Sellers Remorse

I had a situation a few years ago where there was a new set of auctions associated with a European coin sales venue. There were some new style Athenian owls placed in the auctions. They had an opening price of about a third of their retail value (my assessment). I placed a low ball bid on them at about a half of their retail value. There was a small flurry of bidding but I was quite pleased when I won them all.

I was then informed by the seller that they felt that they had finished at too low a price for them to feel comfortable with selling them and they offered to sell them to me at slightly more than I had assessed their retail value to be. I declined and left negative feedback on the auction venue. The seller retaliated and placed negative feedback on me accusing me of being a crook. I escalated this with the auction hosting service. The result was not one that I expected. Because the seller was one of the shops being hosted through the site they managed to get my negative feedback expunged yet the negative feedback left on me remained.

I fail to see what I had done wrong in this situation.

Suffice to say I never used that venue ever again and the seller is still on my blacklist.

 

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I'm surprised your head didn't explode. That is an absolutely infuriating situation! The story should be told far and wide.

I guess it wasn't eBay. The few remaining possibilities are frightening.

 

You're right @TIF. Very frightening for sure.

 

This was not ebay but one of the numismatic multi dealer venues primarily used by European dealers.

 

I resonate to both of these remarks. I have seen such things and it is outrageous. But in that lies the danger and the problem. Whether or not your head is about to explode you cannot lead with outrage. You must suppress the urge and coolly proceed to set things right. First, review the rules of engagement you agreed to before you were allowed to bid. Two levels: rules of the house and rules of the venue. Do these bias the sale in such a way as to allow the seller the option of doing what was done? If not, you have the basis for a grievance that has some teeth in it. You must be able to establish that the seller violated the terms of a standard contract. If it is all vague in the first place, then forget about it, because you won't win. Vagueness in those pre-agreements is precisely what gives them the out in cases like this. You are looking for legal loopholes.

You need to see a line somewhere that says that the lot will be hammered down to the highest bidder at the level determined by competitive bidding. You also need to see if they alter that or make exceptions for absentee bidders. Then you need to see how you were defined in the rules as a bidder. Finally you need to see what they stipulate as correct procedure in the case of a grievance. If everything lines up you are ready to contact them.

Step 1 is not to go in shooting; it starts with inquiry. Are they really telling you that rule number so and so does not apply in this case? If so, could they explain to you the basis for that determination? The form of your inquiry sends a message that you mean business according to the terms you both agreed to with formal signature going in. If you sound that way, and you talk they way, they will not want to play games lest it turn into a legal hassle. They know, however, that no American is going to pursue it in court for just a few dollars. The venue is supposed to be there to make sure sellers honor their agreements. If they won't do that, then you need to identify their oversight agency and report the contract violation. Chances are that when they find out you know the channels for complaint, they will get religion.

In the end the best thing you can do for yourself is get familiar with the rules of a house before you ever bid in the first place.

 

OR, you can Vote with your feet and never use that venue again.

Money has a lot of power. And MANY people deciding NOT to use the venue will impact them and perhaps change their ways.

Transactions are purely TRUST between two individuals. Violate the trust, you not only lose that transaction, but FUTURE transactions of the offended individual as WELL as OTHER individuals that are aware or BECOME aware.

And, yes, I always read the Rules and Conditions, contract, etc. I have never been uncomfortable with reading / interpreting contracts and agreements...

 

While I agree that, based on this description, the auction house acted reprehensibly, I also echo lrbguy's observations above:

1. ALWAYS read the auction site's, and auctioneer's, Terms and Conditions. My experience reading these documents is that they're NOT the dense legalese that most non-lawyers think they are. In general, they're easy to understand and don't have many surprises.

2. Determine whether or not your apparently winning bids fulfilled the terms of the agreement. For example, does the auctioneer have the right to impose a hidden or explicit reserve on the coins being auctioned? If so, maybe your bids were below the reserves and the auctioneer didn't explicitly tell you that they were.

3. If you cannot find any terms that you violated (it's not sufficient for the auctioneer to cancel your winning bids because they "...felt they had finished at too low a price..."), you should state firmly, in writing, that your bids fulfilled all the terms of the auction and that the auctioneer is obligated to sell the coins to you at your final bid price.

4. If the auctioneer responds in an unsatisfactory or deceptive manner, escalate the issue to the auction venue itself using all the written correspondence between you and the auctioneer.

5. Finally, if both the auctioneer and the auction venue refuse to abide by the written terms and conditions, you have the option of publicizing the names of the entities involved (on this site and others) and of course not doing business with those entities in the future.

As maddening as a situation like this may be, there also may be legitimate reasons the auctioneer canceled your winning bids and it's worthwhile to thoroughly investigate those potential reasons before taking the next steps.

 

I did check the terms and conditions. They were heavily biased towards the legal obligation on the bidder that winning bids were legally binding. I was told that given I was in the UK and the auction venue and seller was in Germany that I would need to proceed under German law. I had no appetite to follow a legal route for a few hundred euros.

 

Martin, I'm guessing that you were done in by a hidden reserve, that was not met, and a start bid set below it. I hate that practice, but know why they do it, and if that is not prohibited in Germany, then the game is over. If it happens again (with anyone) and you call in, ask them what the reserve is. They may offer it to you at that. Or not.

 

It would make things easier and be far more transparent if they would just start the bidding at the reserve price!