Many Hi-Bid and other auction houses use third party shippers. This usually is disclosed in bidding terms listed with auction. Any or all shipping arrangements for said auctions again normally are included with auction listing. For host of reasons including legal this is necessary.
Third party shippers can be anyone such as packers and shippers connected with or own local UPS, FedEx, PackMail and other local shipping franchises.
Then you have persons who make their living, full or part-time, going about collecting items from auction houses and taking them to FedEx, UPS, USPS or whoever to be packed and shipped. You pay this person to collect and transport item to shipper or shipping service. You may also have to pay (reimburse) this person if they pay shipping charges on your behalf.
Same persons as above instances also may offer to store an item until Uship or another shipper of choice can be arranged to collect. They may pack/crate item, or simply leave it as it was collected from auction house/estate sale.
Few caveats are in order.
In nearly all instances once item leaves auction house/estate sale it is no longer their responsibility. If item is damaged, bits or entire thing goes missing buyer is on his/her own. All such issues must be addressed to third party shipper/person who collected item.
It is important to understand clearly (and this should be in writing) terms of collection, shipping and all associated fees. This includes fees for storage and when or if they will apply. Some third party shippers start charging storage fees if things are not collected or shipped within "X" amount of days.
Also terms of payment should be disclosed including how long one has to pay invoices and what happens if things go unpaid.
Some third party shippers will consider things "abandoned" and or "forfeited" if invoices are not paid and or shipped within a certain period of time.
HiBid like other online auction services are not eBay. There isn't any sort of visible feedback system where buyers can vent or let others know of issues with a seller. HiBid and rest do have an internal feedback system available to sellers that ranks buyers. If persons do not pay invoices, initiate chargebacks or otherwise go afoul of a seller he/she will certainly leave negative feedback. That likely will cause one to be banned from bidding on platform for duration.
Some sellers are willing to make allowances and listen to buyer's side of things. Others don't care and if you're on that list don't bother bidding on their auctions.
Have used third party shippers in various flavors from HiBid and other auction houses. Held for UShip, sent by UPS/FedEx, etc.... and am here to say when all is said and done one often pays dear for even just a $10 winning final bid.
Once contracted with these third party shippers or even with auction seller doing shipping themselves one cannot back out. They know this and often shipping charges are simply astronomical.
One pays huge sums for "packing, shipping, shipping materials" only to have thing arrived in some beat up used box taken from rubbish pile. Little if any new or decent internal packing materials such as bubble wrap, peanuts, etc... Just bits of newspaper or whatever else they can fetch out of trash or have lying about spare.
Even so called "professionals" at UPS or FedEx sort of pack and ship places aren't that much better.
Upshot is things often arrive damaged. Some sellers will work with one on this; others are "tant pis", things happen. Again if one initiates a chargeback no good will come of it, so there you are then.
