Need help with car auction buying arbitration...

So I recently won a car auction for a '10 BMW 535xit 6MT. Exercised the "buy it now" option on the auction, got the confirmation email from the auction house that I won the auction.

Dealer is refusing to deliver the car to the auction house, claiming it sold to someone else. That's BS as they were going to meet my friend to have him check the car out for me hours after that auction ended and we never heard a word from them that the car sold.

I need to hear from experienced car wholesalers as to what my recourse is here to force the dealer to hold up their end of the deal and deliver the car to the auction house for pick up...

eBay or Copart or Manhiem?

There was a thread on here about that a while back.

If it was Ebay, you have no recourse. Apparently their car auctions are non binding.

It's not eBay. It was on a wholesale auto auction site, Lynnway Auto Auctions in MA. So, a Mannhiem affliate...

I'm out then. You probably need to check the auction agreement and sick the auction house on them. They usually frown on selling things that don't get delivered.

We've opened up an arbitration case with the auction house. Would just like to know what else I can do and what to expect...

Has the auction house commented on this yet? As Toyman01 said, they usually frown upon this sort of behaviour.

Nope. The only comment from the contact there was that the dealer told them it sold before the auction ended.

We're trying to find out more, but not getting a whole lot of communication from the auction house and no communication at all from the dealer.

Stupid question, but at what point did they agree to have your friend check over the car? After the end of the auction?

Just tossing this out there because if they agreed to it before they sold the car, they probably just didn't bother telling anybody. If they agreed to do so after the auction ended, well, different kettle of fish.

They didn't know I bought the car through the auction. They thought I was just a private buyer and had agreed to meet my friend at 4pm, the auction ended at noon.

So the plan that entire morning was for them to bring the car to my friend. They never told me it was for sale at the auction and never told me that the car sold.

Today I've called the salesman and emailed him and not heard a reply. I simply asked him if the car had sold, I didn't tip my hand. He got back to me on a Sunday last Sunday and was incredibly responsive, so far I haven't heard a peep from him.

They're totally lying on this and are attempting to weasel out of the sale. To add fuel to the fire, another one of these was posted by a private seller two days ago and has already sold. I'd stopped looking as I thought I had this one wrapped up.

So not only have I sold my DD, but I've also spent time and money arranging transport, but I missed out on another one of these to buy because of these douchebags.

Could someone in Boston drive by and see if the dealer has the car?

Did the 4pm meeting still happen?

Nope. They're claiming the car sold on Monday now. Which is BS as we were talking all day Monday with me my making offers.

They're claiming it sold the day before the auction ended. Which is crap, as I was talking to them that entire day and they never told me it'd sold. They were also going to bring it to my friend that next day for him to inspect it.

These dicks just decided they didn't want to sell it for the buy it now price THEY chose!

Yeah. Awesome. Now I have to try and get a credit for the Southwest tix I bought for the transport guy and his wife/daughter.

And try and find another car to buy. Since I thought I'd had one bought I'd stopped looking and have now missed out on another one of these unicorns that got listed Tuesday and is sold already.

How much of a higher purchase do you think it might take to alleviate of all this additional burden?

Not sure what you're asking? They're claiming the car is sold. I can't buy it at any price. When I was retail Joe, they wanted mid $23k's for it. Auction buy it now was $20,800.

JohnRW1621 wrote: How much of a higher purchase do you think it might take to alleviate of all this additional burden?

Pretty sure he's saying if you showed up with @$23k they would sell you the car.

Yeah. Doubt that. They're saying the car is sold and is marked as such on their website. I'm 2000 miles away from them. I've called and emailed the salesman playing dumb and asking if the car is sold and haven't heard back from him.

Id call manheims arbitration team. I work for a dealer and they have had to use their arbitration team and things always seem to get resolved for the better when they do have to go to arbitration.

Auctioneers have licenses. If he put something on the block he can't deliver go after his license.

Already started arbitration, but from the blase attitude of the auction house I don't think its going to get anywhere. Dealer claims car sold before the auction ended, auction house is accepting their story and that's the end of it.

Now I have to convince Southwest Airlines to give me the credit, their policy is the credit stays in the names of the passengers. So now I stand to lose almost $1000 because of this MFer dealer.

FYI, the arbitration department at Manheim\ADESA\et al is typically an avenue for dealers to seek recourse post-sale over mechanical issues (i.e. the car has rod knock and you didn't announce "engine needs service").

I've had this scenario play out once or twice, and you being in possession of a signed Bill of Sale will make quite a difference. If you don't have one, nothing is going to happen. If you DO have one, probably nothing will happen. The unfortunate reality is the folks in charge of arbs know who the big fish are, and cater towards them.

If you're there buying 50 cars a week, you'll get more favorable arbitration results. If you're not even a blip on their radar, I wouldn't expect much. Sometimes the only thing you can do is take note of the seller, and never bid on anything from them again.

Sadly, you are not the first to start a thread about this type of thing. I have seen the same thing happen many times in different forums. A few years ago over in the Bimmer forum a guy won a brand new M3 in an online auction for quite a bit less than MSRP and the dealer balked. I don't remember all the details but I believe they ended up saying the same thing.........that someone else had already won it so he wasn't the actual winner either. Pretty sure he did end up getting it as the whole thing went viral with some crazy thing like a million hits on the web over it. There was so much negative publicity for the dealer that they relented and sold the car for the auction price. I might have a few of the details wrong but that was the basic story. You are in a tough spot, good luck.

Datsun1500 wrote: Here's the problem. They own it, you don't. You can complain, fight, whatever, but if they're not willing to sign over the title and take your money, you can't make them. They can't weasel out of a sale, because there was no sale. There was an offer to sell, and it was revoked. It sucks, but legally, nothing you can do.

Datsun is right. Dealer to dealer with an agreement or from a actual auction house to a dealer you might have like 0.1% of a case. But private party you are not on solid ground to do really anything.

Almost everybody has the legal contract / paperwork behind them to make just about anything for sale disappear at any time. Asking for your flight money back from them is going to get laughed at, the airline could care less that someone else balked. Be thankful it happened now and not after you were already in transit.

It was a dealer only wholesale auction. My friend who has a wholesale dealers license did the bidding and won/bought the car for me.

What if the roles had been reversed? Can I now just bid on all their cars at auction, win all of them and refuse to pay? That's what they're doing to me...