Further research was wrong. The $50 pistol ended up costing me over $100 with auction fees, tax and shipping!
Yea, I saw that auction and had to go with a big, fat, "No!"
Always read the auction terms before bidding on hibid, proxibid, probid, etc. Some of the fees are insane. Shipping can be even worse. And if they don't talk about firearms, specifically, it means they don't sell many or may not have ever sold them before.
Bad, bad things come from that.
I was involved in a proxibid auction last year where it was the auction house's first time selling guns. So, of course, "go big," right? They had 1,300 firearms in that auction.
About 50 guns were "removed from the auction" by the auctioneer, during live bidding, because he wanted them at the current bid - and didn't want further competition or higher bids.
Over 20% of the guns went missing in transport to the FFL.
At least 300 (THREE HUNDRED) were shipped to the wrong FFLs (only two of those ended up with the correct buyer, that I know of).
Buyer's premium was 29% (!).
And "buyer pays actual shipping costs" turned out to mean, "buyer pays the FFL handling fee of $50 per item, plus $25 packaging fee per item, plus Next-Day-Air rates ... even though everything showed up with USPS labels."
Most of the winning bidders had to pay $150-250 *per item* for shipping and fees, and still did not get to see their firearms until 80-90 days after auction close.
It was a nightmare.
But that's not all. They were so disorganized that throughout the entire ordeal, which didn't officially come to a close until about a month ago, the auction house kept reporting bidders as non-paying and getting them banned from proxibid. Most of those buyers only found out about this when they got
collections notices or credit notifications. More people are now reporting getting the same collections / credit / banned account notifications, 6 months later.
I had 13 winning bids in that auction. Over the course of the 68-ish days it took for me to finally receive the final product, I only had three of them in my hands. The auctioneer "reclaimed" a few. Two were sold to other bidders, after auction close. And the rest just disappeared. I did get refunded for those. But it was pure insanity.
Always, always, always read the auction terms.
If the terms are not clear, reasonable, and easy to understand, stay the @#$! away.