Oh hohoho but that would imply that the auction is inefficient and so surely rational actors would descend upon these auctions thereby converging this discount onto the true fair value of things.
Heaven forbid we admit that markets are not comprised of spherical chickens and that disconnects exist...
Again, the debtor could have sold the bike themselves and they didn't. Bidders could have recognized the bike's value but they didn't. This is a story about OP overvaluing a bike and nothing else.
I get your point but there are more factors at play here that you might not be aware of.
The debt in question was council tax, every household in the UK pays this at a monthly rate, something like £140 a month. But what most people don't know is that these monthly payments are technically a "gesture of goodwill" from the council, and if you are late for a payment they will really quickly take it to court and send bailiffs for the full yearly amount so you're looking at £1500 plus court fees plus bailiff fees for attending immediately. Easily £2000 from missing £150.
Next another little known fact - if you don't let the bailiffs in, they can't take anything. They can come back with the police if you let them in once. However they can levy on things that are outside, like a vehicle.
So that's what happened here, and once they levy on the vehicle you are not legally allowed to sell it if you sign the levy.
So the debtor in all likelihood ended up in this situation very quickly and could not sell the motorbike himself once the bailiff visited. As for the over valuation, I give you that but only in a very specific scenario - for the market where they sold it.
Now as for why they sold it so cheap, why would they care? They only care about their fees. It they can visit three times by only pretending to knock on the door and charge three times, they will. When it came to this motorbike, they got paid the fees for selling it, the auctioneer got their fee, and nobody involved had motivation to market it. We're not talking ebay or well marketed property auctions here.
In fact, the bailiff now gets to go back to tell them the debt isn't cleared and charge them for this visit as well.
That sounds absolutely draconian and horrible. But the issue doesn’t seem to be the debt collection. Rather, the issue seems to be a total lack of due process.
You know that isn't true. Auctions are noisy and poorly conducted auctions are worse. This is about some combination of sadism and negligence.