New REA Platform?? is this Legitimate?
 

Hi everyone

I got this email saying REA is changing platforms and ask you to login and. Enter password etc

Before I do does anyone know if this is legitimate?
If I missed it I apologize

Thanks

I got one too, I verified etc.

No idea. I just deleted it as more unwanted auction house spam.

Tired of the constant emails from industry companies. With me personally, you'll have more success being less annoying. This isn't pointed at any single company or person; it goes out to all businesses in every field.

Also, as a customer, I don't like having to do more work when I'm already spending my money somewhere.

Received the email this morning as well. Looks legit. Click the FAQs to learn more...it goes to their site.

Bold move to a new platform. Hope it works well, I like buying from them.

That being said, I'm going to say 100% chance the auction close hits some unexpected snafu during extended bidding and gets pushed back a day. Hope I'm wrong, just can't imagine a new platform performing perfectly under the final-day stress.


.

yep- i deleted it as well. Thought it was a 'phish' scam
I still hope i am able still to bid.

No one bothered to actually look at the REA website? They have a banner at the top announcing the new bidding platform.

Their twitter account posted about it this morning.

I logged in and gave it a test run.

Looks like some nice improvements when you go through their demos and read about the new marketplace.

Get out of here with that crazy talk!

The era of self help is long since gone.

Just an fyi I went to the website (on my phone) and did not see it.
But again I apologized in advance if I missed it.
But regardless thanks for the help and info everyone

I rec'd it yesterday & filled it out

It is legit.

Banner
 

There's a banner now at the top that refers to the new URL. I wouldn't have trusted the email without such a notice (or email) from the original domain.

Edit update: the banner is currently not visible on the "bid" subdomain, i.e., bid.robertedwardauctions.com pages, rather when you click Home and go to robertedwardauctions.com.

Reminds me.....

Any time you get an email from a business, or at least you think it's from said business, it's best not clicking links within the email but instead go to the company's website. So many scammers out here these days it's crazy!!

I got the same message yesterday morning. It began "Dear David", the layout, syntax and spelling were all perfect. But my mail program marked it as spam. And what the heck was an "onboarding process" I wondered. Seemed "phishy". Thought the scammers were just getting better at their tomfoolery. Went to the REA site; there was no banner or any mention of a new platform. I telephoned REA; the guy who answered didn't know if it was legit or not and didn't seem to give a hoot. Didn't see anything about it here on Net54. So I deleted the email. Turns out it's for real. Just another day on the internet.

Yes and that is why I checked with the group here.
Not sure how I missed the banner except as mentioned above if it is only visible on the home page I might have missed it being in the sub pages

But regardless thanks everyone for looking after each other with this

The fixed-price marketplace will be interesting.

https://bid.collectrea.com/marketplace

trying to set up my account at collectrea.com and having issues. No one else is so must be user error on my end.

my account health says "not ready to bid" and that my "user profile" is "incomplete". But everything in it is filled out.

Did you verify your cell phone or opt out of next notifications. I also had to verify both my cell and email with a code confirmation. I was then no longer not ready for bid.

.

Just checked my spam folder and that is where my email went. Moved to the in box so I can complete their process.

Thanks for the reply.
I opted out of texts as I don't own a cell phone.

Rob, Nice!
I thought I was the only one :D

Click the "User Profile" highlight and make sure your address and all that stuff is up to date for billing/mailing.

Not very professional. 👎

Will all the historical auctions still be on the platform? I have several that I want to go through for research purposes and am worried that the history will be removed. Anyone know?

How soon before everything (or some things) migrate??

Due to the spam / phishing concerns previously mentioned, if I had been in charge of the unveiling of the new website, I would have had customers sign into the old site, and follow prompts to the new site, where I could then do the "onboarding" process.

But I wasn't in charge, and I too had concerns about phishing, but based on this thread I followed the link in the email and must admit that the process was simple.

Doug

I thought it was only me👍
I am having the same issues and went
thru everything several times verifying
and still incomplete

No cell phones? Wow. I got rid of the landline instead. I used to think of the cell as an electronic leash that my wife could tug on whenever she wanted me to come to heel, but after a nasty car crash a few years ago where it was instrumental in getting me help, I've come to see it as a vital safety device.

I often think of the incredible amounts of driving I did around the continent as a young guy, most often in a rickety old car of some sort. Lots of potentially perilous situations were faced, untold days spent in very remote areas, got lost many times in unfamiliar territory...all without a cell phone. Now, most people feel naked and strange if they forget to bring their cell to buy milk at the corner store.

