Bring a Trailer is a major marketplace in the enthusiast car world. It’s supposed to work like any other auction site; people bid, somebody wins, and then the buyer pays for the car and the seller hands it over. But recent auctions for two JDM Suzukis didn’t go like that at all, with the high-bidders thinking they scored a deal on a no-reserve listing, only to be disappointed by a ridiculous situation that raises questions about how much buyers can really trust online car auctions.
We’ve discussed the perils of “no reserve” auctions before. The simple fact is you’re expected to give up your vehicle for whatever price the auction ends at. If it’s lower than you wanted, that’s too bad—you agreed to sell, come what may. Now and then, that leaves a seller with hurt feelings and a bank account a little slimmer than they would have liked.
Earlier this month, something curious happened on Bring a Trailer. Two buyers of classic kei cars both reported a seller for allegedly refusing to provide the vehicle at the final no-reserve-auction bid. One auction gone bad is a footnote, but two on the same day is a story. The further we dug in, the murkier things got.
No Reserve!
Our story begins with a van. Take a look at this Bring a Trailer auction for a 1988 Suzuki Every EPi Turbo. It’s a diminutive four-wheel-drive machine with forced induction and a five-speed transmission, imported from Japan — a desirable enthusiast car.
The vehicle was listed for sale by BaT user 5starjdm, apparently based in New Jersey. It went to auction and sold for $5,876 to user Cheesebrgreddi on June 30. Only, the next day, there appeared to be a problem:
“This seller is refusing to sell the vehicle to me at this price even though it was listed on a no-reserve auction,” wrote Cheesebrgreddi in the comments. “I would not recommend anyone doing business with these people in the future. What a joke.”
The Suzuki Every auction appeared to have gone wrong—but it wasn’t the only one. Commenters pointed to a 1996 Suzuki Carry fire truck that 5starjdm had sold the same day. The no-reserve auction closed for $7,800. The next day, auction winner Zangadousa posted in excitement that they would soon pick up the vehicle. Ten minutes later they wrote in the comments of the listing that they were reaching out to Bring A Trailer for help. “Seller is saying he is not selling the truck for the auction price… what do I do now?”
Bring a Trailer’s comment system makes it difficult for us to reach the buyers and sellers directly, but I attempted nonetheless to find out what happened after the fact. Here’s what I dug up.
Listing Says Private Party, But It Appears To Be A Dealership
A second comment from Cheesebrgreddi caught my eye. The buyer drew some conclusions from their communications with 5starjdm after the auction. “I assume he will be removed from here but who knows,” they stated. “The auction says private party but from the emails I got he is clearly a dealer.” Basically, the listings on Bring a Trailer indicated the vehicles were being sold by an individual, but Cheesebrgreddi didn’t think that was the case.
There was evidence to suggest that the “5starjdm” account is associated with or operated by an import car dealer. Videos shared on Bring a Trailer are hosted on the Japstar Imports channel on YouTube. A 1989 Rover Mini was also recently listed by 5starjdm on Bring a Trailer, and failed to sell because that one auction had a reserve set.; what appears to be the same car also appears on the website of Japstar Imports. Japstar is located in Pennsuaken, the same area of New Jersey as listed on the 5starjdm account.
As I investigated on June 17, I saw that Japstar’s website also links to another website that sells kei trucks—a dealer called Street Legal Mini Trucks. The dealer website was listing a 1996 Suzuki Carry fire truck that appears to match the one recently listed on Bring a Trailer, with matching mileage to boot. It was up for $17,500—a long way above the no-reserve sale price of $7,800. Street Legal Mini Trucks also listed a 1988 Suzuki Every Turbo that appears identical to the one on BaT (though with different mileage) with a note that the vehicle was “GOING TO COLLECTOR CAR AUCTION.”
It was time to start asking some serious questions.
