HiBidReviews 3,163

Have made several purchases through HiBid and have multiple issues.
Recently purchased a Remington 700 and now the guy won't answer to get the rifle shipped. Won't return any phone calls.

A few months back, I purchased some baseball cards that the seller said were real but are fakes!
Auction company says they are waiting for the co-signer to return their call - 3 weeks later, I have heard nothing and they are now not answering my calls!

Bought an air-fryer and it never came.
Canceled the payment via card.

Seems they don't do their research on the auction companies under their umbrella or they just don't care.

Stay away - far far away!

HiBid is OK if you are a seasoned auction professional. They are simply a platform from which almost any auctioneer can operate with relative impunity. They even have auctioneers who do not ship. Who would have thought that a local pick up auction on the internet would be a good idea? Apparently, you get dinged for trying to sign up and bid in one of these auctions. There is also a "secret indictment list" that can get you banned from bidding for reasons that you will never know and for which you have no recourse. All that being said, we have received far more winners than losers from our winning bids. EVERYTHING depends on the individual integrity and business practices of the individual auctioneer. The best run their auctions in a straightforward manner and ship most of their items in house for a reasonable price. The worst, well they do the opposite.

And, before I forget, there is the matter of the "end" of the auction on HiBid. Some auctions end right there on HiBid and, if you are the high bidder at the end, you have won the item. But many auction houses use HiBid as a pre-bidding platform only, where, under the previously discussed circumstances, you only "may" have won the auction, as a so-called live auction follows the end of the HiBid auction. There is no link on HiBid to the following auction and, if you wish to follow the "final" auction, you have to track it down through the auctioneer's website in order to see which platform that they use te "really sell" the item. It can be a pain, but like most similar situations, if you can take the pain while playing their game well, it'll be OK.

Also, the $1 charge is not for bidding. It just verifies your CC and is only a temporary hold that will soon drop off.

After talking to the HighBid people, it is a fact that there is nothing they can do to address any issues with your account. They cannot even view the account to see what the problems are and have absolutely no control over the auctioneers or their actions. Bidders are completely on their own in the case of ANY problems.

Had a very bad experience buying from Silent Bidders powered by HiBid in Whitby Ontario. Electric clock did not have a light bulb in it for reasonable checking when picked up. Got it home and discovered previous owner had painted the clock face with a brush as shown in photo. Manager of silent bidders is Monique Van Beilen was totally unhelpful, told me to resell it on Maxsold. She said she would look into my complaint and get back to me... never did. She does not answer my messages. She chooses profit over conscience and doing the right thing. She discredits HiBid with her business dealing. I will never buy again with silent bidders powered by HiBid.

I love this site! Very convenient for my personal use and my business as well! I can set up my profile with my business then list my items in minutes but the best part is selling them within 90 seconds! Love the adrenaline rush when items start flying off of my market. Everything is US and security approved which takes a load off my shoulders. Basically my own Advertisement plus sales in a bundle. I liked it so much that I started bidding for personal use. Instead of waiting hours like other bid auctions it's done in minutes! I can auction anywhere with the slide of my finger! Thanks hotbid.com!

Nobody has touched on the biggest problem with Hibid, and that is the fact that Hibid shows the auctioneers your maximum proxy bid. That encourages auctioneers to make fake accounts just to bid you up to $1.00 under your maximum bid. See for example the two attached screenshots, you can see a wr****+ that comes in and bids $1 under the auctions maximum bid about 5 - 10 minutes before the auction closes. This happened over 30 times on one auction i was bidding on.

If you don't know what a proxy bid is. Say that you want an item that is currently at $10. You're willing to pay $100 for it, but you won't be around your computer. You enter $100 as a proxy bid, the bid goes to $20 and the website will bid for you up to $100 when people bid against you.

This is a great feature until you realize Hibid is spoon feeding the auctioneers your maximum bid. So in the above scenario the auctioneer sees the bid is at $20, but sees that you put a proxy bid in up to $100, so he makes a fake account and bids $99. This pushes you to your maximum bid since you can't cancel bids, and the auctioneer will get $100 for it, rather than $20. This is illegal in the USA, and is punishable by prison.

If you google search for hibid shill bidding you'll even find a thread on reddit where an employee from hibid admitted it.

If you're buying anything from this site, never for any reason ever use a proxy bid.

I am bidding and buying in online listed auctions across the country for my specialized hobby of collecting glassware. HiBid has a lot of auctions! Thats the good part. For me the hard to use part of the software is that its so clunky and slow! Today I sloughed through 64 pages of query results to see what items are up for auction. But the worst part is that it takes 6 seconds to page forward every time... and if I query an item, it goes way back to the start of page again after waiting and waiting again. And all this wouldnt be so bad if i could narrow my search query by using Boolean commands like NOT, AND, OR and such. Having said all that, I still use HiBid every day. Each auction and auctioneer is different and there are hundreds and hundreds of them, many just small town, part-time businesses. For the most part, I'm amazed at the wonderful, cooperative folks Ive dealt with. Blame HiBid for not upgrading their servers and programming, but they dont control the auctions and auctioneers! My suggestion is dont be afraid to ask questions of the auctioneers during the auction. Questions about shipping, packaging, item condition, additional photos and such. You will generally be quite happily surprised. Still, buying on the internet is like going through the drivein at McDonalds or buying a lottery ticket... you never quite know what you will get. And thats part of the fun!

