RCI Auctions NC, Inc.

This online restaurant auction posts bids using a number to identify each bidder. We had bid on one of 6 TV's that were being sold from a restaurant in Greenville, NC. All the TV's had bids at $165, so we bid on one of them to the next bid of $185.The afternoon before the close of the auction the owner and I checked the bids together, all 6 televisions had bids over $200 including the one we had bid $185. The TV's were all the same.When we discovered we had lost the bid we decided to stop bidding.Since All 6 of the TV's listed other bidder numbers as the high bid we quit. The auction closes at 9pm. The online auction posts each bidders number and bid. You can see all the activity on the bidding until after the auction. Then you can only see the winner's number and amount. They never sent an email to report we had lost the bid on the TV, but we did see that we had lost it according to the bids listed.The next morning we received an email reporting we had won the TV at a bid of $185. They were requesting information on when we would pick it up or about shipping. We called and reported that we were not the high bidder and explained the situation and told [redacted] that we had already made plans not to drive to NC b/c we knew we had not won any of the items. [redacted] was our contact person and he insisted we were the high bidder. Of course, at this time there is no way to go back and see all the bids and the high bidder we had seen the afternoon before. He was of no help in resolving the matter. I closed the credit card account before they made the charge that evening. We have had one message on the answering machine requesting payment and threatening turning over to collection.Desired SettlementI want to be removed from the auction site, have my account closed, and prevent collection actions. I believe the auction deliberately advertised higher bids on items to push the prices up and get bidders to continue to bid to get the highest price possible. When no further true bidders bid on the item to the next highest bid, they just report the last TRUE bid as the winner.The higher bids we saw listed just disappear. Business Response The person who filed the complaint was a winning bidder on my online auction site and when I attempted to call her and collect the money for the purchase she humg up on me. I called back and the call went straight to voice mail. she never called back. I called her back the call went to voice mail again. I left her a message advising her that as winning bidder she was obligated to make the payment and if she did not her account would be sent to collection. I never heard back from her. You complaint sent to me was the only response she gave. When she visited our site and signed up she gave us her email address, mailing address, credit card information to put on file in the event she was a winning bidder that we would charge at the end of the sale. She has a legal and ethical obligation to make the payment and has declined to do so. What ever her excuse it is nothing more than an attempt to not live up to the terms of the auction when she signed up. We have blocked her access to the site, removed her from the data base and consider the matter closed. I will put the item in question on another auction and will not attempt to collect the debt she incurred whil bidding on my auction.