The Seller’s View
I reached out to JapStar Imports and the associated Street Legal Mini Trucks website, hoping to gain some clarification on what went down. Sales manager “Alex A.” indicated that things had gone sideways before the cars were even listed. “The 1996 Carry firetruck sold for $18,000 around June 10 before it was listed for sale on bring a trailer,” Alex told me via e-mail. “I alerted the bat staff that I already had the vehicle potentially sold.” Despite this, the auction went ahead, and things spiraled from there.
“They said since I already submitted payment and they had already spent time (about 1 month) putting the listing together that I needed to follow through with the listing,” Alex alleged. “I made a post that the vehicle was sold outside bat when the listing went active, [but] the people at bat deleted my post and gave me a warning.”
The results of the auction did not please Alex, who mentioned the winning bidder on Bring a Trailer: “When the bidding finally ended at a super low bid amount it was funny the ‘winning bidder’ was so quick to want to pick it up the same day because he knew it sold way too cheap and he was trying to get over on the deal,” said Alex. “Can’t even buy that truck in Japan for only $8000 in such perfect condition with such low miles.”
Ultimately, Alex told us he had sold the vehicle to a buyer outside Bring a Trailer and that the deal was done. “Anyways I personally delivered the truck to its new owner in Tennessee and he couldn’t have been happier,” he said.
Alex’s email raised a few new questions. He’d apparently sold the truck on June 10, but hadn’t taken payment. The auction still went up, and as it proceeded on June 30, Alex made several comments answering bidder’s questions and encouraging them to buy the vehicle.
The auction ended on that day, June 30, even though Alex had apparently sold the truck off-site and would later deliver it for $18,000. And yet, strangely, the truck remained listed for sale on the dealer’s website for $17,500 for over a month after it had “sold” on June 10, and well after the BaT auction had ended.
In his initial emails to The Autopian, Alex claimed the truck was “sold” as of June 10, though he also later uses the term “potentially sold.” In any case, he provided the above images in an email telling us he personally delivered the truck to a buyer in Tennessee. The metadata of the images indicate they were taken minutes apart on July 16. This, and his comments on June 30, seem to suggest that Alex still had possession of the vehicle several weeks after the Bring a Trailer auction concluded – and over a month after the vehicle was apparently “sold” on June 10.
Alex’s reply only accounted for the fire truck; there was no explanation of what happened with the Suzuki Every van.
David Calls The Seller To Answer Some Of These Questions
David Tracy, The Autopian’s Editor-in-Chief, reached out to Alex for some clarifications. First, he wanted to know why Alex had been commenting on Bring a Trailer if the fire truck was already sold. The nature of Alex’s comments seem to imply that he was still open to sell the vehicle. This comment for example:
@Zangadousa – The truck does not come with AC but AC can easily be added for an extra charge should the winning bidder decide to have it installed. Thank you
And especially this one:
@SWEQS – You should buy the truck and start a Youtube channel dedicated to mini firetruck ASMR videos!! Would be an amazing way to become youtube famous! haha 🙂
Alex said he was commenting because he knew the buyer was paying attention. “The buyer was watching the Bring a Trailer auctions, too,” he told David. “So he saw everything… I wanted the buyer to know that it is actually 4wd, because he was watching everything.”
Alex is referring to this comment:
@solidlifters – The truck says 4WD all over the place for a reason. Please look at photo #157 under the vehicle you can clearly see transfer case with drive shafts going to the front and rear, and a differential in the front and a differential in the rear. Thank you.
“I was just joking around,” Alex said, emphasizing that he wasn’t really considering selling the truck on Bring a Trailer “because my buyer already put the money down.” Alex told David that he was commenting to “play along,” saying “I’ll play along with their game. They don’t want to delete it. I’ll play along. There’s no law against that.”
When David asked Alex if he could see why it might seem that he was still considering selling it on Bring a Trailer if the bidding had gone high enough, Alex denied it, but said: “I could do that, too… there’s no law against that. I could have refunded the buyer his money and gave it to someone else…Until money is exchanged and the vehicle crosses hands, the vehicle is still owned by someone… But I’m saying, I had the vehicle sold. I wanted [the auction] ended…. I said I had the vehicle sold — please don’t list it.”
