Auction or Fraud that is the ?

[Ed Weston]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? washington

I registered for an auction and placed a bid.There was no minimum and no reserve anywhere not even in the fine print, infact it stated whoever places the highest bid is awarded the inventory. It was a sealed bid ,but it had a bid counter so I know I was the highest bid. so they relisted under a new lot # one more time I won again. I call them and they said they would email me an invoice,they never did instead they block me from bidding again,they said I bid to low now they wont return any calls. This company is from minnesota and there not small. ----- what would you do next ?

[Stevef]

Originally Posted by Ed Weston

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? washington

I registered for an auction and placed a bid.There was no minimum and no reserve anywhere not even in the fine print, infact it stated whoever places the highest bid is awarded the inventory. It was a sealed bid ,but it had a bid counter so I know I was the highest bid. so they relisted under a new lot # one more time I won again. I call them and they said they would email me an invoice,they never did instead they block me from bidding again,they said I bid to low now they wont return any calls. This company is from minnesota and there not small. ----- what would you do next ?

There was a recent discussion on another thread recently regarding contract formation on an Ebay auction. The general consensus is that an Ebay auction creates a binding contract.

However......

I was unable to locate any cases awarding damages to someone who had been the high bidder and not received the item. The closest one I found was an airplane auction in Australia. All of the other cases I found involved a deposit being made.

If your bid formed a binding contract (I have no idea of it did or not) you can certainly sue in Minnesota for your damages. Damages would be determined to be difference between the fair market value of the item(s) in question and the amount of your bid.

One caveat: If they put the item up for auction twice, and you were the high bidder both times, it can be argued that your bid represents the fair market value, since nobody was willing to pay more. In that case, the difference between your bid and the fair market value would be zero, hence your damages would be zero.

[Ed Weston]

the auction agreement required a credit card on file for auto-billing, I think that might qualify for a deposit. The item was given a retail value $64,520 per lot,I bid $20 so they block me from bidding again they sold it.