From: chance wolf (chance_wolf@shaw.ca)
Date: Wed Mar 23 2005 - 19:15:27 PST
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mil-Veh Co." <milveh@sbcglobal.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 9:28 AM
Subject: Re: [MV] No bargains at auctions like G/L's
> Geez, there must be a surplus of money in this
> country....you see the prices on "junk" at GL and GSA
> auctions lately? It's un-reeeeeal. lol
Ridiculous is the word. I've basically given up. GL has replaced the
dealers and has itself become a retailer, so anyone hoping to buy wholesale
and mark up goods a few dollars to earn a living can now essentially forget
it. GL is selling that to the public as "buy stuff for what the dealers
pay!", but the reality is that they're essentially saying, "Dealers! Try to
make a living buying stuff at Retail just like you were John Q. Public!"
There are a lot of dealers in this hobby who are very reputable, honest, and
price things to make a living but don't rape the collectors. Having said
that, there are an awful lot of outright usurious bastards who traditionally
used their knowledge of the inner workings of the old DRMS system to buy
stuff by the pound and sell it by the ounce. GL knew that, and set up
Government Ebay so all the profits lining the pockets of the unscrupulous in
the old days now line the pockets of GL. But you could argue the
playing-field has become equal - provided that you don't have to earn a
living.
> I went to the last 3 big GSA car auctions in
> Sacramento and never saw one good deal in over a 1500
> vehicles, won't be going anymore. I saw these pro
> buyers buying on a razor thin profit margin using
> volumn to make it work and then there was the amature
> individual buyers who always pay too much.
There's a new crop of amateur buyers every sale - be it GSA or GL - so there
will be no shortage of people bidding something up from the sublime to the
ridiculous every, single, solitary sale. There can be no learning curve if
it's different people each time, as the punters who bought the deuce with a
blown differential, no radiator, and an engine tagged "Unserviceable - no
compression on 5,6" for $3800.00 instead of spending the extra 800 bucks to
get one off a dealer which had been checked won't come back to buy a second
one. But his brother, uncle, aunt, friends at work and other associated
acquaintances will.
> Man...I've NEVER had worse experiences dealing with
> anyone in 30 years of business. GL has the all time
> worst attitude (at mgmt.level)
In defense of GL, the guys at Ft. Lewis WA can't be beat. They're great to
deal with. We've had the computer-generated snottygrams whenever we
haven't picked up some $4 item within the 14 days or whatever, but we've
(company I subcontract to) usually resolved it with a phone call or two.
Form 97's - entirely different story - but so many hands are in that
particular pot it's hard to assign blame.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat May 07 2005 - 20:41:25 PDT