Customer ReviewsforPurple Wave Auction, Inc.

inaccurate description of item being sold ended up being scrap metal because didn’t list parts missing other than a battery in description

I’ve been buying from PW for 7 years. This is what I’ve learned….their business model and organization is extremely flawed. They rely heavily on buyers, hence the 10% premium you pay. But at the same time, they need items to sell. So they only charge $100 to list an item to attract sellers, that way they can get that 10% from the buyers. Only problem is that they protect their sellers 100%. If you’ve got a truck with an engine going out, use Purple Wave. If you’ve got a loader that needs the entire undercarriage rebuilt, use Purple Wave. Anything you have that is busted but you can’t tell by just pictures, you’re in luck. Purple Wave reps will angle pics, fall back in videos and intentionally leave out information that would sway your buying decision. Why do this to the group that’s responsible for 95% of their revenue? Because with every dissatisfied customer there’s 3 more naive customers waiting to be taken advantage of. PW needs those high bid numbers to show potential selling clients that they can bring the big numbers. But you’ve spent tens or hundreds of thousands with them? Of course they’ll make things right. Just contact your regional rep or higher up the idiot chain to get a big middle finger that ultimately translates to “don’t trust our buyers and definitely don’t trust our paid reps; it’s their job to screw you over. Best go out and check out that unit all on your own.” Now, unlike most auctions where the buying and selling premiums are about equal and there’s full transparency to protect both sides, PW believes they can screw over buyers year after year because the supply of buyers is never ending. Or maybe that’s why they finally decided to sell…. To sum it all up, don’t trust a word out of anyone’s mouth and definitely go check out whatever you want to buy first. 90% chance it’s not what you thought it was.

I strongly advise against using purple wave. I was looking at a ditch witch mini skidsteer. I intensely watched the video from the seller, Barth equipment sales, of an employee showing the unit moves left/right and up/down. The video was less than two minutes. Seeing no obvious issues with the item, I decided to bid on it.(item is located 7 hrs away so I cannot test drive it easily). Well, I won the item for 24000.00 with another 2400.00 buyers fee I immediately paid for the item. I scheduled pickup for the item in Springfield Missouri. The owner was very rude, but I’m like whatever. So we put the running machine on the trailer (less than two minutes to do so) and went home. The unit set for a week. Went to use it… after two minutes of idling to warm up, the engine starts smoking and blowing oil out the exhaust. I took it to a shop for diagnosis. 1500.00 later they said it needs an engine. A cylinder is grooved allowing oil to blow by. Quote for engine is 13,000.00. I filed complaint with putplewave. They had me go through hoops and information gathering and saying “we are considering your situation”. Two weeks later they inform.. “I have talked to my manager and we will not be assisting you in any way”. Lesson learned??? DO NOT BUY ON PURPLE WAVE! They do not protect buyers at all!! They take the word of the seller that “oh yeah it runs just fine, no problems”. Well I’m here to tell you otherwise. I’m 33,000 into a piece of junk machine that I could’ve bought a new one for 50,000.00. Soooo disappointed. And the icing on the crap parfait? They charge 10% just to win an item to nothing more than screw you over in the end. Absolutely HORRIBLE experience. Will never use them again. I sincerely hope this review helps someone else avoid this costly experience. At the end of the day know that purple wave is an auction site and there is a reason the junk they sell is on the site.

On 11-09-2023, I purchased a 1997 Kenworth dump truck from a Purple Wave auction in Des Moines, Ia. The price I paid with the buyer's fee was $35,200.00. Before bidding, I carefully viewed the numerous photos included and watched the attached video of the truck being demonstrated and lot-driven. I also read the notes on condition, which the only concern listed was "Dash warning indicator: air warning". On 11-17-2023, I made contact and made arrangements to drive 180 miles to pick up truck later that day. Upon arrival, we located truck. There was no one there, but key was left in truck. I contacted seller, and he stated it would be ok to take the truck. We then left in truck and made our way to a fuel stop to fuel truck. after fueling, we then proceeded to get on the highway to head home. My driver immediately had problems trying to get truck to shift out of low range on the transmission. He was able to get it out of low range one time before it began grinding and went back into low range, and truck would not exceed around 20 mph in low range. We were able to limp truck to the closest heavy truck drivetrain shop we could locate, where we were told transmission was probably defective. At this time, we immediately contacted Purple Wave, as we believe truck was grossly misrepresented in their auction listing. By showing a video of truck being lot-driven, they were indicating that the transmission was good and operatable, not that it only had 3 or 4 forward gears, and would only do 20 mph. It was their responsibility to list this deficiency, as the seller would absolutely have known about this issue. Estimate to repair transmission is in excess of $11,000.00.

Shane D I do not advise using Purple Wave Auction to purchase equipment. I have purchased many items on other online auctions in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Colorado with no issues from video quality to item pickup. Not the case with Purple Wave. The video of the truck I was looking at was a 34 second video of a running engine. Looking back, I am not sure it was even an engine in the truck I was looking at. I contacted the seller and had a lengthy conversation with him about the truck. He stated that it was running and in road worthy condition, as I would need to drive it eight hours back home, though he was not present at the time Purple Wave took the video. I bid accordingly. I followed through with my end of the deal. I paid for it in a timely manner and drove there to pick it up before the deadline. Truck would not start, put three new batteries in it, got it started after 4 hours of working on it, the truck then died 1 hour down the road. Had to get it towed to a truck stop and called someone to freight it the remaining seven hours back home. After and additional input of around $4,000, Purple Wave would not help with the additional expense because I got the vehicle running and drove the vehicle off the lot. I strongly advise using other on line auctions such as Big Iron or Auction time as they have much more detailed videos and are, in general, better to work with than Purple Wave.