I've noticed that the Mall Of Georgia Ford dealer is bidding on a lot of cars. Have you guys seen other dealers bidding? If you have are these dealers in cahoots to artificially bid up cars? Has anyone else noticed this? Is this legal? Thanks and please let me know if you've seen anything like this before.
I just noticed that there is another Georgia.... dealer bidding on another Shelby. These guys certainly appear to be bidding up the price of cars. What do you guys think? Did this happen with the 2005 GT's?
I just saw where both of the first two dealers.... mentioned above are bidding on another dealer's car. This has got to be some type of illegal market manipulation or is it? Anybody know for sure?
when I bought my new Ford GT in January of this year I found that Mall of Georgia Ford and Gwinett Place Ford were both bidding on Ford GT auctions and trying hard to raise the prices on the GT's - Needless to say the great group of owners at http://www.fordgtforum.com/forums/ caught on and "out'ed" the two scumbag dealers for this questionable practice - right before I bought my GT (for less then MSRP I might add) I wrote a letter to Ford Motor Company and e bay legal to let these comapnies know what these guys were doing On e bay the shill bidding stopped between these two dealership (they are only 8 miles apart) AND owned by the same investor group!!! I bought my GT in the NE Ga mountains (Akins Ford - GREAT guys!!) and I drove by both dealerships, with my car, after the sale and showed my purschase contract to both GM's at the dealerships - They both read the receipt, looked over at my car and turned and walked off!!! Not a word was said!! Pretty funny stuff SGB PS - I have two different people who have bought an 2007 GT 500 for under sticker in the last week - Brand new, from Ford dealers - One in mountains of PA and one in Oregon You want a new shelby for sticker or under, go out in the country!!! Hummmmmm.....................
Stephen, I'm surprised that you didn't get shot. Scum... like these goobers are not above taking someone out. They should be prosecuted by the Georgia state attorney general and banned by eBay.
well, if that was the case then the state of ga would be chasing allot of folks on e bay and other auction spots - i go to local auctions for cars and other things, here in atlanta, and you see shill bidding all the time the other thing is ford should have done something to these guys but their letter to me was "sorry, not in our control"!!! yeah, right - If ford told the two dealerships to behave or they would loose their allotment of 2007 shelbys I bet that would work. alos, they are brazen as they use their dealership names as their bidding names so they are not attempting to hide the fact that they are bidding!!!
Stephen, I don't think that I would know if I were.... getting "shilled" at an auction or not. I typically set my top price (usually very reasonable but fair) and when the bidding goes past that figure I bow out. Is there any specific tip to know if there are shill bids being thrown out?
The Bubble is bursting on the 07 GT500 $20,000 over deals. I have watched a triple Black convertible not hit $50,000 2 days ago when the auction ended. why? because it was aprivate seller who had nobody bidding up hios car!! even Dealer prices are coming down as nobody wants to pay through the nose. at least not anymore.
Just curious but are the dealers across the USA.... responsible for a large percentage of the bids? I have seen a lot of it and I'm just amazed that they would do that crap.
Re: Just curious but are the dealers across the USA.... Why would that amaze you?? dealers are just SOOOOOOOO honest!!!!
OK, Stephen and David, please tell me how you.... know that someone is an accomplice of the seller and is shilling you during an auction. I've been to a few auctions. I do not profess to have your experience nor knowledge of auctions nor have I ever claimed to. However, at an auction there may be 5-10 guys bidding against me so unless I've been tipped off by someone "in the know" then I'm clueless and my mind is occupied just trying to buy the car under my top bid. So...are there some tips that I should be looking for? Thanks in advance!!!
I'm no auction expert so I would also like to hear an expert opinion on this. I have picked up some habits from going to auctions, many non-automotive. Try to just watch as many previous auctions as you can before "your" auction comes up. Pay more attention to the auctioneers and employees and sellers than the cars, pay attention to who they talk to between auctions, pay attention to talking out the side of their mouth. You are simply trying to determine possible associates....associates of the auction employees or the seller's. Seller associates may be harder to detect. Try to pick up a few words if they are talking to a "repeat bidder" near you before or between the auctions. They usually suck up to real bidders. Look for different facial expressions during the Auction related to the suspects... "the all knowing, my budy its your turn to bid wink wink" without the actual winks. If you go to the same auction scene enough its like watching a rerun over and over. ...they can be very obvious and careless. I'm sure some can be difficult to detect. I once saw a auctioneer working the crowd and he called out a bid that never happen, no one was standing there. ...but the crowd was looking the other way. Auctions are interesting in more ways than one.
Re: Just curious but are the dealers across the USA.... I have never been a dealer and never will be a dealer