In regard to the government auctions: I have, on a couple of occasions, bought used government equipment and gotten some great deals. One time a pretty good car for an incredibly low price. Of course I had to go to Dutch John, Utah to get the great deal, but…
The scam, is that the lists of government auctions are free. You can get it by mailing that U.S. documents office in Pueblo, CO that they periodically advertise on late night television. So they get the lists free and then sell them to you. It’s like the old day-old newspaper scam that poor kids used to pull. Find old newspapers lying around then sell them on corners to people in a hurry.
We had to change corners a lot though.
Side note about government auctions: Had a friend that thought he was going to clean up on them. He made a bid on nine or ten U.S. Mail Jeeps (you know the ones with the steering wheels on the right side of the car?)and got them for about $100 apiece. His theory was to turn around and sell them to the U.K. (United Kingdom not Univerity of Kentucky). Well first off only about six of the ten were in good condition so he had to cannibalize two of the others to make the others even tolerable. Then he had to paint all of them, and apparently U.S. Postal paint is hard to cover. Then it turned out that he had to get a special license to sell them in the U.K. Then none of them would pass the inspection to be allowed to be sold in the U.K. Next he tried Japan, India, Australia and New Zeland and ran into similar problems.
The last I heard he sold some of them to a zoo in Kansas somewhere. Lost his shirt on the deal.