[marvlus]

I think this could end up bad for the dealership

[ConorMacNessa]

Sue the bastards!

[reagan_fanatic]

The dealership will lose far more in customer sales if it doesn’t settle this properly. The man won the car fair and square - let him have it, swallow the loss and learn your lesson.

[DJ MacWoW]

They could have stopped the auction siting a mistake and relisted. Instead they let it end. Too bad.

[mnehring]

If this dealer can’t keep its word on a sale like this, how can any customer trust them to keep their word on warranties, etc?

[AussieJoe]

You put a car up for auction on ebay, it’s up there for at least a week or so, and you don’t notice that you ‘forgot’ to set a reserve? ...and you’re a car dealer in the business of selling cars where you live and die by your margins? ...nah, doesn’t pass the smell test, not even from a thousand miles upwind. My BS-O-METER just redlined real hard on this one.

[US_MilitaryRules]

Just tell obummer to pick up the rest of the tab. Everyone has a right to a car!

/s

[FLAMING DEATH]

“The dealership, Glenn E Thomas Dodge Chrysler Jeep in Signal Hill, California claims that their employee made a mistake when listing the vehicle and forgot to set a reserve price.”

How convenient.

No problem, though. They could just “deem” it not to have been bought.

[Mr. Lucky]

A unilateral mistake doesn’t void a contract.

[calex59]

I don't buy or sell on Ebay, but at one time I did. I always thought that if there was a reserve price set then bidding should have to start at that price. That is the way it is done in real auctions. Items meant to sell at a minimum price are started at that price. Keeping the reserve hidden is BS, IMO.

As for this car, so what if they forgot to mention the car had a reserve, it is not the bidders fault. He won the bid fair and square.

[woodbutcher1963]

EBAY needs to support the winner of this auction(HITMAN).
This is the essence of EBAY. Too bad for the dealership. Fire the employee who made the mistake. This is no different than an absolute real estate auction where the bank representative does not show up.
FYI, there was an Absolute auction in Lowell, MA for the WANG Towers back in 1992. The bank rep. did not show up for the auction. The three buildings sold for about $600k.
The buldings cost $7 million to build , were valued at over $5 million and the mortgage was $3 million. Needless to say the bank rep. was fired.

[IYAS9YAS]

The dealership would be better off to simply say “we erred, here’s your car per the terms of the auction” and take any loss out of the pay of the dipstick who screwed up.

[RichardW]

I suspect this will come down to arbitration. This will be interesting to see how it turns out. Offhand, it seems like a binding contract and the terms will need to be enforced but I suspect something will be worked out. Mistakes do happen from time to time. Regardless the dealer has a lot of egg on its face.

[TexasNative2000]

This dealership has gotten more than $20,000 worth of publicity on this.

Sounds like a stunt to me.

[FourPeas]

As others have said, the dealership should have canceled it if there was an error in the listing. There’s a provision for that exact problem. A deal’s a deal.

[Fresh Wind]

Uh, oh. The dealer is going to get negative feedback.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Dealer loses. It’s not like an ad typo that any reasonable person would recognize as an error.

[Sir Gawain]

The market decided what the car was really worth. The dealer didn’t like the market’s appraisal.

[Erasmus]

Good thing it wasn’t for a toy Yoda.

[mikey_hates_everything]

The auction winner may be subject to Capital Gains taxes on the difference.