Accidently bought 5 extra buses..

[tsk3811]

Hi guys and gals!

I have been lurking on this website trying to learn more about skoolies and how to do a conversion. I have been on the lookout for a bus for the past couple of months wasn't really serious about it. My original plan was to wait until June when I had saved up more money and the bus would hopefully be cheaper. However, I bid on a bunch of buses on an auction thinking I'd get outbid. Well... It turns out that I didn't and now I am stuck with five '84-'87 Bluebird buses.

I'd like to resell them ASAP so please let me know if you're interested or have any advice for me. I rushed into this without reading the terms of sale and now I'm pretty screwed. Please help me get rid of these extra buses!!

I am in Southern California and am selling them for $4500. Please let me know if you're interested and we can talk more about the price. I haven't seen the buses in person yet but from the photos they look like they're in good shape. I will update this post when I see them this week.


Thanks!

[marbury]

Length, fuel type, engines? And did you seriously put up $23k on what you thought was a single bus, or are you just looking to make significant profit on your purchase by asking $4,500?

[CaptainInsaneo]

We've all had a time where we won too many auctions, for me it is usually something small like magic cards or tools, never busses though. Well good luck hope you can get out from under them. On the up side you get the pick of the litter, look for the small victories.

[charles_m]

If you're truly in a pickle, don't ask retail prices. I am confident those buses sold for much less than $4,500. Also, lets get some pics and specs on those if you're serious about selling them. Just a thought to help you out.

[jacobszall]

Agreed. I may be interested in a bus if it's the right price.

[bansil]

That may be for all the buses together

[crazycal]

Something is rotten in Denmark.

[OMGIBoughtABus]

Originally Posted by crazycal

Something is rotten in Denmark.

Honest, Doc! I was just walking down the street and I fell down and it just happened! It was a one in a million shot!

[sdwarf36]

Might need a new screen name--OMGIBought5Busses.

[tsk3811]

Alright. It has been a stressful past 24 hours. Today I went to the auction company and sorted the whole thing out. I originally bid ~$2,000 for each of the buses (a total of 6) and with fees it came out to $14,000+. It would have been a great opportunity to make some money and pay for my conversion but between not having a CDL, the $14,000 or a guaranteed location to store the buses, I decided it would cause more stress and issues than it solved. Maybe in 5 years when I am a bit more financially more stable I can try this out again.

The outcome: After negotiating for an hour or so with the company, I had to pay $175 per vehicle for a restocking fee and I was able to get my original deposit back. Luckily I was able to back out of the purchase and it only cost me $1050... Looks like I learned some valuable lessons this week.

Oh, I also got blacklisted from the auction website so I'm going to have to find another way to buy a bus. In the end, I got pretty lucky with my situation and learn from my mistake!!

[CaptainInsaneo]

Originally Posted by tsk3811

Oh, I also got blacklisted from the auction website so I'm going to have to find another way to buy a bus. In the end, I got pretty lucky with my situation and learn from my mistake!!

Yeah because you can't have your mom/neighbor/girlfriend/uncle/kid/friend "buy the bus" for you, surely they will see through such a ruse.

Glad to hear you didn't get saddled with 6 busses. And I hope you learned your lesson, bid on one at a time (maybe 2 but not 6)

[bansil]

Wow, how exactly did you accidentally bid on 6 buses?

The whole story may help others in the future

Did you bid on a "lot" or actually 6 different lot numbers

and you can always have someone else bid on the buses like has been mentioned

[tsk3811]

I actually bid on 6 individual buses. I didn't think I get them all for 2 grand each because I saw a bunch get sold for $6000+.

I don't think I'll have a problem having someone I know place a bid for me but I'm going to wait a couple months until I save money before I do that.

[Booyah45828]

The problem with bidding on busses like that online, is that the condition/options mean the difference between a 1,000 and a 10,000 bus, and I've never seen an auction that listed all of the options like that. So with that said, don't ever assume that the busses selling this week are going to go for the 6000 that the ones last week went for. At the cost of $1050 I imagine you learned your lesson.

Another 2 cents that I have for you is to keep a running total of all the stuff you're committing(bidding on) to buy, even if you don't think you'll win. That way you never run over what you have to spend and end up in the pickle that you were in.

[carneiro1292]

which auction website?

[tsk3811]

This was on Proxibid. They have some really awesome stuff on there. I would definitely recommend looking there for buses. Just be careful with your bids.

I also have another mistake that I made that I'll share with everyone. When looking through random bids, I found an item listed 120 bottles of body wash. I figured I'd put a small bid of $10 on the item to get the lot of 120 and never have to buy body wash again (along with giving the best stocking-stuffers imaginable). Well it turns out that when you place a bid on the 'lot of items', the price is per individual item. This means that I placed a bid for $10 a bottle, for a total maximum potential cost of $1,200...

After winning the buses I realized I was in trouble if I won the auction for the body wash. I was sort of willing to figure out a plan if I couldn't get out of the bus purchase but I have no idea what I would have done if I won the auction for the body wash. Good thing Proxibid blacklisted me after I backed out of the buses because otherwise I would have had 120 bottles to now get rid of.

[Booyah45828]

Sounds like your having one helluva week. 120 bottles of body wash . I'm not lauging at you, because I've been there before, live and learn man. I guess you could say being blacklisted wasn't all bad.

[jake_blue]

Auction sites post the rules quite clearly so let's try reading them first.

[Scooternj]

Originally Posted by jake_blue

Auction sites post the rules quite clearly so let's try reading them first.

Actually, I looked at Proxibid site and they say *nothing* about lot purchases. I think they leave that up to the individual vendors.

[CaptainInsaneo]

Yeah sometimes they are listed as "dutch auctions" where you bid your price per and the quantity is known or you can set your amount. They used to be a thing on ebay back in the day but the retail auction housed get a crap load of hate over it. So you typically only see these on the wholesale/industrial side.

Fun fact this style is called a dutch auction because that is how flowers were/are sold in the Netherlands on the wholesale level.