Greedy seller on Copart loses the deal – we win!
Last edit: April 05 2026 • 403 view
Hey guys, today I want to share a really interesting hack on how you can buy a car for just 15-20% of its retail value. This works mostly with expensive cars, but the story is pretty interesting. Let’s go!
Many of you know that sellers can set a reserve price. This protects them from selling a car for almost nothing. This happens because sometimes bids stay very low, and no seller wants to sell something like a Ferrari for $1,000. So they set a reserve price, and if it’s not met, the car gets relisted. The seller pays a small fee to the auction for that.
One of our clients decided to bid on a car like this that had been listed multiple times. Let’s look at this case.
This 2024 Porsche Taycan was listed at auction several times. We show this info on the lot page, and you can check auction records or order a report. We always recommend checking the history to see the previous condition.
But just look at this – the car was listed 15 times!
Is that a red flag? Not always. Every case is different. In this situation, the car stayed in the same condition every time, and the key thing here is the final bids. The seller didn’t want to sell it for $24,500 and kept relisting it.
So what happened in the end? The price kept going down with each auction. His greed didn’t let him sell it at the beginning, but eventually common sense kicked in – better sell it now, because later the bids will be even lower.
In the end, our client bought the car for just 17% of its retail value thanks to the seller’s greed and because he checked the sale history and knew exactly what bid to place.
The secret of this hack is simple: if you see a car with 10 or more auction records, it usually means the seller really wants to sell it at his reserve price. But don’t rush to overpay. The more auction records there are, the higher your chances to buy the car cheap.
Check the history. If the car looks worth it to you, place a bid slightly above the last final bid. There’s a very high chance the seller will give in and accept.
