In light of recent changes to privacy laws including GDPR and CCPA, we have engaged legal counsel to conduct a privacy review and will be streamlining and standardizing the amount and type of information provided about prospective bidders to auction houses. Due to these changes, only dispute data pertaining to bidders who have registered for an upcoming auction will be made available.
As more customers continue to engage and transact digitally, data privacy laws and practices will likely continue to evolve and impact the way customer information is handled and shared.
How should I conduct approvals without the disputes database?
For the significant majority of auction houses using it, the disputes database has been a tool to detect bad bidders using duplicate accounts. There is work currently underway to flag these bidders, without auction houses having to take the extra step of making manual search inputs. We expect this solution will make your manual approval process much more efficient, and will keep you updated as the work progresses.
To mitigate the risk of uncaptured payments, auction houses are using chargeback and reversal protections available via LivePayments. For no additional cost, every domestic and international credit card payment is 100% protected from fraudulent chargeback. ACH payments are also fully protected from fraudulent reversals. Partners are utilizing our Bidder Guarantee Program to avoid non-payment, while relying on Autopay to automatically capture payments quickly and easily. The average dispute rate for auctions enrolled in the program is 31% lower than that for sales not enabled with LivePayments. More info on LivePayments here.
All auction houses - regardless of LivePayments status - have access to our auto-approval functionality that can be customized to risk thresholds. You can use custom settings to automatically approve bidders (with an optional bid limit) based on bid and purchase history, as well as bidder status. Any bidders with open disputes, suspensions, or blocked by our fraud team will not be approved. On average, auctions using auto-approval settings see 10% more active bidders and 5% more bids placed than those that do not, with no increase in dispute rates. To explore your custom auto-approval settings, please visit your Dashboard > Bidders > Automation Settings.
As always, thank you for your trust and partnership. Your feedback and questions are welcome, and we're looking forward to bringing you improved tools that deliver a great auction experience for you and your bidders.