Auction Site: Future Sale. Scam or Great Marketing Ploy to drive up price before auction?

So I've been watching and looking at CoPart for a car for the last couple of years. Just so happens one shows up close to home and I'm interested. So I go threw all the steps and register but can't bid on it as I need a broker. So sign up with a broker and pay the $400 to cover the initial cost to bid and away I go.

Now I initially put a bid on the car and of course realize that it say's future sale on it.  Ok no big until I read the little help box on"future sales". So now it's like WTF in my mind because instead of my thought of it being a auction coming up after the one that just finished, No it's not even on the list for up to 60 days. 

This get's me thinking that I haven't seen this before now. So now I start looking at more of the auction website and see a bunch of future sale wording on more of the cars. 

So now after bouncing it off my daughter, who by the way I stopped debating long ago as she kicks my ass, about this and she has seen this also on some of the auction sites she uses. She see's it as a way for them to drive up the prices before the auction even starts. This way she feels it may be close or over what the people want for the object to begin with. Then once the auction actually starts it will either go higher of just close at the bid it was at. Basically seems like defacto reserve no-reserve auction sort of.

Any thoughts to this observation by anyone who uses the auction sites regularly? Kind of turned me off to the whole auction aspect of getting this car. 

This is pretty normal for online auctions.  An auctioneer's job is to get as much money as possible for the items sold.   That's how they make money. 

Ok that makes some sense on the auctioning aspect. This isn't even at the point of it being auctioned off yet. I thought the way they made money was the fees they charge you on the amount that you  won the bid for. Which goes right along with them working to get the best price they can. This seems more like artificially inflating the price before the auction even starts.

In reply to brad131a4 :

I don't see it as being much different than people bidding on an item in the first day of a week long auction, even though the real stuff happens in the final hours. Yeah, it can drive the price up. Maybe if you bid it high enough, early enough, it will discourage other bidders though. You never know. We can't all get screaming deals all the time. Sometimes you pay market value, and sometimes you have to overpay if you really want it. I'd treat it like going into a casino. Set a max amount that you're comfortable paying for the item, bid that amount late in the auction, and let the chips fall where they may.

In reply to brad131a4 :

If people are making bids, it is being action.   Whether or not the auction is technically "live", it is still an auction.

There really is no way od "artificially inflating the price".   People pay what they want, and no guns are held to anyone's heads.  I make a ton of money buying at auctions, and every time something is sold, it goes for what someone decided they wanted to bid on it.

I never liked the idea of non-live auctions, or "throwing out a number." I have a price I want to spend, either the seller takes it now, or doesn't. If the auction isn't live, then your basically just saying "I would pay this amount when the auction is live." That just mean the seller will start at your price and wait to see if anyone offers more. Is it an auction site (with a defined end date), or "throw me offers" site?

I know, I've done it. I've listed stuff before that got so much attention and so many offers so quickly that I said "jeez, I started way too low." Then, as a way of weeding out the chafe, I wait a few weeks and relisted at a higher price, receiving one solid offer from a serious buyer who was still getting a deal, but one that netted me a few extra bucks. 

It's CoPart in Portland Oregon. The only thing l now have is a set hi limit. So l'm guessing it will start to auto bid once it goes live. It's just a little irritating not knowing when it goes to a live auction.

I find it to be helpful to me... regardless of whether or not it's a marketing trick for them.

If I'm looking for a specific Miata and one comes up in a current auction that is 90% of what I want, I'd be pissed if I bought it only to see the perfect one in the auction next week.