My First Teletrade Auction

I would not value at Numismedia's prices.










Unless I was selling!

 

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Thanks for the link schatzy. That forum addresses a lot of the main customer complaints one hears regarding TT. Before I say anything else, I will repeat that I do buy from TT from time to time (and enough to have seen these issues) and I regularly track items on TT to stay abreast of what auction prices are being realized.

The point that "Coins seem to vanish off the radar if the undisclosed reserve is not met" is a problem that I don't fully understand myself. I have wondered why and speculated if it has anything to do with their user interface and lack of maintaining a dedicated database for buyers. It's really irksome that you can track coins in your watch list but the coin disappears if minimums are not realized or if you don't place a bid. This even though immediately after the auction there is a little flashing note that says 'pending' but then the tracked item disappears or you loose without explanation. Of course you can bookmark any particular auctioned coin page and later check back to see what happened in a few days, but why does it fall off your tracking page if it's just a matter of saving a bookmark?

I don't think there's anything dubious going on and I am sure that all auction houses that consign customers items are willing to buy lots submitted to them and may choose to relist items themselves later for higher start prices. While that may feel like the consignor has been 'cheated', I'm not aware of any consigning terms being breached since a consignor's minimum price was met and paid for in a timely manner by the auction house. I understand that the auction house is in need of maintaining inventory, is allowed to select when to insert merchandise when they see the potential fit for successful sales/minimums being met and they need the influx of items to build their auctions with the goal to make a profit. If any auction house buys a consignor's items and pays for them then lists those same items at a later date for higher start price I don't see what the auction house did wrong. Is it any different from a dealer or customer bidding in an auction or buying from any retail merchant then flipping items immediately or down the road? For TT, this seems to serve several purposes: retain customers by accepting lots for auction, pay those consignors for the inventory acquired in a timely manner to ensure happy customers and completed transactions, build inventory for future auctions and offer a reasonable amount of items per auction held without an over abundance of one item at any one time and to ultimately make a profit in their business.

Above all, I think these various aspects lead to a lot of upset customers speculating about TT's business practice. Perhaps that comes from TT being too transparent while some customers misunderstand the purpose -or- TT isn't being sensitive enough to their customers by responding quickly and explicitly explaining these issues to them, that is not giving enough forewarning of the potential reason for buying a consignors items.

Whether TT is only a 100% auction site, a partially cloaked retail site or a little of each, for me it's a lot safer than eBay and more welcoming than their sister companies like HA that deal with bigger, puffed up auctions where I'm bound to have a lot more competition and difficulty acquiring an item in my interest and price range.