Broke student just moved home and had to give up my car that I had a loan on because it got too much so I piled up some money and came down to whiteys with a good friend and we found a beautiful Honda Accord 1998 V6 138k miles we watched people starting it up and saw a lot of positivity coming off the car so we went and checked it out. Car sounded and looked great no matter what happened we were getting it. Looked up blue book on it that night made our bidding deciscions on how high we would go. The day of the auction we showed up in the freezing cold and sat under pop up tent area with all the other bidders and waited for the Honda to come around it still sounded great being started up the guys called it a Mercedes benz and then quickly corrected themselves and the bidding started we won the car at $2600 shortly after we got hit with $800 in dol but mainly buyers premium fees (12%)which are higher then DOL base fee (9.8%) after paying for everything I am informed I must wait until the whole auction is over to pick up my car. Later I pick up my vehicle so excited to finally receive a reliable mode of transportation that I can use to start my new job at home and as I pull out of the gravel the transmission slips immediately between 0-10 and 10-20 so we drive it around to see if it needs warming up and that is not the case every red light every stop it slips as I accelerate I decide to have the vehicle inspected and the very well accredited shop I take the vehicle to informs me I bought a lemon with original parts that are corroding and oil pan leaking and many other issues but the worst is the transmission is shot and going down hill they say I can safely drive the car but that eventually it will leave me stranded without serious repairs which exceed even the value of the vehicle ($4500 for a reliable new transmission) the apologize stating there is no way with the vehicle sitting idle that I could have identified this issue but that the auction site was 100% aware of at a minimum the slipping from when they test drive the cars and even pulled up to the auction pad. They have recommended I sell it for what I can get and move forward with Craigslist or a reliable used dealer. Auctions are set up for some people to win and some people to lose but this vehicle was 100% misrepresented they knew the tranny was going and they chose to not disclose that information and allow the bidding to rocket significantly above the blue book for the condition of the car without acknowledging its true faults.

Pretty good place to get a good deal until you figure it out. There is spotters or consigners in the crowd bidding up the cars and mgmt is going right along with it. I see it all the time. Watch them, you'll see them do it.