THE FIRST-EVER entirely-online property auction has been suspended because of technical difficulties.
Dublin auctioneers Allsop Space had been running the process through a dedicated web page since 10AM yesterday morning. The process was due to conclude at 10AM this morning.
A notice on the web site for the auction states that the auction has been postponed until further notice “due to technical difficulties”.
Allsop director Robert Hoban said that the difficulties had been caused by the high volume of traffic to the site. He said that the auction will most likely be run again from scratch, although no date has been set yet.
He said that no contracts had been signed on properties, and that all lots are likely to be offered again to ensure all bidders have full access to the system.
“As soon as we learned that some bidders were experiencing difficulties accessing the site, we suspended the process. The highest bidders are being made aware (of the situation) and will be able to bid again.”
“It’s a positive thing that so many people engaged”, he added, and said that there is “no risk at all” to users’ deposits or personal information.
Our priority is the bidders’ experience and fairness to all users.
User’s tale
One user of the site told TheJournal.ie that the site started behaving strangely shortly after 10AM, while he was involved in a bidding war on a property with another user.
The Allsop system allowed for extensions to the 10AM cutoff point to facilitate bidding wars.
The user told this website:
The last ten or 15 minutes it was crazy…everyone seemed to be waiting until then to put bid in.
He said that he could not place bids for several minutes and then could not access the site at all, and when he was finally able to get back into the system, bids on the property he had been hoping to buy had jumped by around €45,000.
When the prospective buyer called Allsops, the auction house acknowledged that there was a technical problem and were unable to tell him if his bids would still be valid.
Around 450 users had pre-registered for the auction, paying a deposit of €5,000 each to take part in the process. In addition to the deposit, prospective buyers had to provide proof of identity in the form of scanned identification, it is understood.
Updated 12.26
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