Alex later sent an email reply to David’s question (bold mine):
#3Â Why did you continue participating in the BaT auction (by commenting on June 30) if the vehicle had already sold on June 10?
– I continued participating in the BAT auction (only a little bit) because I kept getting emails from the BAT people saying that I needed to participate.
– I participated a little bit because the buyer of the truck saw the auction listing and they were following it also. I answered some of the questions so the buyer wouldn’t feel worried that the truck wasn’t 4WD, and someone asked if the siren worked and I wanted the buyer to see that yes it does work by answering the persons question.
– Also, I was hoping that the sale price would be much higher because I had already sold this truck for $18,000 and I didn’t want the price to end too low and have the customer feel bad that he paid so much for the vehicle. But $18,000 is a fair price for a brand new truck with super low miles in brand new condition. It is not a secret that super mint condition vehicles with super low miles sell for high prices on BAT, at least it was the place to sell super mint condition super low mile vehicles for high prices, but apparently it is not the case anymore.
As for why the truck was on his site well after it had allegedly been sold and well after the auction, Alex said:
“We have so many cars…there’s like five or six that are still showing as active that are already sold…we do that just because sometimes there’s similar vehicles, and people might want one, and we… it’s hard to explain…I just didn’t’ have time and i got other stuff going on.”
According to Alex, it’s a common practice for him to keep vehicles listed on the site even when they’re not available. In an email, he noted that search engine optimization (SEO) was a key reason cars remained on the site. “Someone might be searching for XYZ vehicle, it would come up on our website as available or sold… if it shows as sold then 99% of the time people will not contact,” he explained. He also noted it was useful for making it appear “the dealer has a lot more vehicles available” and that it can help customers compare prices. “It’s not illegal to keep some sold vehicles mixed in the inventory list,” Alex told The Autopian via email.
As for the vehicle being sold as a private party when he is a dealership, “It was under a personal name…if it was titled under Japstar imports, then it would be a dealer car,” he said, saying the buyer would have been confused receiving a title under a personal name if the vehicle had been listed as a dealer car. Alex noted that he gave Bring a Trailer additional information that they requested about his friend, and that this had slowed down the listing process. Here’s Alex’s email response:
Also #5 – The vehicle was not listed as dealer auction because the vehicle is a customers vehicle titled under someone else’s name. Sure we brokered the deal but we only broker vehicles on consignment for customers. So it was a personal sale not a dealer sale. If the vehicle was titled under the business name and if the vehicle was owned by japstar imports then yes it would be a dealer sale and it would not be possible for us to say its a personal vehicle sale. BAT questioned us selling a vehicle that didn’t belong to us and they requested the phone number, photo of id, and email address of the person listed on the title which we promptly provided to them without any hesitation. Deal is done, buyer is happy, seller is happy. Only person not happy is the person that temporarily paid buyers premium of less than $400 for a day or two before BAT refunded them, but they have moved on and so has everyone else.
Why did it take so long to deliver the truck based on that delivery photo’s metadata? Some of it came down to trying to bundle a dropoff instead of doing multiple one-off trips, Alex says. “I’m not gonna go 10 hours to deliver the fire truck and then wait another 10 days to deliver the camo truck [located within an hour of the other truck],” he said, referencing the other vehicle in the photo, saying delays with payments also contributed to the mid-July dropoff.
As for why he didn’t have the buyer just bid on the truck on Bring a Trailer, Alex replied: “I’m not gonna make him pay $900 extra for nothing…”I’m not paying [that]…Because they wouldn’t’ take the ad down when I requested.”
Before the call was over, Alex made it clear how absurd he found the high bid, and that he had only agreed to a “no reserve” after Bring a Trailer had allegedly pushed for a no reserve auction. “That’s like a steal, that’s not a deal. That’s getting over on someone; that’s not fair to anyone…That’s why I wanted the reserve.”
