There are many ways an online car auction can go off the rails — so many, in fact, that I write a regular column about it. So far, we’ve seen instances of a potentially illegal import and a combative seller, and hilariously bad seemingly-AI-generated images. Inaccurate documentation is often much harder to spot, but the possibility of a falsified invoice sent a Bring A Trailer auction for a 1974 Alfa Romeo Spider 2000 Veloce completely off the rails.
At first, everything seemed fine with the listing. Here was a cheerfully yellow Series 2 Alfa Romeo Spider with unique green upholstery, a clean engine bay, period-correct aftermarket wheels, and a mint undercarriage. There was even an invoice for recent work. Then a comment appeared from Bring A Trailer user “Stewart” that threw the auction for a loop.
Hi, this is Stewart from Alfa performance connection the invoice in picture 136 is fake. That was a not produced by my company. Somebody has used an invoice and doctored it up changing work done on it that was not done by Alfa Performance Connection.
Here is the invoice in question, and there looks to be some weirdness going on. It seems that two different writing instruments may have been used, and both the “model” field and the date field appear as if they could’ve been written over.
There’s some real credence to the claim that this invoice doesn’t belong to this Alfa Romeo Spider. Alfa Performance Connection is marked as “Permanently Closed” on Google, and a thread on AlfaBB claims the shop “was in the last throes of moving out” from its Batavia St. location on Feb. 10, just two days after the date of the invoice. As it turns out, it didn’t take long for the seller to respond, and surprisingly, there wasn’t any arguing over the accuracy of the invoice.
“To Bring a Trailer, I want to clarify that the receipt previously attached was an error and does not relate to my Alfa Romeo. I lost the correct receipt, which was on the file of the car. However, I want to assure everyone that all four brake calipers have been fully replaced with a brand-new set and come with a guarantee. Please remove the incorrect receipt from the listing. Thank you.” That should clear it all up!
The response raises even more questions. How does having “lost the correct receipt” result in a completely different work invoice making it to the auction listing? Also, without having proof, were the brake calipers actually overhauled? They look fairly shiny in photos, but a documentation issue like this can cause a real loss of confidence. A mere 27 minutes after the seller’s comment, Bring A Trailer dropped the following comment:
Thank you @seller for clarifying. We have removed the invoice from Alfa Performance Connection from the gallery.
The comment community was unimpressed. A user by the screen name “MCinSD” wrote “@seller, a falsified receipt is an “error”? They say ‘buy the seller, not the car’…”, while commenter “kstukas” tagged Bring A Trailer to raise a complaint about the situation:
Seriously @bringatrailer? Seller doesn’t have a receipt for supposed work, proceeds to falsify one, gets caught, says it was an “error” and we sweep it under the rug like nothing happened? If they’re lying about this, they’re likely lying about other things. Talk about lack of integrity.
This comment inadvertently sparked off another point of controversy because it was responded to twice, first by user “naftana” then two minutes later by the seller, “pacificimport.” The problem here is that both of these response comments were identical:
@ KSTUKAS,
I hope you’re doing well. I want to address your concerns in a clear and transparent manner. First and foremost, I take my reputation on Bring a Trailer very seriously, and I would never intentionally misrepresent anything. The receipt you referenced was mistakenly added from a different part of my records, and I fully admit that it was an error. I lost the correct receipt, but I want to assure you that all work was done as described. This auction is truly an as-is, no reserve sale, and I would never try to hide anything. If you feel uncomfortable, I completely respect your decision not to bid, but I ask that you please refrain from jeopardizing my standing. Thank you very much for your time and understanding.
If we look a little bit deeper at both accounts, we can see that naftana placed two bids on a 1992 Mercedes-Benz 300D that pacificimport auctioned on Bring A Trailer back in July of 2024. That’s a little suspicious considering the circumstances of these recent comments. Hypothetically, if a seller were to bid on their own item using a different account, that’s called shill bidding, a method of market manipulation used with the goal of getting other bidders to pay more for an item. I definitely don’t have enough evidence to make accusations, but commenter “StoningtonImports” raised this exact issue in the comments.
I just noticed that “naftana” posted the same exact message as “pacificimport” and then noticed that pacificimport’s last auction was shill bid by… wait for it… naftana.
It’s worth noting that the seller still didn’t address why this receipt existed or what car it may have been for. I’ve reached out to see if it’s possible to get to the bottom of this, and will update you in the event I learn more. In the last hours of bidding, Bring A Trailer finally pulled the plug on the auction and issued the following comment:
Hello all, After a close review and discussion, we have several unresolved concerns about the seller’s actions in this auction. As a result we are withdrawing it. This is something we take very seriously, and all involved accounts have been restricted at this time. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
What’s interesting here is that Bring A Trailer initially responded to the inaccurate invoice within half an hour, but took an additional eighteen hours or so to pull the listing. Bring A Trailer has previously pulled auctions rather than amending them when there’s a possibility of misrepresentation, so this situation raises some questions about standard operating procedures. I reached out to Bring A Trailer to enquire about what standardized steps are taken when there’s a possibility a car may be misrepresented, and the firm responded with the comment above.
While inaccurate records aren’t unheard-of, it’s reasonable to expect a marketplace with a five percent buyer’s premium to attract cars with more pedigree than say, Facebook Marketplace. While investigating the veracity of every service invoice of every car would be labor-intensive and in some cases impossible, buyers put a lot of trust in documentation. Consider this a reminder to be careful when buying used cars. No matter where they’re listed, some might not be as honest as they present.
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
The invoice date is the real smoking gun (it looks like 8/8/21 originally) and maybe carbon paper and then someone used a pen to change and add some things. Very amateur hour especially in this day in age. They probably thought since the shop closed it was a free for all. Standard polyester suit shenanigans.
Did not know Weasels were able to use BAT.
Let alone be capable of typing.
We live in a wonderful world.
But a weasel is still a weasel in my book. Funk dat…
I’d also like to know where the car was between 1974 and about 1985, based on the CA License Plate, assuming there is a “1” in front of the letters.
Deceit, thy undoing is palimpsest.
Is it suspicious that the service writer on the alleged invoice spells “brakes” as “breaks”?
Or that the invoice appears to have a sticker with the shop name placed on a generic, possibly much older form. How many places these days don’t use custom-printed forms?
not necessarily, that seems pretty common these days, if Marketplace and Craigslist are anything to go by. At least they wrote Alfa instead of Alpha – or
“Honda S2000 – PLEASE READ I couldn’t figure out how to select Alfa Romeo in the drop down menu, but this is an Alfa Romeo Spider, not a Honda” – those sorts of listings seem weirdly common
It should be, but knowing the service writers I know, getting at least a homonym right is solid work.
Sure, many service writers don’t know much more about cars other than they have 4 wheels (usually) and an engine (usually) but I would expect a service writer at a specialty shop that deals with vintage Alfa Romeos to be a bit more knowledgeable than the people at your local Chevy dealership.