its not the auction houses fault its the bidders

[sb1]

might as well address this now. We have no way to view your password or max bid. We cannot place bids for you placed via phone, email or fax.

The system is totally automated on a secure server only accessible by the administrator which is neither Leon nor I. Once the auction starts it's on autopilot til the the 15 minute period ends.

Scott

[Matt]

Jeff - good question on having bidders passwords. Here is another one - Bob said the house can't see the max bids - can they see who the high bidder is before the auction ends?

[sflayank]

i very rarely consign anything
im a collector once in awhile ill have an upgrade of something then ill consign my doubles

[Mr. Mitt]

Originally Posted by sflayank

i very rarely consign anything
im a collector once in awhile ill have an upgrade of something then ill consign my doubles

Just to play devil's advocate, you could bid up items you've consigned via one or two of your three accounts with the auction house. Not saying you do so, but if opening three accounts with the same house is that easy, I'm sure others have found a way to circumvent the system for their own benefit. Isn't this just as bad as the auction house shill?

[barrysloate]

Doesn't the auction house have a responsibility to make sure bidders don't open multiple accounts? I would not have allowed that. Often bidders registered twice because they either forgot they were registered or thought they had to do so for each auction. In that case, I would accept the most recent one and delete the older one. Only one account per bidder was permitted.

[benjulmag]

I think Barry hit the nail on the head -- the most important thing is the integrity of the auction house. Without it, there will always be the significant risk of bidding irregularities.

[sflayank]

the 2 extra accounts are in friends names in other parts of the country altogether...I cant see other peoples max bids so how can i shill my own items without risking buying them back...i would have to be willing to lose money on the sellers premium and the buyers premium...the other accounts are to protect myself from auction houses knowing who is bidding so they cant jack me up...ill even bid on the 1st day on 50 lots, knowing i wont win them at minimums, just so they dont know which ones i really want...the reason i started this thread is to show that you can control your bids without fear of being shilled just by being a smart bidder...its the bidder who provides the auction house with the ability to shill....they should be prosecuted for shill bidding....but if the bidders would stop giving them the opportunity...bidders could probably stop 90% or more...

[barrysloate]

I had many old time collectors on my mailing list who did not use computers at all, and they would call and ask me to bid for them. They would even leave ceiling bids and ask me to place them on their behalf. I don't believe Scott and Leon take telephone bids so they are able to lock certain parts of their software that I couldn't.

I would be less concerned with the capabilities of the software and more concerned with the integrity of the auction house.

[oldjudge]

Scott--So if a bidder's computer crashes on the night of the auction there is no way for them to bid? I assume that if a collector does not own a computer they cannot bid in B&L at all.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

Scott--So if a bidder's computer crashes on the night of the auction there is no way for them to bid? I assume that if a collector does not own a computer they cannot bid in B&L at all.

Jay- knock on wood but that (a bidder's computer crashing) hasn't happened to us yet. We did have one west coast collector call and ask to raise a ceiling bid. I had our software company do it. It is my understanding that we can in fact bid for a bidder but I don't think we have done it yet, I know I haven't. What we can't see are any max bids. We do see the bids and bidders otherwise. So, to answer your question, yes, we could bid for a bidder if that happens. regards

edited to add...not sure if it was mentioned but we can not see our bidder's passwords.

[sreader3]

It shouldn't be terribly hard to come up with a reasonable set of verifiable industry standard rules and require auction houses to agree to them to obtain a certification--similar to what Underwriters Laboratories (UL) does in the lighting industry. These rules would prevent, among other nefarious practices, shill bidding. The certifying organization would verify that the auction house software and personnel comply with the rules. The readers of Net54 are well suited to promulgate the rules and solicit certifications. Software gurus like Trae Reagan could probably do code verification.