Help centre

Anyone can browse and watch auctions with a free account. Bidding needs a one-time registration: we verify your business and check a card or bank account before your first bid. See registering to bid.

The minimum increase rises with the price of the lot:

The bid panel always shows you the minimum next bid, so you never have to work this out yourself. You can bid more than the minimum.

The auction extends. Any bid in the final two minutes moves the end time to two minutes from that bid, and it keeps extending until the bidding actually stops.

So there is nothing to gain from waiting until the last second, and nothing lost by being outbid at the end — you will always have time to respond.

You cannot retract a bid once it is placed.

A bid is how you tell a seller what you will pay. It does not by itself create a contract of sale between you and them — the terms of the actual purchase are for the two of you to agree once the auction ends.

What is binding is what you owe us. If you are the winning bidder and the reserve was met, the buyer’s premium is due whether or not you and the seller go on to complete the sale. Bid as though you intend to buy the machine, because the fee arrives either way. The full wording is in our Terms.

We notify you as soon as it happens, in the app and by email. You can also add any lot to your watchlist to follow it without bidding.

You cannot bid on your own listing.

Two things, once:

• Your business details — legal business name, business type, EIN or Tax ID, how long you have been trading, the business address, and the name and title of the person representing it.
• A card or a bank account, verified through Stripe. Either one qualifies; you do not need both.

A member of our team then reviews the registration. You will hear from us either way, and if we cannot verify something we tell you what it was so you can resubmit.

Because the alternative is discovering at the end of an auction that the winning bid cannot be paid. Everyone bidding on a lot here has already been checked, which is worth something to you when you are the underbidder and worth a great deal to the seller.

Nothing is charged during registration. Verifying a card or a bank account is not a payment and does not place a hold.

A card is usually the better choice, and it is what we offer first. When you win, a card charge settles immediately, so the seller’s contact details are released to you the same day. A bank debit takes about 4 business days, and until it clears the sale cannot move.

Two limits on cards worth knowing before you register:

• Prepaid cards are not accepted. The premium is charged after the auction ends, and a prepaid card that verified today is often empty by then.
• Your card has to be in date to bid. If it expires while you hold a live bid, bidding pauses until you replace it. We email you before that happens.

You can add both and choose which one we charge, or switch at any time, from Bidding & payment.

5% of the hammer price, capped at $15,000. It is the only thing we charge, and it is charged to the buyer — sellers pay us nothing.

On a lot won at $20,000 the premium is $1,000. You pay that to us, and the $20,000 for the equipment to the seller.

Automatically, shortly after the auction ends, to the method you registered with. You do not need to do anything.

A card charge settles immediately and the seller’s contact details are released the same day. A bank debit takes around 4 business days; we email you before the money moves, naming the amount and the exact wording that will appear on your statement, so the charge is not a surprise.

The payment for the equipment itself. That is between you and the seller, directly. We do not hold it, route it, or take a share of it — there is no escrow here. Once contact details are released, you agree payment and collection with the seller.

It depends why. Some card declines clear on their own — a daily limit, a fraud rule that did not recognise us. We try those twice more, about a day apart, and email you each time. Replacing the card in Bidding & payment is the fix: the next attempt uses the new card automatically.

Declines that will not clear by waiting — an expired or reported card, a wrong security code, a returned bank debit — are not retried, and bidding is suspended until the premium is paid. Talk to us and we will sort it out; the premium does not go away, but a suspension is not meant to be permanent.

Profile, password and notification preferences are in Profile & settings. Your payment methods and registration status are in Bidding & payment.

Messages about money and account status — a debit about to leave your account, a receipt, a failed payment, a suspension — are always sent. You cannot turn those off, by design.

You can close it yourself, while signed in, from Profile & settings.

Some things have to be finished first, and the page tells you which apply to you:

• a bid on an auction that is still running;
• a buyer’s premium that is unpaid or has not finished clearing;
• a listing of your own that is live or waiting for review;
• a sale of yours where the premium has not settled yet.

Once it closes we delete your personal details. Bids and comments stay on the auctions they belong to, under an anonymous handle — other people relied on that history while the auction was running, so removing it would rewrite a record they bid against.