PublicSurplus
Reviews and Complaints

My account was "restricted" years ago after a medical emergency that caused a failure to pay for two auctions. (Since 2015) I have been black listed and in august 2023, when I requested this restriction be lifted I was not given any assistance or feedback on if this is possible. I was merely told regurgitated knowledge about my account. I notified them years ago after this incident occurred (my apologies I couldn't prevent getting cancer). They refused to respond. It was only when I requested my account be deleted, that I received a response asking for security information to "deactivate" the account. I emphasized I wanted the account deleted. Not deactivated. Not only that, but the quality of used items has decreased exponentially, they are selling trash and junk. Not worth the price gouging auctions. I would not recommend them at all. You don't want to buy their heavily damaged, used, and destroyed items. You would find cheaper and better quality on eBay.

Won a lot of lockers.paid for them and made an appointment for pickup. Lockers were two hours away from my house. I was 10 minutes away and I got a phone call and they said the guy before me picked up my lockers so they don’t have them. They said I can drive to his house and get them (another two hour drive). The secretary was going to just give me some other stuff so I be happy but her Supervisor told her no. They offered me a refund. Im going to get a refund and move on with my life! $100 in diesel and four hours of my time for absolutely nothing.

Public Surplus has no working phone service their customer service is very rude. They called my home and spoke in some foreign language I did not understand a word they said. Then they said don't call back.

They answer in scripted messages that only will respond to chat or email and the answers are not relevant to the question.

They threatened me when I did nothing wrong I would be in default if I did not abide by their terms.

I don't think they are based in the USA

Zero assistance from Public Surplus
The seller did not reply after numerous attempts by me to arrange payment and pickup.
They took my deposit and re ran the same item at least 2 more times.
Then they blocked me from bidding.
Tell me to straighten it out with the seller.
OR tell me to get another seller to approve me which they know nothing about.
Just the run around.
I have bought and sold literally thousands of vehicles at auctions for decades.
This place is one of the worst I've ever seen.

Public Surplus has essentially shut my business down by restricting my ability to place bids on items that my customers have requested. The reason for this restriction is based sloely on the fact that an auction awarded over the Christmas Holiday was unable to be paid for due to the selling agency being off for the holiday so tge result is that my business is punished and now cannot make any purchases or buds effectively shutting our doors. Without the resources available with Public Surplus we cannot meet our customer requests. In fact after purchasing 15-20, 000.00 in products over the prior 8 months I was told by the support person that if i wanted the restrictions removed O could pay a fee. That under CALIFORNIA law is extortion and Tortious Interference. If I can pay a fee to have a restriction removed then it also could be removed with the proper supporting documents certifying the reason why a payment has not be submitted to a seller withon the 5 day window.
No matter what I have brought to the table in this issues I get the same garbage in and garbage out from a company who refuses to even answer their phones to resolve issues.

The website www.publicsurplus.com is big scam, because I placed bids there, but some users posted their bids 5 minutes before the closure. So the time automatically extended. I of course lost the chances to win the items. When I tried to complain about it, the owners simply ignored my emails and messages. Useless website and it was impossible to win from this company.

People, be careful and don’t waste money on the website www.publicsurplus.com. I wanted to get one item from them, but I only wasted money. I placed so many bids, but everything was useless. I didn’t win the item and wasted a lot of money. All rules were unclear and I didn’t get why I haven’t won the item, ‘coz y bid was the highest. I wonder if there are people, who have the same problems and what have you done in such situation, please post comments.

I bought jewellery from the website www.publicsurplus.com. I paid with my credit card, but after that they started to take more money from me. They delivered the order, but money continued to disappear from my account. I was shocked and have no idea what to do now. I wonder if there are people, who had the same thing. Maybe you can advise me how to stop these withdrawals. Please post your ideas and comments. Thanks.

I found the website www.publicsurplus.com and decided to place bids here. I hoped to get in touch with the agents from this website, but no one replied to my questions, messages and emails. Their live chat agents were unavailable all the time, and it was really strange. Don’t waste your time, because it will be difficult to understand something without agents help. I wonder if there are other people, who had the same experience. Let’s share views about this website.