BaT Responds To Our Inquiry
The Autopian approached Bring a Trailer after receiving the first statement from Alex A., seeking comment on the matter. In particular, regarding whether the website knew the vehicle had been sold ahead of time. Representatives for the website refused to provide any specific information on the auctions concerned. Instead, Bring a Trailer provided the following statement (bold ours):
Though we are not going to discuss the specifics of this situation out of respect for the privacy of the customers involved, I can say that we expect all buyers and sellers to follow through with their bids and sales on the site, and typically when that does not happen they are restricted from further participation on BaT. We also would never start an auction if we know that the vehicle is not available for sale, and there have been cases where we have stopped auctions due to miscommunications or misunderstandings around the availability of a car to transact. It’s also important to note that sellers must approve a draft of their listing prior to the start of the auction.
Any time we are made aware of a problem with a sale after an auction, whether that is via the comments or elsewhere, we have a specific customer service team that reaches out to both parties to try and resolve the situation. We may not always address it publicly in the comments, but in any situation in which a winning bidder is not able to purchase a vehicle through no fault of their own, their BaT fees are promptly refunded.
It’s worth noting that, regarding the seller having to approve the draft, here’s what the seller, Alex, said in an email:
#4Â Bring a Trailer says all sellers have to approve of a draft prior to the listing going up; when and why did you approve of it if the vehicle was already sold?The draft was approved before the vehicle was sold. They took forever to list the vehicle, and I already told them the vehicle was potentially sold. And the day after they listed the vehicle I asked them to remove it or what’s the process like to take it down or whatever. They told me it’s not their standard practice to take listings down. I didn’t want to cause any problems with BAT because it’s not my website and I asked them if my buyer makes a bid for $18,000 if he can do so without having to pay buyer premium, but they said no (see screenshot)
At this point, the stories from each side didn’t match up. However, when queried, Alex had some receipts to share. “I have screenshots of the conversation with bat staff,” he told The Autopian on Friday. “I submitted the vehicle to be listed on June 2. I told them that I’m most likely selling the vehicle outside of BAT for 18k on june 17,” he explained. “They listed the truck on June 23, and on June 24 I notified them that the truck is basically already sold.”
The screenshots provided by Alex appear to show chats with Bring a Trailer staff. They are incomplete and there’s no way to verify them with the auction refusing to comment further, but they appear to show Alex notifying the website ahead of time that he might sell the vehicle outside of Bring a Trailer. However, there’s something else questionable here:
Remember when we stated the Bring a Trailer auctions were listed as “Private Party”? The screenshots appear to show Bring a Trailer staffer Steven Richards, Senior Manager of Auction Production; per the email screenshot, he had apparently “[come] up with a few questions about the sale / ownership situation on this one.” We don’t see the whole conversation, but Alex indicates that the truck is not titled in his name. “Yes the truck is titled in Jordan’s name so it is not ‘dealership’ it is private sale,” says Alex. “However I am the owner as I said I have the keys, I have the truck, and I have the title.”
Steve came back to Alex and indicated this was not acceptable. “We require all private sellers to have a title in their name,” said Steven. “If you are representing this sale as the owner we’ll need to see a title that has been issued in your name.” At this point in the conversation on June 18, Steven Richards indicated he was going out of town, and would be handing over the matter to another staffer.
The screenshots provided by Alex show that he told Bring a Trailer that he was the owner, while also stating the title was in “Jordan’s name.” This contradicts what he told us by email, that the vehicle was being sold on consignment for a customer. Either Alex owned a vehicle which still had a title in someone else’s name, or he didn’t own the vehicle and was selling it on consignment. He told Bring a Trailer one thing and told The Autopian another.
Ultimately, we don’t know if there was further conversation to resolve the title issue, but it appears Bring a Trailer went ahead with the listing. Both auction listings stated the vehicles were “offered at no reserve in New Jersey by the seller on behalf of the current owner,” with clean titles from the state of Maryland. In other words, if these screenshots are legitimate, it suggests Bring a Trailer did not consider Alex the owner, presumably knew he did not have a title in his name, and listed the vehicle as “private party.” Bring a Trailer could also have readily identified that Alex was a dealer from the YouTube videos he provided to his various listings from the Japstar Imports channel.
