The easiest way to eliminate the issue that has been flagged would be to convert multiple bottle lots into lots of single bottle lots. So, instead of 6 bottles in crickey’s example, there would be 6 separate lots and that you would need to bid on separately. The downside would be extra clicking and tracking, which may reduce the number of bottles that receive bids. (Winebid has almost certainly thought this through in the past.) The upside would be that each bottle could sell for a different price if the person with the highest valuation only wants a few of the bottles, reducing the risk associated with a high max bid on all of the bottles.
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Agree with this.
Agree with this, too.
That’s right. The $26 bidder didn’t contest the other four bottles, so the price on the other four bottles shouldn’t increase.
Just as easily as when they accepted a $26 bid on one bottle. If you were winning all five bottles at $25, and had placed a max bid of $30 on all five bottles, then you should be winning one bottle at $27 and the other four at $25.
But that’s not what “you” really wanted.
In this scenario, it seems “you” should wine all five bottles: one at $25, one at $27, one at $28, one at $29, and one at $30.
Looks like that is what they should do.
Yep.
and this.
Agreed. Answer: apparently, it allows the auction company to increase the price on some bottles without there actually being an increased bid on those same bottles. Sounds/Feels dishonest, imo.
This is what should be done, unless Winebid wants to royally piss-off their clients who bid on multiple bottle lots. People are going to stop bidding on multiple bottle lots if this system is allowed to continue “as is.” The way the system is set-up now is to allow multiple bottle lots to function as multiple lots; the nasty, screw-the-buyer, trick here is that the current system allows a bid on one “lot” to drive-up the prices on other lots, despite those other lots not receiving a corresponding increased bid.
This absolutely reeks, and may amount to fraud if WineBid’s notice of this practice is ultimately found to be legally insufficient.
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I don’t think we need to highlight to WineBid how to fix this, there are smart enough people working there. We need to convince them that it’s wrong and needs to be fixed.
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Brian,
You certainly understand what is going on.
“This absolutely reeks of fraud.”
I am not sure this reaches the level of fraud.
That said it seems dishonest. I have been hurt by this method and really didn’t know it. The wine I purchased was bid up in $1 increments so I didn’t investigate why. For us bidders the $$ for the most part are small. For Russ the incremental $$ for hundreds of lots add up.
I am sure most bidders have no idea that this is happening.
Yes 100%!
Russ already acknowledged we have the correct interpretation.
Obviously at this point he doesn’t have any intention of fixing this issue.
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I will say this: my objections are contingent upon the lots being of identical bottles.
WOW, if , I am understanding the premise, and if, there is no basis for increasing the price of identical bottles in the same (one) lot, consistently, then the increased cost in ALL lots, by winners, of this scenario, could possibly be massive, since the inception of W/B. If this indeed, as suggested by previous posts, is fraud, it appears W/B could possibly have criminal and civil litigation exposure. Class action?
Where is Don Cornwell???
If WineBid put buyers on Notice, and that Notice is legally-sufficient, then it’s not fraud. But regardless of any such Notice, we all know most people don’t read the fine print, and many folks likely are unaware of this dynamic. And then there’s the whole absurdity and nonsensical nature of the practice, too …
I found the following on the WineBid website, in the FAQ section:
WHY AM I ONLY “PARTIALLY WINNING” MY BID?
This means, when you bid on multiple items in a lot, other buyers have outbid you on a portion of those bottles. You can increase your max bid if you’d like. When a lot contains multiple items, your bid will increase automatically on all items in that lot that you have bid on. Bidders cannot win bottles at different amounts within the same lot.
Really, *that should be posted right next to the Place Bid button/field on every single multiple item lot where “partial winning” is a possibility." Displaying it only in the FAQ section, and perhaps also in the Terms and Conditions section (I didn’t bother looking there once I found it in FAQ), may very well be deemed not good enough if this were to be brought into a court. EDIT: I just checked WineBid “Multiple Quantity Lot” — no such notice appears anywhere on the page for the lot. If WineBid refuses to put this Notice on the page for each and every Multiple Quantity Lot then it would be reasonable to conclude that WineBid is trying to pull a fast one on their bidders.
Notwithstanding the disclosure, it still feels terribly dirty and snakey to say “bidders cannot win bottles at different amounts within the same lot” while simultaneously allowing different bidders to wine bottles at different amounts within the same lot." Dirty dirty dirty, and an extremely off-putting, non-sensical/counterintuitive money grab by WineBid.
