55,250 dollar lol

[Jwade]

If i didn't have thick skin I would've stayed undercover! I don't take it personal. My life as a married man has taught me its impossible to please everyone all the time. I firmly believe that there is no perfect program or policy and at some point it will piss somebody off. I will say Ironclad Assurance payouts are a large number in our profit and loss statement so I know it pays out for a lot of people.

Also understand that we are still learning as we go. We have quickly realized how much this business differs from our core business and have made some adjustments and will continue to do so as things arise. I assure you there are safe measures so employees or people cant fake bids. I can tell you that default buyers are blocked and bidding power revoked so they will only do that once...

 

[Retiredwarhorses]

Jwade. I would not take it personal. It's not an indictment against your company. It's that their have been other auction company's that have had some funny business. I.e. Rogue employee, to private bidders driving prices. So some of us are on guard because of that. Faceless auctions can make people nervous. (Especially with the going prices)
I'm not sure what safe guards you guys have against that type of thing, but I assume there would be something.

I have bought many vehicles and equipment from both Iron planet and Gov planet. For me, it has been a good experience.

P.s. That guy should have taken your offer!

And that is really why I made the original statement, Plane just did a better job of it.
probably more out of frustration of just not being able to add it all up...so human nature takes over and interjects.
I think GP does a good Job, far superior to GL, but not in all areas. The SF97 issue is still a joke, spoon feeding of a lot of the inventory, especially from my local site. I live 20 miles from the GP corp head qtrs, the Lathrop site is another 10 miles or so away from there, plenty of money in the Bay Area, but trucks just trickle from this site.
the average cost final cost from Lathrop is higher then most other site...at least from my unscientific results.
ok, sorry...to much coffee this morning.

 

[gottaluvit]

My deepest apologies. Maybe you can look into your Inspection Analyst's, and your "dispute council" for the ironclad assurance to reform the process of which business is conducted. Mostly towards how inspections are conducted; ie. Normal wear and tear could mean just about anything, and is extremely vague. Along with the dispute process. As the dispute process is deeply flawed, and needs to be looked in to.

I think GP's ironclad guarantee is a lot better than how GL only said if said truck runs or don't run. I wanted one for years but that gamble kept me away. After GP started moving the trucks I felt at least not as weary to the point I was willing to bid a "real" amount. With GL, I would only bid what I thought was a fair value for a non running truck that I would end up sinking a lot of money and time into. Even if they said it ran. Very vague.

 

[98G]

Making accusations of shill bidding is a pretty serious allegation. Felony fraud charges would be warranted if this could be substantiated.

One thing I did like about GL as opposed to GP is that the unique bidder number allowed for trending: if bidder 12344678 consistently bid in such a way as to deliberately lose(bids just under the next obvious increment etc), we could infer the possibility of shill bids with the information available to everyone. I have to presume that government oversight includes access to information that isn't available to the rest of us, specifically to trend for such things. Meta analysis and trending would reveal shill bidding if it were occurring regularly.

When trending auctions there will always be outliers. Shill bidding isn't the only explanation. I remember one M925A2 that was incorrectly listed as an M923A2 on GL. I expected it to sell for about $8k. It sold for $19,500. The winner defaulted and the same truck showed up about 3 months later (I recognized it, the serial number stuck in my mind due to personal significance) , and this time the truck sold for $17k which was still just about double what I would have expected.

I have no complaints with GP, in my relatively small sample size of interaction with them.

One general comment on the nature of customer service: when everything goes as expected it makes no large impression positive or negative. When there is a problem the company has an opportunity to make a large impression either positive or negative. Fast and positive resolution buys you a customer for life, while poor service and hostile employees will drive a customer away. There's companies I won't deal with because of previous negative experiences, even if I pay more elsewhere. And there's some places I will use without even checking elsewhere, because of previous positive experiences.

 

[98G]

I think GP's ironclad guarantee is a lot better than how GL only said if said truck runs or don't run. I wanted one for years but that gamble kept me away. After GP started moving the trucks I felt at least not as weary to the point I was willing to bid a "real" amount. With GL, I would only bid what I thought was a fair value for a non running truck that I would end up sinking a lot of money and time into. Even if they said it ran. Very vague.

I'm just the opposite

I much preferred GLs poor descriptions. You take some risk, but you get some good deals because GL'S "won't start" just means they flipped the switch once and it didn't fire right up. I bought trucks from GL for scrap steel prices and drove them 1000 miles home from the GL yard.

GP's assurances take most of the risk out of it. Less risk = higher prices and fewer of the screaming deals at far below actual value. If GP says "won't start", you can bet they had good batteries to it, bypassed the switch, shot it with ether, and did all the other minimally invasive interventions to make it run.

As an example, im leaving today to go recover a truck from GP. They said it won't start. If this were GL, I'd take my 1ton Ram and figure to drive the 5ton home. But this is GP, so if they didn't get it started it isn't anything trivial: I'm taking my 5ton and towbars......

 

[Jwade]

The SF97 issue is still a joke, spoon feeding of a lot of the inventory, especially from my local site. I live 20 miles from the GP corp head qtrs, the Lathrop site is another 10 miles or so away from there, plenty of money in the Bay Area, but trucks just trickle from this site.
the average cost final cost from Lathrop is higher then most other site...at least from my unscientific results.
ok, sorry...to much coffee this morning.