In any case, Alex claims to be surprised a few days later when the Bring a Trailer listing went up on June 23. However, it is worth noting that, per the images above, he’s willingly providing BaT with supporting documents on June 17, just six days prior to the listing:
Wires may have gotten crossed due to a staffing issue. With Steven Richards at Bring a Trailer taking leave, he presumably handed things over. Dmitri, an Auction Support Team Specialist, appears in a later chat log from June 23, when the auction had gone live. Alex indicates he had told BaT that he wished to sell the vehicle off-site, and asks if he can redirect his listing fee to another vehicle. Dmitri appears to have responded that this was not possible, indicating that the Bring a Trailer “expect that sellers honor their commitment to see the auction through to the end.” Noting a reluctance to remove live auctions, Dmitri instead recommends a different path forward. “Please encourage your buyer to place bids on the site along other bidders,” he suggests. Alex asks if the Bring a Trailer fees can be waived if his buyer bids. The provided chat screenshots do not show what the response from Bring a Trailer was beyond this point.
If these screenshots are legitimate, they suggest that Bring a Trailer may have listed a vehicle despite knowing the seller was trying to offload it elsewhere beforehand. However, again, it is worth noting that Alex says he “might go that route” and that money has not been exchanged. It doesn’t sound definitive.
There’s more, too. Remember how a Suzuki Carry fire truck was listed on Street Legal Mini Trucks for $17,500? Now, as of the time of writing on July 20, that vehicle is listed as sold. Meanwhile, the Suzuki Every van that was listed as “GOING TO COLLECTOR CAR AUCTION”? It’s up for sale at the lofty price of $15,995! There is a discrepancy in mileage—Street Legal Mini Trucks lists it as 121,645 kilometers, while Bring a Trailer has a photo of the Every van with 21,648 kilometers on the clock. However, the vehicle has a five-digit odometer that rolls over at 100,000 kilometers, so that would account for the discrepancy between the two reports. With access to the import documentation and pre-import records from Japan, Street Legal Mini Trucks would have some idea of whether the odometer had rolled over previously.
The Autopian repeatedly raised the issue of the Suzuki Every van with Alex. He did not acknowledge the van at any point in our communications.
As seen in images below, it appears Alex has had frustrations with no reserve auctions before. In 2019, the 5starjdm account sold a Suzuki Jimny in a no-reserve auction on Bring a Trailer, and was frustrated with the result. Perhaps if he’d learned from that incident, none of this would have happened.
Notably, Japstar Imports also appears on Yelp with a 2.6 star rating. There are a number of reviews posted, with one individual particularly noting issues around titles. “I bought a car in cash from Japstar Imports and I couldn’t get the car titled,” said Michael George M. of Wyckoff, New Jersey. “Alex pays you no mind after he already has your cash. Alex will lie to you about the title process in order to get your money which you will never see again if handed over.”
A Jimny sold on Bring a Trailer by 5starjdm in 2019. Credit: Bring a Trailer
Nonsense All Round
Several parties come out looking bad in this tale. Bring a Trailer listed a car as private party that was, at the very least, being sold on consignment by a dealer, which confused buyers and likely eroded trust. Worse, an auction was held with a seller unwilling to honor the results.
For a platform as big as Bring a Trailer, it’s understandable that things will sometimes go wrong. When you handle thousands upon thousands of sales, you get to the point where some fraction of those will fall through. Sellers will bail, buyers will refuse to pay—all kinds of things can happen.
What is harder to accept is the apparent failure of checks and balances indicated by the screenshots provided to The Autopian. Perhaps there is more to the story—particularly in chats outside the screenshots that were provided to us by Alex of Japstar Imports. However, with Bring a Trailer declining to comment on this case, we can only go with what we know. What we have seen doesn’t look great.
