We no more than finished writing about Youragentbid (www.Youragentbid.com) in regard to Recognition of the online auction provider? to have more news today.
In a sweeping investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Youragentbid’s offices were raided this morning.
While the details are yet to be released in full, an interesting transcript was leaked to the press shortly after 11:00 a.m.
As the transcript corroborates, Youragentbid planned years ago to provide auctioneers an online bidding platform. Yet, apparently as early as 2003, Youragentbid had an alternative — and secretive — company plan.
This plan involved gathering enough buyer information and related public awareness, that they would enter the auction business themselves and no longer serve any other auctioneers.
Here’s the transcript as released by the FBI. The two parties talking are Youragentbid’s CEO Devin Jones (Jones) and Chief Technology Officer Nick Gilly (Gilly):AUGUST 23, 2003, 5:17 p.m.
JONES: So, how many [unintelligible] auctioneers do we have signed up yet?
GILLY: Uh, maybe 300. There’s about …
JONES: 300? That’s not nearly enough. I want over 1,000 by year-end.
GILLY: We’ll get there. They don’t know [unintelligible] … plan.
JONES: No, they don’t. I think we’re on track to get some endorsements soon.
GILLY: Great. And, we …
JONES: When do you think we can pull the trigger? When can we move forward on this?
GILLY: It may be several years. The thing is, how do we know when … I mean, how many is enough?
JONES: We don’t need them all. Whatever buyers don’t sign up when we change over, we can get …
GILLY: Right, and we’ll have …[unintelligible] by 2010 or 11 …
JONES: Exactly. Now, do we have our website set up yet?
GILLY: No. We can wait on that. I’ll set it up a few days before we need it. That way, we don’t …
JONES: Okay, yea. Let’s wait.
PHONE RINGS
GILLY: Gilly here … Yes, we’re glad to help … yea, we’re all about helping auctioneers … okay, we’ll talk Monday.
PHONE CALL ENDS
JONES: Who was … [unintelligible] phone … another auctioneer?
GILLY: Yep, and maybe 200 new buyers …
JONES: Great.
So, this is how Youragentbid planned to enter the auction business themselves, armed with over 1,000,000 buyer names and profiles by 2011, and enough money to market themselves as the auctioneer to help anyone sell their items on their system: Youragentbid.com.
The FBI noted in a press conference at about 2:00 p.m. today that Youragentbid.com had registered a new website just about a week ago, and had started to utilize a wholly-owned outside company for any auction leads.
Auctioneers around the country were alarmed by this news, but auctioneer-association spokesperson Tim Cooper said in a prepared statement:“There is little our members can do now but embrace this change. For the public, they will still have a choice, but Youragentbid.com has effectively become the largest and most profitable auctioneer on earth with the help of 1,000’s of auctioneers — 1,000’s of auctioneers they no longer need or serve.”
Youragentbid did not release a statement.
* The above account including company names, events, etc. are purely fictional. This scenario has been created solely for educational purposes.
Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, CAI, AARE has been an auctioneer and certified appraiser for over 30 years. His company’s auctions are located at: Mike Brandly, Auctioneer, Keller Williams Auctions and Goodwill Columbus Car Auction. His Facebook page is: www.facebook.com/mbauctioneer. He is adjunct faculty at Columbus State Community College and is Executive Director of The Ohio Auction School.
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