Besides, the whole idea of being able to bid on only some bottles in a lot really runs counter to the usual notion of what a “lot” is. One lot = one winning bid. Anything other than that really isn’t “a lot,” but rather the potential to have multiple lots from a single “lot.”
It seems odd that one bidder has the ability to bid on and win an individual bottle of a multiple bottle lot, but another bidder -who is bidding on all the bottles in a multiple bottle lot- does not have the same ability.
I would be careful throwing around “fraud” or “criminal”, as highlighted above it’s clearly in the FAQ and you have to read the fine print, as Brian pointed out.
However, it doesn’t make this practice right.
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Can someone give me the tldr summary? Is it that, in a multi bottle lot, if someone bids up fewer than the total bottles, the price for all bottles is bumped up to that new amount? And that’s a recent change? Because I don’t believe it used to work that way. Btw, I’m pretty sure the old wine commune auctions used that methodology.
But looking at some lots, they are not behaving that way, so I’m obviously missing the issue.
I was just on the phone with WineBid customer service (very professional, prompt, friendly, by the way!) and they explained that this is intended to work this way, there is internal discussion about this (as they probably have received multiple complaints), they understand my frustration, and it has been like this for a long time (as explained in their FAQ, although, obviously, without examples how this can bite you).
The TL;DR is that multi bottle lots can only be one at the same price for all bottles. The result of that is that you can essentially bid against yourself because you have no knowledge of the other bidder’s maximums. For example on a two bottle lot sitting at $30 reserve, one person (bidder A) puts in a max bid for $100 for one bottle (at the time winning at $30), the other (bidder B) $50 for both bottles. After the second bid, each would win one bottle at $50. If now bidder B raises their max bid by $25 in hopes to get both bottles, both bidders end up getting one bottle at $75 each. So bidder B still gets just one bottle, but now has to pay more for it without bidder A or another bidder interfering. Bidder B essentially bid against themselves. (If bidder A only bid $51, bidder B would now get both bottles for $52 each.)
I’m arguing that the “correct” behavior in the above example after the raise to $75 should be that bidder A wins one bottle at $75 and bidder B one bottle at $50.
This can obviously get quite nasty for large lots of expensive bottles (hypothetically, at least).
It’s a snakey way to make an increased bid on one lot to also increase the price of another lot. Very sneaky with this “multiple quantity” lots “feature” — it’s not “multiple quantity,” it’s multiple lots!
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For multi-bottle lots, if you set a maximum bid on more than one bottle in the lot, and someone else bids on one bottle, it has the effect of increasing your bid on all of the bottles you bid on to MAX(your maxbid,second party bid), even if the other party only bid on one bottle. By contrast, if the bottles were in separate lots but otherwise the same scenario as the foregoing, your bids would be MIN(your maxbid,second party bid+minimum increment) on one bottle and MIN(your maxbid, MAX(minimum bid,second party bid + minimum increment = 0)) on the other bottles on which you had bid. The basic objection is why should your bid on the other bottles be increased in the multi-bottle lots, since they would not be so affected in the separated lots.
Huh, I just took a quick glance, looking for a lot with multiple bottles and bidders, and quickly found one with different bid amounts on two different bottles. Ah, what you describe can only happen if the lower bidder had previously placed a higher max bid.
I think the interpretation of your example is incorrect. B was willing to pay 75 for 2 bottles, so A has to pay that much for his one bottle (actually, I would assume his bid would go to 76, not 75, since he has to outbid B for the single bottle). In your example, it makes no sense for B to win at 50.
In your example, B should lose one bottle, since B was outbid. The point is, B will pay $75 for the uncontested bottle that A did not bid on, rather than $50.
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^ this
Bidder B pays a higher amount on an uncontested bottle. Just because they were willing to pay higher, doesn’t mean they should have to if nobody else wants the second bottle. But the way the system is set up, doesn’t work that way.
Are there 2 bottles, or 3 bottles in this theoretical lot? If 2, then the value of both bottles is clearly 75.
If these were two individual lots (say one bottle had a tiny nick in the label, so it doesn’t make the “lot”) and nobody else was interested, bidder B would win the second lot at reserve price of $30 and bid up the first lot to his maximum bid $75. Why shouldn’t that be the correct behavior? Creating a “fake lot” where you make a partial bid on is just hiding information and can result in not just overpaying, but increasing your own bid when you were already winning…