THE YARD / TRUST & SETTLEMENT
Paying for
a Car
Nobody hands a stranger a hundred grand on a handshake and a hope. That's not sentiment — that's just how a smart transaction works. So here's exactly how money moves on 66Relics, laid out plain, no fine print buried three pages deep.
Short version: you prove you're good for it before you bid, you pay a flat fee that goes to keeping this place honest, and your money sits in a neutral, regulated vault until the vehicle's actually sitting in your driveway. Nobody gets paid until everybody's satisfied. That's the whole architecture.
STEP ONE
Prove You're Serious, Before You Ever Bid
We don't let ghosts bid on our cars. Every bidder authorizes a valid card before placing a single bid — no exceptions, no "trust me" bids from an account with nothing behind it.
Why bother? Because the seller on the other end of that bid deserves to know the guy chasing their '69 Chevelle at 11:58 PM isn't bidding with Monopoly money. Pre-authorization keeps the bidding pool honest, so real bids compete against real bids — not phantom numbers from an account nobody's verified.
TEMPORARY CARD HOLD
When you bid, Stripe places a temporary hold on your card equal to the buyer's premium on that bid (5%, $100 minimum, $7,500 cap). It confirms your card is real and that you can back up a winning bid. It is a hold, not a purchase: nothing is paid to us, and it is released automatically if you're outbid or don't win.
FULL KYC OVER $3,000
For high-ticket business — any auction win or classified offer north of $3,000 — we go one step further: full identity verification through Escrow.com. Government-issued photo ID, address verification, the whole encrypted nine yards. Your dashboard badge flips from "unverified" to "approved" the moment it clears.
STEP TWO
What You're Actually Paying — No Surprises
Here's the number, stated plainly. No hidden processing surcharges, no "documentation fee" that mysteriously appears at checkout, no tiered garbage that changes depending on how the wind's blowing.
BUYER'S PREMIUM
of the winning hammer price, $100 minimum, $7,500 cap
That 5% covers the infrastructure that makes this whole thing trustworthy — verification, escrow administration, the platform standing behind the transaction. It's captured immediately when the auction closes, straight off the hold already placed on your card.
$500
ON A $10,000 HAMMER
$2,500
ON A $50,000 HERO CAR
Classified listings carry zero platform fee. Buyer and seller settle directly, or opt into Secure Escrow together if they want the same protection an auction gets automatically. Your choice, your terms.
STEP THREE
How Escrow.com Actually Protects Your Money
This is the part that separates a real marketplace from a glorified classified ad with a "trust us" sticker slapped on it. Once an auction closes or a classified offer's accepted, your vehicle balance moves into a regulated Escrow.com ledger — not into 66Relics' bank account, not into the seller's pocket. Into a neutral, bonded third party whose entire job is making sure nobody gets stiffed.
Funded
You wire or ACH the vehicle balance into Escrow.com within a 72-hour window. The money exists — but it doesn't move to the seller yet.
Shipped
The seller (or a matched, winch-equipped carrier if the car's not exactly cooperating) picks up the vehicle and provides tracking and a bill of lading.
Received
The car shows up. You've got a 3-to-5-day inspection window to confirm it's what you paid for — matching numbers, matching condition, no surprises.
Completed
You accept the vehicle, and only then does Escrow.com release the funds to the seller's account.
Every step of that sequence updates live on your dashboard. No mystery, no "check's in the mail" nonsense. You can see exactly where your money is and exactly where your car is, at every point between hammer-drop and handshake.
THE COMPARISON
Why This Beats "Just Wiring the Guy"
Because plenty of people have learned the hard way what happens when they don't do it this way.
THE OLD METHOD
Send a wire to a stranger you found in a Facebook group, cross your fingers, hope the car shows up looking like the pictures. If it doesn't, good luck — you're now a very expensive lesson in trust.
THE 66RELICS METHOD
Your money sits in a regulated ledger that answers to nobody but the transaction itself. The seller can't touch it until you've confirmed the car's real. You can't back out and vanish once it's funded and shipped. Both sides are locked into the same honest deal, enforced by a system instead of a prayer.
We decoupled the fast-moving platform fee from the high-value asset transfer on purpose. One's a transaction. The other's a promise. They don't belong in the same bucket, and on 66Relics, they never sit in one.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Nobody Gets Paid Until Everybody's Satisfied
Pre-auth before you bid, so the auction stays honest. A flat 5% buyer's fee, disclosed before you ever click "place bid." And a regulated escrow pipeline that holds every dollar hostage — in the best possible way — until the car's actually in your hands and you say it's good.
That's not how the big auction houses do it. That's how we do it.