Native dark mode?? Love it already.

+1

I asked -- historical auctions, invoices, etc will be available on the new platform.

Anyone else have trouble the signup? I’ve only ever used my bid ID to login and it states it doesn’t recognize my email, even though that is the email my invoices go to.

You must code

I loved that feature as well.

No issues here. Sign up took two minutes tops. Looking forward to seeing the new sight.

I had to use the link from the email - my usual credentials weren’t recognized if I navigated to the new login page.

ITS OPEN!!!!
I do like the quick bid option.
But---when i skip to next page, it doesnt take me back to top.

I agree with you, that would be nice.

If you're on a phone like me (using Google Chrome browser), as soon as you click next page before the items appear, flick the page to the top and you'll be at the top once the items do appear.

max of 100 per page: I don't want to click 30 times.
searching previous results: I did use that capability frequently.
item pages: Minimalist, but that's actually a nice layout.

I'll stop there.

I like it. I don't think there was anything wrong with the old platform, but I like the freshness of this one. And my bid list is so much easier to navigate!

Love the fact that they post their entire 2025 calendar, AND consignment deadlines. It's really not helpful to get an email from an AH stating that you have two days left to consign something. We are all busy people. Knowing a schedule ahead of time allows one to plan ahead. They also provide a full calendar of shows they will be attending.

There is very little for me in this auction so I have not taken a deep dive into the new platform. That said, a few things jump out:

1. The "Total Bid Cost" function is AWESOME -- it tells you what your approximate all-in cost will be, including hammer, buyer premium, taxes, shipping/insurance
2. The quick bid function is nice
3. I wish you could zoom the lots simply by holding your cursor over the picture -- like Heritage -- instead of having to click into the lot to zoom on the item.
4. I dont like that I cant go directly to my bids and my watch list from the auction, but instead I have to click on blue, sideways G looking thing, and then select bids and watchlist

I look forward to getting more fulsome exposure during their spring auction.

I like it better than the old site, all those pulldown menus are a nightmare to dodge when trying to scroll on a phone.

Does the new site keep you logged in for longer than 2 minutes?

I like some aspects of the site. But I dislike more.

Dislikes
1) Seems like they have gotten lazy on descriptions
2) Can't filter by earliest year
3) Don't get email alerts when I am outbid (maybe this is a profile thing)

I do like the quick bid.

I noticed the outbid emails were sent to my “spam” folder

Can't say that I like the site much at all. I find it much harder to skim the auction and tell what i'm interested in. It'll take time, but really think they need to do something to make it easier to skim through quickly and i'm really talking about the title description under the picture and the other text under the picture of each auction.

+1 Agree

But like anything new we need to
1. Give them a chance to enhance it and/respond to feedback
2. We need to get used to it
3. As long as they have quality items we want for auction we will all learn to use it

I had the same experience when I skipped to the next page, for MOST of the pages. But, a couple of times, I was taken to the top of the next page. Strange!

Also, when I do a search, I am only interested in exact matches, no more and no less. When I searched for "Sam Rice," I had no interest in the Sam Jethroe, Sam McDowel, etc. cards that appeared. Searching for "Mickey Vernon" got me a zillion Mickey Mantle items I had no interest in. Granted, the Rice and Vernon items appeared first, but still.

The REA guys are following this thread I'm sure, so I'll mention this. Being able to see the bid history is great, but I would definitely tweak it so that the bids that are placed by the user are distinguishable from other bidders. I think the old auction software had that with the user's 6 digit bidder number visible.

I don't remember REA giving much detail in Encore auctions and I'm sure the detailed descriptions will continue for the larger auctions.

I love the quick bid function and would like to see the items go to the top when "next page" is pressed. I also miss seeing my high bids in a separate category.

Overall, it is fantastic and I'm sure some tweaks will take place.

Whenever anyone changes the interface to anything, the immediate reaction among most people is "oh jeez, why did you need to change it." We don't like change on websites. Or restaurant menus.

I do wonder what they think is better to users from this new set up, as opposed to just different looking.

Really enjoyed the new website! Looking forward to using it in the future!:)

From a brief tour and browsing of the current auction.

Pros
Very clean, better than old website.
New platform is great
Seeing total cost is awesome and makes things easier.


Cons/Improvements
As echoed by others, clicking the next page and the page not refreshing to the top should be address. Even at 100 items per pages....that's 31 pages of having to scroll to the top...which is not the best user experience.

