Any way to place offer on short sale that will be auctioned?

[Marc M.]

So I checked out a house last week that I was ready to put an offer on but discovered today that it was pulled off the market yesterday and the bank has decided to auction it off.  Given the fairly short time period that it's been pulled off the market, is there any way that I can still try to place an offer and/or talk to the bank about buying it prior to it being auctioned?

I'm hoping for a creative solution here.  Unfortunately, I don't know which bank it is so that will be an obstacle as well and I'm not sure that the listing agent will share that with my agent as she hasn't been very forthcoming with info so far.  Any suggestions?