Superstition or Not - I was right!

..we all jump the gun occasionally with posting stuff we ain't got yet... i know i have. it's a case of great expectations verses reality check...we get to feel good about something that hasn't completely happened...and that makes for sad feelings...

 

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Yep, I got one from Frank Robinson, and I think he is considered as honest. He refunded me, but I feel bad that it cost him for a coin I REALLY wanted.

 

We appreciate your candid and thoughtful perspective, Ken.

 

And that's the way it should be. However, in my case, after not receiving the coin for two weeks after payment, I began by sending a polite email asking for shipping information. This email was passed to Alfredo who never responded. After a couple more days, I sent another polite email this time directly to Alfredo. No response. After a couple more days, I called directly to Alfredo who answered the call. He was unaware of any problems, was out of the office for a couple of days for his daughter's graduation, but would most definitely get back with me on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon I called once again. No answer. Monday, I called and spoke with Alfredo who informed me of the situation. He said he would tell his partner to refund immediately. I called his partner today, since I had no correspondence, to only be told that a refund would not be processed until most likely next Monday.

Does this runaround and delay sound responsible? It certainly has not been handled "as quickly as possible" which I would expect of a reputable auction dealer.

 

I've done that and I'm still being reminded of it five years later

 

We all have reputations. Ours is that we are more trouble than we are worth because we complain when we are treated like trash. We are ungrateful because we do not realize how lucky we are that they allowed us to bid in their fake auctions.

The sad part is not everyone considers completing an auction contract as a requirement of honor. Are we expected to pay for lots we win? We have way too many 'pretend' dealers these days. It is too easy to post a lot on eBay or set up a canned auction platform giving us people claiming to be dealers who are not really interested in completing proper business dealings. All we can do is vote with our feet. When a seller we know has problems with the concept lists a coin we want, do we have the strength to just walk away? I hope you find a XIIII in the possession of a 'full service', capable and honorable seller soon.

 

That's a shame, Justin! It wouldn't have taken the sender more than two minutes to do it properly.

 

Thanks Doug. I will find it someday.

 

I'm not sure what happened in the time I took to write my last remarks above, but I got an email saying they have processed my refund. Now that's the way it should have been from the start. I'm expected to pay after an auction ends, so refunds should be processed within a reasonable amount of time as well.

 

I think it would be fair if they pay more than just " money refund". Who will compensate the loss of time and bitter frustration. Or maybe there's some kind of trick behind this. I don't know. I might imagine things. After all superstition is the name of this thread.

 

Well, I'm glad you got your refund @Bing.

I don't like the sound of that, I've been watching at item stuck at JFK for 8 days with no change in tracking information.

 

No. It doesnt. I am sorry anyone has had to deal with any situation like this (and it may not surprise anyone that I am no longer running auctions on that platform). It's just a sad situation.

I've been saying this since the inception of the internet. Just because one has a few coins to sell and an internet connection does not make a dealer. But its just something we have to deal with in these days. In the 'old days' (yea, I guess its true, we become old when we start talking like this. I might begin to yell at kids to 'stay off my lawn', but alas, I suspect few would even know that reference) being a dealer was fairly hard. It took reference books, printed catalogs, experience.... Now, anyone can be a dealer. I guess thats just part of the new world. And with this we encounter problems just such as this. Not that it didnt happen before, but rarely. A dealer would simply not let this happen at all, they had a reputation to uphold, which was hard earned. Now, a situation like this means nothing to the 'dealer'. There are plenty of new clients out there to replace any lost.

 

It is too bad this happened to you @Bing It looked like a great example of a very scarce coin. I hope an even better one comes your way.

 

The only items we auction which are not in are possession are large antiquities, we are not set up to ship large items and have worked out arrangements with three galleries that handle it for us.

The coin in question was in fact consigned to us by Sergey. He apparently forgot to take it down. But I had his consignment in hand. (The photo used was taken by me and the coin was in my safe.)

I do apologize. Over the past two years I have had several serious health issues due to some medication they had me on for my hypertension. It was wreaking havoc on me and I have suffered three achilles tendon tears and 2 other tendons have torn. This all got wrapped up in a nice bow when my right lung unexpectedly collapsed about 3-4 months ago.

Let me make one thing clear. There is never an excuse for poor service and I take full responsibility for any issues which slipped through the cracks. I am doing much better now and don't forsee any issues going forward. I will be going in for surgery at some point in the next two months to address the underlying issue, but in the meantime I am stable and have spent the last several weeks trying to organize things so that someone can help with the admin type work and shipping moving forward.

Best,

Alfred

 

I'm glad to hear you're on the mend!

 

With all due respect to your health issues, for better or for worse your reputation is being tried on this list and is coming up a bit short. Physical pain and mental anguish are two sides of the same coin. If the coin in question was in your possession as you say, and was sold at auction to a client who had paid early, how do you account for the fact that it was not sent to him in the first place? Is or was there something about your system for keeping track of such things that does not give priority to those who pay promptly? Whether or not you choose to respond to that, PLEASE tell us as potential buyers if there is anything we can say or do to help prevent such a thing from happening again. Please?

Transparency is preferable to discovery.

 

I helps to remember that the item in transit is not truly yours until it is delivered. Up to then in practical terms it belongs to the seller or the transit authority despite your title to it. Jumping the gun by using someone else's intellectual property to broadcast it really should be a no-no. I tend not to post a coin until it has been in my possession long enough for me to photograph it. Note that I said "tend."

But that coin also has two sides. Because I don't tell you about my additions until I have full possession of them, you only ever see a very small percentage of the coins I originally intended to show you. The time lag between buying a coin and having it in hand can at times be so great that I lose motivation or the "magic moment" passes and the time is no longer right. A million excuses can be made, but in the end, you don't see anything. There are times when I don't know which is worse; telling a tale too soon, or not telling it at all.

 

If you reread above you will note that I had been having some health issues. A couple of sales shipped late. In addition to this, the invoicing service we use (Freshbooks.com) had a pretty serious glitch where it was not updating their system and we were not being notified that some invoices were paid and OK to shipped. My background is in IT and under normal circumstances I would have caught it. But circumstances were far from normal and I was not paying close attention to the bigger than usual list of "past due" invoices.

As far as the coins which were left up on Sergey's site all I can do is state what happened. Feel free to contact Sergey and ask him directly. While his pricing tends to be on the high side, Sergey is a really great guy and honest to a fault (until recently he was a mathematics professor at a local university). I have known him for 18 years and he has always been very supportive of whatever I am involved in and has consigned to Agora to be supportive.

Email from Freshbooks below:

"FreshBooks was recently made aware of a problem where payments processed through PayPal were not properly being marked as paid in our system.

We have worked with PayPal to fix the issue, as well as prevent any additional instances of this issue from occurring in the future.

What Happens Next?

If you would like to add the missing payment to your invoice manually you can. Otherwise, we are currently in the process of adding the payments to the affected invoices for you, which may take 10 to 15 business days to complete. Only the invoices that were affected and have not had a payment added will be updated."