Surplus Auction Alerts

Track government surplus auctions by keyword.

com.ibrahimtxy.surplusalert · Shopping

Public agencies sell off trucks, tools, lab gear and seized property through online auctions. Thousands of lots are listed every week, most of them run for only a few days, and nothing tells you when the one you wanted appears.

This app never signs in, never creates an account and NEVER PLACES A BID. It reads the same public auction list you can open in a browser without signing in, and tells you when a matching lot appears. You bid yourself, on Public Surplus, with your own account.

What it does

Search by keyword, category and state; add an optional price cap
Two modes: newly listed lots, or lots that are about to end
The notification carries the current bid price, the state and the closing date
Thousands of agencies are covered through one public search endpoint — you do not add them one by one
Prices are read in US format, so “$1,250,000” is not mistaken for one dollar

How you set it up

You create one watch — for example “forklift, Canon lens, F-250” — and close the app. At the interval you choose it checks newly listed and soon-to-close auction lots; when a matching lot shows up your phone gets a notification. It never tells you about the same thing twice.

Who it is for

Contractors, resellers, farmers and hobbyists who buy from public surplus auctions.

What it does not do

It does NOT place, raise or retract a bid, and it does not reserve a lot. It points you at the auction page; you bid there yourself. • It does NOT sign in, does not create an account and never asks for your Public Surplus credentials.
It asks for no account. No sign-up, no password.
It collects no personal data: no analytics, no crash reporting.
The free tier shows Google AdMob ads: a bottom banner, interstitial, rewarded, rewarded interstitial, app-open and a “Ad”-labelled card inside the list. Paid members see no ads and no ad request is made.

Permissions

Permission	Why
`ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE`	To avoid pointless attempts while offline, and to tell mobile data from Wi-Fi.
`INTERNET`	To reach the public Public Surplus auction search page.
`POST_NOTIFICATIONS`	To tell you a matching lot was listed. That is the whole app.
`READ_BASIC_PHONE_STATE`	So the ads library can tell Wi-Fi from mobile data. It grants no access to your phone number, IMEI or call log; the app does not declare it, the ads library adds it.
`RECEIVE_BOOT_COMPLETED`	So your watches resume after the phone restarts.
`VIBRATE`	To vibrate when a notification arrives.
`WAKE_LOCK`	So the phone does not fall asleep in the middle of a check. The app does not ask for this itself; the background work library (Android Jetpack WorkManager) adds it.
`BILLING`	So you can buy a paid membership through Google Play. The app does not declare this permission itself; the Google Play Billing library adds it. Your payment details (card, address, invoice) never reach the app and are never seen or stored by it — Google Play takes the payment. All the app learns is whether your membership is active.
`AD_ID`	Ads in the free tier are served by Google AdMob, which may read the device advertising ID (AAID). The app does not declare this permission itself; the ads library adds it. Paid members make no ad request at all. You can reset or delete the ID in Settings › Google › Ads.

Source

Where the data comes from: the public auction search on publicsurplus.com. Nothing behind a login is read.

Surplus Auction Alerts is an independent app. It is not developed, endorsed or supported by Public Surplus, Webcat LLC or any selling agency.