Situations like this can quickly erode trust in a dealership and an online sales platform. Buyers want to know that they’re getting a legitimate deal from a legitimate operator. They don’t want to buy a car from someone with a title in someone else’s name, and they don’t want to pay more for a vehicle after they bid and won at auction. At this time, The Autopian has been unable to contact the affected buyers, but we would dearly love to hear their side of the story. Please reach out to tips@theautopian.com if you have any information in this regard.
Ultimately, this story tells us one thing—don’t trust everything you read on an online sale site, and don’t get too excited if you win your auction. The car’s not yours until it’s in the driveway and the title has cleared. There’s some questionable stuff going on out there, and you can’t always trust the platforms to catch it. Platforms also push hard for no reserve auctions, as this is meant to ensure vehicles always sell. However, it often leads to upset sellers, or upset buyers if the sellers welch on the deal. It’s not hard to find examples on Reddit of misery on both sides—sellers and buyers.
Regardless of what Alex may have agreed to when signing up to a no-reserve auction on Bring a Trailer, he remains steadfast about his choice not to honor the deal. In a statement, he indicated he was unrepentant for his actions.
I get it. You are making an article to bash my business for not following through with an auction. Trying to get sensationalism by spewing negativity, journalism like this is the problem with the world today. But anyways as i have shown you with the reddit links, its not uncommon for a seller to refuse to sell an item when the item sells at auction for way below its value. Put yourself in this situation, i dont know what vehicle you own, but if auction ended for $10,000 less than its worth, would you sell the item when you already have a buyer lined up to pay its actual value? But nevertheless, i welcome your bad publicity trying to make me look bad, any publicity is good publicity.
In his final communication, Alex included a YouTube video for us to indicate his position.
Oh, and despite everything? Nobody, and I mean nobody, would tell us what happened to the Suzuki Every van. That’s the way it goes.
Thanks to Mercedes Streeter, Matt Hardigree, and David Tracy for their assistance on this piece.
Image credits: Bring a Trailer, Street Legal Mini Trucks and Japstar Imports via screenshot
I am shocked, *shocked*, I tell you, that a used car dealer in New Jersey with a falsely *elevated* 2.6 Yelp rating may be kind of a shady asshole scumbag…
I’ve had nothing but great experiences selling in BaT.
I’ve been on that site almost since it began.
While it is very true BaT hates to kill an auction, the moment BaT senses the seller will not follow through, the auction is killed and the seller is banned.
Of course, the occasional scumbag, like a roach in the night, will scurry through the checks and balances BaT has erected. But the vast majority of auctions are honest and righteous and the peanut gallery can smell a rat (shillbidders and worse) right away.
Ah yes, the ever trustworthy dude who constantly notes shitty things he did are “not illegal”.
Pro tip for you youngsters: this is not the way people who know they’ve done nothing wrong talk.
What an absolute mess to have to sort through for this article. I hope it reaches the buyer and we can hear their side of it, including their interactions with Alex.
You know you’re doing investigative journalism when you’re digging through the metadata.
It doesn’t look good for BaT, but it looks suuuper shady for this Alex guy. Unfortunately, he’s not the first import seller to be highly questionable, which I just don’t get. There are some people who manage to run auto import businesses just fine with no more drama than a normal used car seller, so clearly it’s possible to do. And honestly, having now imported two vehicles, one by non-shady importer and one as a private party sale with an ocean in the middle, importing a vehicle yourself just isn’t that bad, especially if you speak the same language as the seller.
Bring a Trailer lets dealers sell as private parties ALL THE TIME. I don’t understand it, but there are plenty of power sellers selling dozens of cars every year, with 100+ total lifetime listings on their account, but they are somehow still private party.
There’s something we might have to dig into. Any accounts in particular for whom you’ve seen this sort of mass activity?
That anyone would ever try to buy a car sight unseen is mind boggling.
Every online auction is functionally sight unseen. You price in the risk for the ability to get things generally unavailable locally.