Is There A Rule Against Listing A Car On Multiple Auction Sites At Once?

Several platforms have guidelines against listing a car on multiple auction sites at once. However, no universal rule exists, and popular general marketplaces can be more vague. Bring a Trailer, for example, says plainly: 

We require listings to be exclusive to BaT during that [auction] time with all other ads taken down.

Cars & Bids (C&B) is more explicit:

Sellers may not remove a car made available for auction on the Services before the end of such auction. While a Seller Car is listed on the Services, Seller may not list or make available such Seller Car on any other auction, dealership, listing service or publication.

C&B makes it clear that should there be any dispute between you and, say, a jilted person trying to buy your car at auction (because you reneged and sold your car privately, for example), they could ban you from future use of the site. C&B also steps out of any dispute between buyers and sellers who might sue over terms violations.

We know you definitely come to Jalopnik for advice on how to sell your Ferrari with Sotheby's, which is why we're here for you. But why bother when a Ferrari GTO can just as easily sell on BaT? Well, maybe because you're just that upper-crusty type. Still, know that you'll be abiding by some stricter rules. The Sotheby's tut-tut say you're granting them "exclusive right and authority to advertise and sell the Lot(s)," and that they even retain rights to you not flipping your prancing horse via other means for 15 business days after their auction ends.

Further, if you yank your car out of an auction midstream on Sotheby's, they'll demand you cough up the expenses they incurred in prepping your car for auction, plus the equivalent of their commission on the sale — and the commission they'd be out that the would-be purchaser would've spent. More specifically, that commission is defined as: "An estimated equivalent of the Buyer's Fee based on 5% of the second highest price for a substantially equivalent Lot(s) (up to $25,000) as listed on the Hagerty website." So, yep, now we know why you should sell your vehicle on BaT. Or maybe on Craigslist?

Let's just say you listed on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist simultaneously. Would that be kosher? It actually seems like it. But the reality is that both sites' rules are kinda murky about this. While Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist aren't technically auction platforms like C&B, they're worth mentioning given that they're two of the first places drivers look to list their cars.

Like most sites, Craigslist has a Terms of Use page. On it, you'll find a prohibited list. If you click on that link, it takes you to another page, and there you'll find a ban on the following:

Spam; miscategorized, overposted, cross-posted, or nonlocal content.

As you can see, Craigslist rules call out cross-posted content, but don't explicitly address cross‑posting the same item to other marketplaces. It's even more vague on Facebook Marketplace.

We couldn't find any ban on listing a car on Marketplace while also listing it elsewhere. Nor does eBay explicitly ban listing on multiple sites. The powers that be at eBay have a double-listing restriction, meaning you couldn't list two identical 1968 Mustangs simultaneously, but this policy seems more directed at preventing listers from essentially setting up a Mustang store on the platform via multiple listings.