or posts are screened so never to hurt the sale, everyone knows this..

Yup.

I was under the impression that the fees BaT collects are capped to $5,000 and the posting fee.... correct? How is that $5,000 calculated?

5% of hammer price up to a max of $5k

im simply thrilled deez is getting another early bronco.... this is why we are here, right?

How do you know they withhold information?

During the process of submitting an auction, they stress being up front about any and all issues and in my experience, they posted every single problem with my truck in the description that I disclosed.

I'm not trying to be Captain Save-a-BaT here, there are plenty of issues/gripes with the process, and a lot of it centers around a perception of the buyers that the cars there are magically vetted before listing but for all the people accusing them of withholding information, I'm curious where you are getting your proof and how many cars have you attempted to sell there?

No... Looking and dreaming. I just wanted to make sure they guy disclosed some needed work.
I've realized owning old cars is like getting a night job that you pay to work at.
Plus it would just set there. I'd pick the 930 99% of the time to take out.

You just need to do the 75 in a dirt worthy form. So many good forest service roads to rip near you.

I think some of the criticisms are valid, but it's pretty silly to believe that BAT is conspiring with sellers to withhold important information from potential buyers. What's the possible motivation for that?

It's far more likely the owners are in over their heads, and are simply scrambling to keep up. I agree that they need to either scale back the volume of listings or invest a lot more money into their operation. I say this having bought a car from BAT and getting a peek inside the sausage factory--and it ain't pretty.

It's a good concept, but could be run so much better...

How do I know they withhold information?

Because I use to comment about things misrepresented in the auction, and guess what? BaT never posted it, my comments was to just inform the buyer of some issues with the car, it was general information, to help the buyer, again Buyer Beware...it’s not setup to help the buyer, it’s a business to make money....Bingo

But, not say it’s ok, because if buyer is happy so be it. But do not be naive to think they do not screen all comments.

Of course they screen comments. If they deem comments unproductive, they will delete them. Furthermore, the community can flag comments as non-constructive.

That said, numerous auctions receive negative comments or criticisms and those comments are allowed.

That is an awesome idea!

Yep, your right...somewhat....you have no knowledge what BaT does or not does...

But again, what’s the beef, it’s a place to sell cars, that’s it, nothing more.....so again the burden is always on the buyer...so do your home work..

Wait a minute. All this time, I thought BAT made buying a used car online (sight unseen) a perfected seamless process with no issues what so ever.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...ys/men_ani.gif

i've contemplated the same many times on the '74...

Its a shame what BAT has turned into. When it first started all the cars they were selling seem to very nice and clean examples. This was when they were selling like 20 cars a week. Whatever this greed volume selling has turned into is nothing more than a bunch of misfit cars people don't want anymore. I would never buy a car on there regardless of how much money I had to blow. Initial concept was great, what it is now? -crap on a stick.

At this point they should just show the financials at a few private equity honchos and ask for carvana multiples or whichever yesterday's new new thing in used car buying and they could get out with a 9 digit paycheck.

And now it sure seems like they actually prefer the questionable cars since they come with a lower price point and thus a lower reserve which means a larger group of bidders which means it’s much more likely to sell which means BaT gets PAID. IT IS ALL BASED ON GREED, nothing more nothing less.

I submitted a turbo cab recently that they wanted nothing to do with while they coincidentally had the biggest turd of turbo cab (in the same year and color combo as mine) live at the very same time. The live one had a low reserve since it was a total POS, while I wanted more for mine since it was in very near concours condition. So there was no way to agree upon a reserve, as I could’ve gotten the reserve they wanted for mine by just selling it locally to a dealer at wholesale. So this whole notion that they “bring” the best examples to market for their members is complete and total bunk. It’s simply not the case. They “bring” the cars to market that are most likely to make them money, which much of the time means intentionally bringing a train wreck to market with a lower reserve while passing on the cream puffs, since those cream puffs cost more and have a much smaller buyer’s pool, which means less likely to sell and make BaT money.

And they do monitor posts and scrub the ones that don’t benefit the seller and BaT, this might be only occasionally, but I know it happens. Their practices are clearly questionable as far as I’m concerned.

I have a '75 25th anniversary 911S that is a bit of a turd and they said it does not fit their target crowd

Maybe they’ve just got too many turds to list. I think it’s also a crap shoot as to the auction manager you get, as they dictate the reserve, so one guy might be ok with your requested reserve while the next guy isn’t.