The prev buttons and next buttons are very light, might consider darken the text.

No. 3 is a profile thikng. Go to Settings and Communication and you can adjust this.

My guess is that REA is not done adding features and making this new platform fit their users needs.

They will likely be iterating on this over time as feedback comes in.

I like the new site but think I am going to spend more money with the quick bids. It's too easy!!
Here are a few from REA in the past....they came from Lew Lipset's encyclopedia then to me then to me again :)

My only note for the new platform is that I liked being able to view 250 lots per page and would appreciate the 250 option again.

I noticed the difference in search results as well. On the old platform, I think searching in the auction archive worked like this, but it was definitely not how searching in the current auction worked. As you noted, at least the complete matches are listed first.

If you put the search term in quotes, it will only return exact matches. As an example, I am building a signed 1961 Fleer set. When I search for 1961 Fleer, i get 65 results including listings that include only one of the two words. When I search for "1961 Fleer", I only get 5 results and they all include that exact phrase in that order.

Alternately, if an exact phrase is problematic, you can put both words in quotes separately and it will return results somewhere in the middle. Searching for "Fleer" "1961" returned 10 results.

HTH

Did you try your search using quotation marks? Often that will only give you exactly what you ask for.

Quotes do not work. It still treats all inputs with "or." This has to be fixed IMO. If I want to look for American Beauty backed t206s I don't want to see the 100s of cards they consider to be a "beauty"!

I like the new platform and the quick bids. It's different, but we'll get used to it. But I second this: if there's not a display option >100 it takes forever to get past the T206s in every auction!

When I search for baseball magazine or "baseball magazine", (either with our without quotes) I am rewarded with 2,568 items in the current auction.

Of those results exactly none of them have anything to do with "the" Baseball Magazine. Although there are two Police Gazettes...

It started to work now, maybe just first day bugs

+1

Hey Doug,

Try your search again -- I agree that 2568 results happen without quotes, but there are zero results when I change it to "baseball magazine" with quotes.

Cheers,
Steve

I am not sure I understand. When I search for American Beauty without any quotes, I get 80 results. When I search for "American Beauty" (with quotes) I get only 5 results:

Attachment 646895

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Anyone else having trouble resetting their password? I have an account (bidder# etc) but can’t get the reset email. Checked spam etc. I won and paid for an item just in the fall. Probably stuck on their servers. Just thought if they sent me an email that the auction was open and accepting bids-this bug might have already been resolved on their end. Ok please go about your day. I’ll shut up now. Thanks for letting me vent


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you cannot find the original email about the new format you may need to contact REA direct.
You cannot reset from/thru the old login reset way. I tried that and did not work I had to find that email about the new format and do thru there

You can reset by putting your email in - for me email was my new user ID.

Not a fan of the new site at all. The user interface designer had a bad day at the office when they came up with this.

Or maybe they were having a really, really good day.

I'm in the same boat. I went to the email that they sent to register with my old credentials, but the link is now broken. I'm in limbo. Might have to call if it doesn't resolve itself in the next day or two.

Some interesting search behavior I found

It is as if the search forgives spelling issues

If I type Gehrig in the search bar, it is showing Charlie Gehringer cards...


If I purposely misspell Gehringer as Gehrigner, it still shows his cards

I had the same issue. There's an issue if you have a yahoo email address. I had to email them and they manually reset my password for me. I then went in and changed my password the settings menu in their site.

Thanks for all the feedback. We’ve received a ton of positive comments on the new site but we’re definitely monitoring constructive feedback on things users would like to see added or things they’re having issues with so that we can incorporate those suggestions into future development. We’re not making any changes while this auction is live, but we’ll start a new round of updates immediately following its end to have them ready for February.

To answer a few popular questions, the circular button in the top right takes you to your My Account page where you can see bids, watchlists, change settings, etc.

All buyer invoices and consignor statements from 2004-2024 are migrated to the new site and linked as PDFs in the My Account section.

Searching is more dynamic than past versions but you can target specific items with quotation marks or exclude certain items with a minus sign. For example, if you don’t want to see anything with T206 in the title as you browse the auction, you could search -t206 to filter out those items.

Some Yahoo email users are experiencing delays in password reset email delivery. If you drop us an email letting us know you’re having trouble, we can set you a temporary password.

Brian

Thanks Brian

We appreciate you always being open to constructive feedback and giving us some responses and insight.

As always another great Auction

Thanks

Brian, when are you going to state the terms of the marketplace and when will that launch? I am very interested in that. Thanks