Is this criminal?

Not it would not be, the seller has a responsibility to know what he is selling. Whether you choose to let them know they have made an error is up to you but you are NOT responsible for correcting their error.

Can the auction house sue you? You can sue anyone for anything, but will you be successful. If this case the auction house is assumed to be a professional and as such is held to a higher standard. THEY are responsible for getting it right. Once you have paid for it and it is in your possession they have no claim on it. The only way someone would have a claim on it would be if it can be shown to be stolen. The Auction houses real concern would be if the consignor learns they blew it and they may be sued by the consignor and he probably WOULD win.

The section that was quoted from the Heritage terms of sale is to protect the house in case they sell something as being much rarer than actually is. It limits their liability to the amount paid for the item. It doesn't mean that they can pay you back what you paid them and require you to return your cherrypick.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

I also just purchased 8 vintage crystal champagne glasses from Ebay where the seller started her bidding at .99 cents with $20 shipping. I won the sale for $1.25. The seller honored the sale and shipped not 8, but NINE crystal glasses. Each glass was identified with an individual maker's number and all were labeled Baccarat. The replacement cost of each glass was approximately $450 A STEM! I immediately contacted the Seller and advised her of her mistake. I told her I purchased the glasses in order to have some fun with friends while watching the Royal Wedding and to pour pink champagne. I advised I would return the beautiful stemware because it would simply be wrong to take advantage of her innocent mistake. The precious woman returned my message by responding that she had inherited the glasses, never had used them, and would prefer they be enjoyed in a happy home with a happy party. She explained "it was what her Mother would have wanted her to do. I sent the lady a beautiful bouquet of flowers, a bottle of fine pink champagne, photos of my tea party, and a HUGE thank-you note. I STILL can't believe I own 9 BACCARAT champagne glasses and how kind and generous this wonderful lady was to me!!!!!!! If you have a good eye and know what you are looking for, Ebay can be a very, very good place to shop. However, I also purchased an AU55 1873 closed 3 $20 CC gold Double Eagle on Ebay for $4800 and it turned out to be counterfeit. Ebay and Paypal ensured my refund, but I still had to pay $40 in insurance to return the item. Ha. Life is funny sometimes.

 

Ya know . . . my husband was the one who was fussing about the space of my vintage clothing collection and the reason I sold the coat. All he cared about was freeing up space for his BASEBALL collection. haha. The common thread we share is that we don't touch our coin collection without each other's permission. Ha.

 

If you file taxes on the income you receive from selling coins, you are a professional. That doesn't mean you are a good dealer, nor an expert on coins, but you are still a professional.

 

No, that just proves that you're a person who doesn't try to cheat the IRS, at least in that one particular area.

 

I can't believe you did that. And you wonder why some people say some member are such and such

 

The dealer 100 times out of 100 is the professional. They are the ones presenting themselves as such and running the business for it, that is the definition of a professional. The collector may be the expert but unless they are running a business with coins as well they aren't a professional.

Not at all. Anyone who presents themselves to the public as a dealer, vest pocket dealer, store owner, wholesaler ect is fair game to get cherry picked. If they miss something they should have known better.

Now it's a fair point that a lot of them don't know much and wouldn't know a variety if it slapped them across the face, so in those cases if they don't pay up for one that is fine because they didn't know better. However if that actually is the case someone else will cherry pick them for it. If they just play dumb and then the next day have everything listed properly for a much higher price knowing the varieties than they’re ripping people off.

 

You must have missed my apology. Cherry pick much?

 

I don't think the Auction House would sue you. Picasso might.

 

Same smell is right, as all your stories smell the same!

 

.

 

Pay attention to your conscience, your little man or your Spidey sense — whatever you call it. Generally I find mine tells me the right thing to do.

If you ain’t got one, all I can say is “pity.”

 

Completely untrue, unless of course you believe it's okay for Doctors to give you unnecessary medicines/surgeries/tests, electricians/mechanics ect to charge for work that doesn't need to be done, since after all they're just using their superior knowledge to their advantage right? It's the patients fault for not going to med school or learning how to fix cars or how to re-wire their house so they didn't get taken advantage of right?

There is absolutely a different standard for someone presenting themselves as a professional than there is for the general public and this is one of the only times that there should be. This whole everything is fair because joe schmo didn't know better attitude is extremely dangerous.

There is a MASSIVE different between making an offer that is profitable and just completely ripping off the public

Completely false again and people have been sued and lost and/or gone to jail for having that attitude. Just because someone was dumb enough to sell double eagles for double face doesn't mean they didn't get ripped off and taken advantage of which absolutely has happened and gets bragged about. Offers that low should have never been on the table in the first place.

This is precisely the attitude why so many people don't bother trying to sell to dealers and just send everything to auction or do it themselves online. It's also why the TPGs you hate so much are so popular and will continue to expand their dominance

 

"Write me a letter, Send it by mail, Send it in care of the Birmingham Jail."

 

You got your point across and it worked for Bud and me..If Bud can understand me and I can understand him that is all that matters to us...You are doing just fine and rickmp said he was sorry for having faulted you so he is a real nice guy.
<-Bud with his friends at the pool party

 

No one ever said people shouldn't be responsible for the choices they make Doug, we don't need the subject changed to soap box preach at us. Just because people should be responsible for their own decisions and should try and learn what they can does not make it right for professionals to take complete advantage of them

I would still like an answer to the questions. Is it okay for a doctor to use their superior knowledge to take advantage of people? How about a mechanic? How about an electrician? How about a contractor? How about a dentist? How about a plumber? How about a roofer?

If it isn't okay for them then why do you believe it is okay for coin dealers to completely rip people off which I have already said is different than building in a profit in pricing. You have stated you believe this "If somebody walks into a coin shop and willingly takes whatever the dealer offers them, then the dealer did not rip them off." Simply agreeing to something doesn't mean someone wasn't ripped off, especially when a professional is giving a bunch of misdirection and lies to get the deal closed.

You keep going on and on about right and wrong, well its not right to trash something just to be able to buy it cheaper nor is it right to lie to people to get a better price nor is it right for the price to change based on how much you think the customer knows yet that happens every day from the coin professionals to the general public. It's very easy to get a trusting individual to agree to something when they assume that the professional is going to be honest with them which is expected in other industries.

 

Yes to all. Doctors prescribe medications to their patients that the patient can buy cheaper from a drugstore (like pain killers) because doctors make deals with the drug makers and that's how they make their money. Mechanics ALWAYS finds something extra wrong with the car when you bring it in for oil change, is it always necessary, not at all...but they're not going to tell their customers that because it means business to them. Contractor will tell you all kinds of lies to make a little bit of profit here and there...and so on and so forth. They DO take advantage with their superior knowledge.

It's also ridiculous to compare a coin dealer to all those "professionals". Those professionals are doing their job because they can be liable if something happens to their patients/customers, that's what drives their professionalism. No one has died or physically hurt from buying an overpriced coin. People don't want to be scammed by coin dealers but people are also lazy and they are willing to be "had" because they want it now, they don't want to research so they pay what the dealer asks. Most of the time, it's THEIR choice to pay the price. Why don't you you tell Nike to stop selling shoes 100 times the cost to make their shoes because it's the professional way?