IP Corp office is in CA but all of the GP operations are based out of Fort Worth. We literally don't have a single GP employee sitting in that office mostly just finance dept, AR, AP etc. The IP and GP call center is based in FTW as well. I will say we do hold certain inventory to control the market a little but mostly HMMWV's. I can tell you are back log in Lathrop is not as large as one might think. One common misconception we get is just because you see it on the base in the DLA yard doesn't mean we have control of it yet it goes through a lengthy process before we ever get it.

THe SF97 process is a beating for you as much as it is for us. So we actually print them here in our office where we have to track certificate number by customer then ship them to Battle Creek, signatures take place there then are sent to CA for signature there and then out to you guys. I assure you the EUC and SF 97 process are talked about regularly in our meetings... Sorry for the book

 

[Jwade]

One thing I did like about GL as opposed to GP is that the unique bidder number allowed for trending: if bidder 12344678 consistently bid in such a way as to deliberately lose(bids just under the next obvious increment etc), we could infer the possibility of shill bids with the information available to everyone. I have to presume that government oversight includes access to information that isn't available to the rest of us, specifically to trend for such things. Meta analysis and trending would reveal shill bidding if it were occurring regularly.

Our auctions and procedures are absolutely audited by the Gov. Extensively.

 

[gottaluvit]

I'm just the opposite

I much preferred GLs poor descriptions. You take some risk, but you get some good deals because GL'S "won't start" just means they flipped the switch once and it didn't fire right up. I bought trucks from GL for scrap steel prices and drove them 1000 miles home from the GL yard.

GP's assurances take most of the risk out of it. Less risk = higher prices and fewer of the screaming deals at far below actual value. If GP says "won't start", you can bet they had good batteries to it, bypassed the switch, shot it with ether, and did all the other minimally invasive interventions to make it run.

As an example, im leaving today to go recover a truck from GP. They said it won't start. If this were GL, I'd take my 1ton Ram and figure to drive the 5ton home. But this is GP, so if they didn't get it started it isn't anything trivial: I'm taking my 5ton and towbars......

I definitely see your viewpoint. I just fail miserably on gambles. If it's a 50/50 chance to win, I always lose! Example: I just picked up 8 tires for my truck Sunday. Every one of them, when looking for the date code, I had to flip because the date code was on the other side. It's just me and luck or gambles, however one wants to word it. So I stay away from the stock market for the same reason.

 

[tage]

ts impossible to please everyone all the time. I firmly believe that there is no perfect program or policy and at some point it will piss somebody off. I will say Ironclad Assurance payouts are a large number in our profit and loss statement so I know it pays out for a lot of people.

So how about fix the problem instead of losing profits? Inspections aren't up to par if it's costing the company money. It's hard to do due diligence when you don't allow on site inspections (possible fix). No company is perfect, but fuzzy photo's and vague comments are not the standard of where a 20k truck should be at. Your system is extremely lacking compared to a proper pre-purchase inspection.

 

[Retiredwarhorses]

So how about fix the problem instead of losing profits? Inspections aren't up to par if it's costing the company money. It's hard to do due diligence when you don't allow on site inspections (possible fix). No company is perfect, but fuzzy photo's and vague comments are not the standard of where a 20k truck should be at. Your system is extremely lacking compared to a proper pre-purchase inspection.

give it a rest already...your clearly one of the few unhappy campers, not sure how long you have been doing this, but maybe it's not for you? Buy a jeep at a dealership, this way you can test drive.
These are 30 old ex military trucks driven by 18yr old kids with the mentaity of " it ain't mine so drive it like you stole it"
its impossible to do what your asking...because no matter want, you will have an issue with whatever Gp does.

 

[tage]

give it a rest already...your clearly one of the few unhappy campers, not sure how long you have been doing this, but maybe it's not for you? Buy a jeep at a dealership, this way you can test drive.
These are 30 old ex military trucks driven by 18yr old kids with the mentaity of " it ain't mine so drive it like you stole it"
its impossible to do what your asking...because no matter want, you will have an issue with whatever Gp does.

I'll get off my soap box. But the points made are valid, and apply more then in my situation.
Heck that was honest feedback, that if followed will make GP more money, and cut payouts.

 

[m16ty]

I think most people are a little upset because GP vehicles are selling higher than when they were sold through GL, I'm in the same boat. You're wasting your breath trying to convince Jwade that is a problem though, we are on two different sides of the issue.

GP just knows how to get more money out of stuff and GL is getting better at it. I've said before, the whole surplus market is moving more toward a retail market. This means more money for the government and auction company but not so good for the surplus buyer. I used to buy and sell a bunch of trucks but have almost quit, there just isn't much money to be made these days. About the only thing I bid on anymore is stuff for my personal use and very rarely win when I do bid.

 

[Retiredwarhorses]

I remember going to naval air station alameda and open bidding with a paddle...as well as just flat out making a deal with the rep with no bidding at all! Deals were plentiful...it's one of the downsides of the Internet.
i remember having to drive and search for parts or wait for meets to go find parts...didn't have cell phones back then.
there were a,few publications out there...used to get a lot via shotgun news.
builds took years....not months.

 

[turnkey]

Used only on every other Wed, by the little old Supply sargent for pick up of milk only....looks like someone over bid their hand.