Slow Refunds Rile REO Investors At H&M Auction

In Stockton, California, The Stockton Record reports:

• A couple of top bidders in a no-minimum-bid auction of foreclosed homes nearly a month ago in Stockton are not only unhappy that banks didn't accept their bids or even negotiate a sale, they haven't gotten back thousands of dollars in deposits. "It was a waste of my time," said Lewis Stallworth Jr., a Stockton man who put in a top bid of $135,000 for a north Stockton house. "I feel like it was almost a scam. There's no use in going to an auction if they're going to act like that." The Dallas-based auctioneering firm of Hudson & Marshall staged an auction of 61 foreclosed homes Nov. 15 in Stockton, one of a number of auctions last month in Northern California. [...] Stallworth said Hudson & Marshall needs to fix its auction process to make it fair. "It's a simple system," he said. "All they have to do is say, 'This house has a minimum bid,' or whatever, and everybody knows right off the top so they're not wasting your time."

For more, see Rejected top bidders await deposit refunds.