FAQ's

Fee Structure

Buyer Fees are paid when a vehicle is purchased and are calculated on a per-vehicle basis based on the hammer price as shown in the chart below. Buyer Fees are added to the vehicle purchase price and paid through electronic funds transfer via ACH or approved floorplan.

Seller Fees are deducted from the proceeds of the transaction. The remaining balance will be paid via ACH after the title, and associated proof of ownership documents have been received and payment has been received from the buyer.

Hammer PriceBuyer FeeSeller Fee
$1-$999$100$100
$1,000-$3,999$200$200
$4,000-$9,999$360$200
$10,000-$19,999$395$200
$20,000-$29,999$435$200
$30,000-$39,999$475$200
$40,000 or more$500$200
 
 
What Do The Status Lights Mean?

There are a total of 7 light statuses as described below:

Solid Green Light

Full arbitration support is available

Solid Yellow Light

Meaningful condition items that are reported that cannot be arbitrated

Solid Red Light

As-Is sale due to the condition of the vehicle

Blue Light

Title absent

Hollow Lights
A hollow light indicates that the vehicle is being sold as-is because: the current price is below $4,000 and/or the mileage is at or above 150,000 miles/TMU. The color of the circle’s rim still indicates the vehicle’s condition. A hollow light may become an arbitrable solid light only when the bidding rises to $4,000 or more.

Proxy Bidding

Changing a Proxy bid

A proxy bid may only be changed while the vehicle in question is shown in the Run List section on the bidding application. To change your bid you can simply enter a new proxy bid (higher or lower than your original bid). Note that the minimum proxy bid must be equal to or greater than the starting bid price shown on the screen.  Note that you cannot change your proxy bid during a live auction.

Removing a Proxy bid

A proxy bid may only be removed while the vehicle in question is shown in the Run List section on the bidding application. To remove your proxy bid you can simply enter a new proxy bid with a zero dollar ($0) amount.  Note that you cannot remove your proxy bid during a live auction.

What Happens When I Am The High Bidder?

If you were the high bidder and the reserve is met, the car is yours, and you may checkout!

If you were the high bidder and the reserve was NOT met then…

As a reward for being the high bidder, you will enter into “Closed Negotiations” with the seller. During this time no one else will be able to bid on the vehicle and the seller has 18 hours to either accept your bid or make a counteroffer.

  • If they accept your bid, congratulations, you have won the auction!
  • If they make a counteroffer, the vehicle will remain in Closed Negotiations for three negotiation attempts or until one of the following events occurs:
    • Both parties come to an agreement on the price and the vehicle is sold
    • Either party rejects the other party’s offer and chooses not to continue negotiating
    • The buyer has not responded to the seller’s most recent counter offer within three hours. Our goal here is not to tie up the seller’s car if the buyer is not actively negotiating.

 

Once Closed Negotiations have ended, the vehicle will be available for open bidding. Please keep in mind that you can still submit additional bids but you will no longer have exclusive access to the vehicle.

Detailed Closed Negotiations Breakdown

1. Auction Ended -> Waiting on seller to respond to high bid (1st exchange in closed):

  • Seller has 3 hours to respond.
  • Accepts offer -> Sold
  • Counter -> Stays in closed
  • Offer expires, -> Goes into open negotiation and the offer is still valid for another 15 hours

2. Seller counters within the 3 hours -> Waiting on buyer (2nd exchange):

  • Buyer has 1 hour to respond to sellers counter
  • Accepts counter -> Sold
  • Counters (makes new offer) -> Stays in closed
  • Rejects counter -> Goes into open negotiations (no pending counter or offers at this point)
  • Counter expires -> Goes into open negotiation and counter is still valid for another 17 hours

3. Buyer counters the counter (makes new offer) within the 1 hour -> Waiting on seller (3rd and final exchange):

  • Seller has 3 hours to respond to buyers new offer
  • Accepts offer -> Sold
  • Counters -> Goes into open negotiation and counter is still valid for 18 hours
  • Rejects offer -> Goes into open negotiations (no pending counter or offers at this point)
  • Offer expires -> Goes into open negotiation and offer is still valid for another 15 hours

Notes:

  • If an offer expires in open or closed negotiations the buyer can re-submit the same offer
  • If there aren’t any active offers/counters on a vehicle, a seller can counter the high bidder at their high bid
  • Both offers and counters in open negotiations will always expire in 18 hours
Transportation

Auction Central has partnered with Crestline Auto Transportation, so both buyers and sellers are able to receive and ship their cars in a secure and seamless transaction.

To visit Crestline’s FAQ Page, Click Here

How To Set Dealer Attestation (Selling)

We have put together a short & simple video on how to fill out the dealer attestation & set your reserve. Click here to watch.

Written Instructions:


So our condition report writers came out and wrote a few of your vehicles. Now its time for you, the seller, to go in, fill out the dealer attestation & set your reserve. This whole process can take less than a minute per car.


To find the newly written reports, you need to go to the “Dealership section” (the person icon) and select the appropriate vehicle in the pending tab. Vehicles with an exclamation mark are ready for your review. A slash indicates that we must review the report and a checkmark means your vehicle is ready for auction! 

 

Click into the vehicle in question… If you’d like to view the condition report that we wrote, click the vehicle title at the top. Feel free to view our photos & condition notes. Now let’s close out, and fill out some information.

First select your pickup location, then how you’d like to be paid & then complete the dealer attestation. There are just a few things that we want to confirm with you like if the title is present, the current frame condition and title status.

Once you check those boxes, all that’s left is to set your floor and add any comments for other dealers to see like “Just put brand new tires on”.


Once you do that, you can hit Submit, and we’ll give it one last look before putting it on the auction.



Updating Dealer Documents

Our team has put together a quick video tutorial on how to update your dealer documents. To watch that video, click here.

Written Instructions:

You may have seen a notification to update some of your dealer documents when logging onto our platform. To comply with Department of Motor Vehicles rules and regulations we must have a valid & up to date dealers license and resale certificate for all dealers on our platform. I’ll show exactly how to update this information so you can get back to buying and selling on the platform.


To update your documents on our iOS App, click the gear icon and then select “Dealer Documents” and then you will be prompted to update your information. You can upload a file from your library or simply take a picture by using the camera feature. Do the same for the Resale Certificate, hit submit and you’re all set.


On the web or desktop, you can do this by clicking more and then your dealership name, which should have a red exclamation mark on it. Once you click, you’ll be prompted to fill out some information & upload the required documents.

Supported Floor Plans

We currently support the following Floor Plans:

AFC
NextGear
Westlake
Kinetic
Auto Use
Shamrock Finance
CAR Financial Services
Dealer Preferred Capital
Huntington National Bank
Bank of America
CarBucks
Axle Funding
Lever
Hyundai Capital

Your Floor Plan isn’t listed? No problem, we can contact them to get them onboarded with our finance department!

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