Irritating auction practices

I have bought from Heritage but I do so very rarely because of their very high postage and handling charges. If you live outside of the USA the base charge is about 57 USD. I do not find this reasonable and so I will continue to be reluctant to buy from them. I do not mind paying for postage but keep it reasonable.

 

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I adjust my bid price to what I'm happy with paying. Auction fees are here to stay.

 

Costs associated with auctions, including buyers commission, postage etc do not irritate. The information is available, you just have to look for it.

What really irritates me are the quality of the pictures and the lot descriptions: There are major auction houses in EU which offer pictures which sometimes look like cartoons, full of glare, and worse of all, pictures which are somehow manipulated sop that the true color/toning is not evident. The big disappointment then comes when you get the coin in hand and the beautiful toning you saw in the picture which you found so attractive is really a pastel white, totally lifeless surface.....
I find this totally deceptive and this is the reason why at some auction houses I will no longer buy unless I am able to attend in person or have somebody look at the coin in person

 

I have bought a book from Bertolami 2mths ago and although the communication was slow and spotty, the delivery was blitz-fast in 24hrs delivery.

 

I am in the US. When I see European firms with high shipping costs I sometimes write before I bid and ask if there is less expensive alternative if I win something. Often they say there is and quote me a much lower price.

 

I think your flat on one side coins are great. They are a well defined group of coins, of historical interest (but not Roman or Greek) and not offered in many auctions. Those characteristics require buying from auctions to build your collection. The key is to know what you pay for each bid.

My collection of Italian cast bronze requires buying from auctions. My first cast RR coin was purchased 10 years ago at a coin show. My second purchase has not happened.
My first cast coin, on right, is a Semis. No. 2 is an As.

 

This has been tried by another Canadian collector and Heritage flatly refused.

 

Unnecessary fees frustrate me. Leu has a "bank wire" charge even though I'm paying via PayPal. I must be doing something wrong.

 

Yup. Heritage gets the show-the-buyer's-fee thing right, and the show-the-reasonable-shipping-cost thing doubly wrong. As a Canadian, I basically never buy from them.

 

Sign up for TransferWise. Leu does not charge the usual wire-transfer fee for TW transfers (it's really a direct deposit) and of course no PayPal fee when you use TW. You just pay the basic bill and it costs you less than 1%.

 

Yes, I have used Transferwise and it is great and cheap. There are still some auction houses that will only take wire transfers.

 

One major irritating auction practice that is voiced so often, though not much in this thread, is the alarming lack of good customer service practices.
We've all had the wrist wrenching nail biting frustration of lack of communication from an auction house after a nice win.
The auction houses that I gravitate towards are the ones in the past that I feel have gone above and beyond for me.
LOVE me some Spink and I hate to even mention them, for fear of creating more bidding opposition, but Savoca just consistently has screaming saweeeet deals and give consistently effortless interactions on my end.

 

This is how the auction house makes money. Most of the coins sold at auction are not owned by the auction companies but are consigned. Without a commission there would be no auction houses.

Simply factor it into the cost you are willing to pay like delivery, assembly and tax for anything else you purchase.

 

I personally feel like the buyer shouldn't get stuck with that end of the bill. Should come from the seller's side. That's just my thoughts on it.

 

TransferWise works like a wire to the auction house though you might be doing the transfer from your bank account via ACH or credit card. The money is wired by TW to the auction house.

BTW, I love TransferWise! Learned about it here and it has completely changed my outlook on dealing with international payments. Super easy to use, the FOREX rates are unbeatable in my experience, and the cost of the service is dirt cheap compared to the typical bank.

 

Sorry I was not clear. What you describe above is exactly how I used Transferwise to pay an auction house that only accepted a wire transfer.

 

When the buyer pays for an auction coin, he or she pays a certain total amount (hammer price plus buyer's fee plus shipping and possibly bank or PayPal fees). The seller gets much less (hammer price minus "seller's fee"). It matters not at all what the difference between what the buyer pays and the seller gets is called. The buyer is the only one paying anything. The seller is getting less than than the hammer price, but he didn't "pay" the seller's fee. He never had it in the first place. In effect he sold his coins for less than the hammer price and the buyer paid more than the hammer price. The critical service the auction house provided is the difference and all of that difference was paid for by the buyer (once again, only the buyer injects money into the transaction).

That's why you should not worry about what the fees are called ("buyer's" or "seller's"). If you are a buyer, you pay hammer plus some amount. You can reckon what to bid if you want the total payment to be X. (It is possible that in your first foreign auction you will miscalculate and find the bill higher than expected.) If you are a seller, you get hammer minus some amount. Simple.

 

As for as auctions go, I've only bought from eBay and, by and large, I'm OK with it because I shop very carefully.
My pet peeve and biggest complaint is excessive shipping charges from sellers who want to treat shipping charges as just another source of profit.
I once had a seller that, after I won about $32.00 worth of small coins, wanted to charge full shipping for each coin, which amounted to over $34.00. When I complained his answer was that he does consignments on eBay for other peoples coins and that he considers the excess S&H to be part of his profits just like eBay does.
Others try to charge full price for the first coin, then as much as $1.50 each for every extra coin.
Full price for the 1st is of course, OK, but more than about $0.25 each for extras is not OK to me.
What I look for on eBay is the quality of the items, low starting prices, and reasonable shipping charges.
Another big gripe is sellers who, at the last minute possible, cancel all bids and end a listing, especially when it's very obvious in some cases that it's only because the seller doesn't like the way the bidding is going.He doesn't want to "give it away".

 

It's allowable for him to charge full shipping for each coin, but then he had better ship each coin separately!

 

Which of course, that guy wasn't going to do. He readily admitted that he was trying to make a profit on the S&H. He claimed eBay encourages him to do so simply because eBay makes a profit (albeit a small one) on S&H.

I make approximately 100 purchases a month on eBay and each purchase involves multiple items. I spend my money with those sellers who treat me honestly and fairly.
Smart sellers on eBay know one of the keys to eBay success is having multiple bidders on each item. They know they want each bidder to return and bid again on something. Sellers know there are literally thousands and thousands of other sellers for buyers to buy from. They know they have to do something to get your attention and keep you coming back.
Having quality items, with low starting prices, and reasonable shipping charges, does it for me.