Haven't had any problems.
Wow, checking out the reviews here I felt the need to post my actual review. So far I haven't had any problem with any auction houses I've paid from, and some of them are not close by. I'm just careful when I shop. The honesty is no different then purchasing on eBay or other auction websites. There will be dishonest people, but 90% of the people are not dishonest and are trying their best.

Most of them are upfront if shipping is available. And if it's not, go check the shipping and pick up policies before you bid on some thing. I have done that multiple times and then not been able to bid on something. It's called common sense. I look as closely as I can at the pictures, before bidding. Sometimes even that doesn't work out right for me. I've bought mistakes, overpaid when I shouldn't have, and most of those problems are my fault not the auction house and not the website.

I would say that most of the auctioneers on HiBid are ok, but some are downright unprofessional. The descriptions and pictures are very poor in most cases. Some never answer their emails. Most of them deal with third party shippers who charge very high shipping charges. One of these shippers sent me a box of broken dolls and never repaid my $147 charges. I've learned the hard way to never deal with any that use these third party shippers. I don't bid on any item that the auctioneer doesn't answer my emails. And I'll never deal with any that charges my high bid when the highest bid was way below my high bid. HiBid can be good if you are very careful.

I was bidding on three rifle scopes. At the end of the auction I received a notice on their site "you may have won." I did not receive a verification weather I won or not. The Credit Card Company did not Let Hi I'd charge my Account. I then received a Charge for $14.27 that I did not make! The next day I looked at my bill pay and found a payment was going out to Sanford Healthcare accessories for $2131. 00. When I called the bank and the same $2131. 00 was listed to pay a different company. I have never had these problems before I went on the HiBid web site! I canceled my credit card. I do not understand why HiBid did not call me.

I never been to an auction where the fees were more than the amount you bid on. This is the worst auction. The amount of fees they charge should be illegal. Tell me how you win a bid for 5 dollars. Then charge you 2 dollars in taxes and 20 dollars just for winning the bid. So for my 5 dollar bid there charging me $27.75 dollars. I understand hibid is different from the general auction company. But if hibid wants to keep some customers hibid shouldn't allow there outrages high fees. It looks bad for the company if your paying $2 on taxes for something that cost $5.

I don't even know where to start first both of the vehicles I had pre-bids on opened for bid then immediately closed and a red sign came up said pass for no other reason just stopped abruptly. Any request for information from the Auctioneer had no avail. One of the two that they told me I won on pre-bid still did not show that I want it. Then they double charged my bank account for the deposit. And to top it off they said I Won a bid on a car I knew nothing about nothing. Hybrid is a joke!

I have been using HiBid to purchase some things during these Wuhan Virus days. Las week I bid on an item with a somewhat high opening bid of $250 and I bid that amount and not a penny more, I figured if I got it at that price, great, if not no big deal. No one else bid on the item, so I won the item by default. When the auction ended I never got an invoice and when I contacted the auction house, Ancient Art & Antiques (aka Ancient Art And Antiques), they informed me that the lot had a reserve. This was not noted on the lot on the Hibid website. Many other lots in that particular auction had reserves, this lot number did not. Obviously, I can't force the auction house to comply and hand over the item, though I'm sure if I bid over the reserve price they would come after me if I reneged on my part of the bargain. So, they get the last laugh, except that I can warn others to save your time and money and spend it elsewhere. It is wrong to offer something for sale and then refuse to finalize the deal because you wanted more money for the item.

***AVOID*AUCTION HOUSE WILL NOT FULFILL THEIR PART OF THE BARGAIN*YOU CAN BID AND YOU CAN WIN*BUT THEY WON'T LET YOU BUY THE ITEM IF THEY WANT MORE MONEY*AUCTION HOUSE ASKED ME IF I WANTED TO MAKE AN OFFER ON THE ITEM AFTER I WON THE BIDDING***

Hibid is a gathering place of auctions and doesn't have their own auctions. All auctions on hibid have their own rules that you must follow and it has nothing to do with hibid. If you have problems with a certain auction that doesn't mean you will have the same problem on every auction. These auctions pay a fee to hibid to use their services and are not the cause of any bidding or selling of item problems. I buy from auctions on hibid all The time, some are great, some are not. If there is a problem, contact the auction you bid with.

Recently bought a item for $80 which just happened to be one bid increment below my max bid...(?) I had previously asked auctioneer if it could be shipped and was told no problem. Then was billed $120+ for shipping from a UPS store, including $70 for packing supplies! The seller could have advised that the size and weight of the item made shipping impractical which wasn't apparent from the pictures. Auctioneer reversed the shipping charge and we agreed on a lower number.

In the future I plan to use a temporary Visa card from Walmart that can be loaded with approximately the amount of money I expect to spend. It will register as any other charge card and eliminate any chance of surprise charges or an overdraft.