I am no financial or marketing genius, but I know that the term “liquidation” can be defined by just one simple phrase, “turning of goods into cash.” Unfortunately, the auction site, Liquidation.com seems to take this definition too seriously. This online bidding hell is notorious for turning any kind of goods into big cash, majority of which probably goes direct to the pockets of the company behind this atrocity, Liquidity Services, Inc.

I may be getting way ahead of myself here so let me give you some examples to prove my point.

Liquidation.com has a rather different view of the term, “goods.”  If you look it up in a glossary of accounting terms, the word “goods” is defined as “a physical product capable of being delivered to a purchaser and involves the transfer of ownership from seller to customer.” If we go by this definition, then Liquidation.com seems to have a problem with comprehension. Because, there are certainly some things stated there that seems to be missing when I availed of Liquidation.com services as a buyer.

I registered an account at Liquidation.com in all faith that I would be able to make at least some decent buys. I put bids on some thirty plus lots and was actually pleased when I even won a few of them and in relatively low prices at that. But what happened afterwards both shocked and enraged me. It seems that sellers, whose sales do not do well as expected, actually have the right to just suddenly cancel their auctions without any warning. So where is the “transfer of ownership from seller to customer” here?  Please, can someone enlighten me? Because, in my dictionary, that just means plain thievery.

Of course, I reported the incident to Liquidation.com. I was encouraged by a clause that is stated in their “Terms and Conditions”:


If you think that being scammed by the seller was bad enough, think again. It obviously did not stop there. What is worse is that Liquidation.com took weeks before they could return my check, and even more so to cash them out!  Oh sure, they told me that they penalized the seller, but should I take comfort in that?  Evidently, I should not, since they welcomed these sellers back to their fold to scam more people. These sellers probably had on straight faces when they put back the lots, the same ones that I had paid for, into new auctions!

Liquidation.com gave those thieves a second chance without blinking, but they did not think to compensate me for the time and money I spent in fulfilling my part of the bargain. Their “Terms and Conditions” does not mean anything but a means to easily gain people’s trust and nothing else.

What happened to me is not just a rare case in a hundred. I was appalled by the huge number of people complaining about Liquidation.com in various consumer forums and sites. The comments bear sentiments that range anywhere from annoyance to full-blown rage. Most of these cases are misrepresentations.

One buyer from California bought a certain number of boxes of goods. When the merchandise came, it was one box less. The buyer inspected the goods and found that more than half of the items were not described as they were on the website. He e-mailed a complaint to Liquidation.com but up to the time he posted his rant online, there had still been no reply. The only significant change that he noticed was that his tracking page now shows that only one package was delivered to him. Talk about weird.

Another buyer from Florida bought more than a thousand dollars worth of watches that were described as “shelf pulls” that were “ready for re-sale.” When the merchandise came, not one of the watches even worked! Is this what Liquidation.com call “ready for re-sale?”

Pictures on the website do not correspond with the actual goods. One buyer was thrilled upon seeing pictures of used but brand named hard drives nicely wrapped in static proof bags. He was not very thrilled anymore when the goods were delivered. Not only were they not wrapped carefully, but the units were also unbranded and came up poorly when tested.

One other buyer even had the experience of having almost thirty percent of the items in her delivered merchandise missing. She found worthless junk in their stead. She was even able to pull out “a lone sock” and other whatnots from the “garbage” sent to her.

A buyer of kitchenware was quite furious with Liquidation.com, and boy did she have the right. She ended up paying more than one thousand dollars for a pallet of kitchenware that was described as customer returns, only to find out upon the goods’ arrival that almost fifty percent of the merchandise was either broken or defective. To recover even at least half of her loss, she decided to sell the “good ones” that were left. Unfortunately, these “good ones” were not so good after all. Tags and stickers were strategically placed on flaws. Some of the glass wares were merely taped or glued back together.

There are many, many other posts, comments, and reviews online that are testimonials to the abomination that is Liquidation.com. I find it saddening and a shame that even with the existence of these proofs, Liquidation.com still exists.

Perhaps I have made quite a foolish mistake by putting my trust in them in the first place. But this time, I can ascertain that I know better and I hope that my experience will warn anyone out there who has been considering using the so-called buy-and-sell services offered by Liquidation.com.

I know that business is business, and that making profit is a top priority. But there is such a thing as decency and moral responsibility. Apparently, Liquidation.com does not have both.

Oh, and the brains behind Liquidity Services, Inc. should better start and do a lot of thinking from now on. How about if you begin by getting a new domain name? You see, I know of a term that means “to dupe honest people of their money by gaining their trust,” and that term is, “to con.”