Am I being too impatient with Roma?

During the most recently ended Roma e-sale 33 ending Saturday, 2/4/17 I won a single lot. When the invoice came in on Monday, 2/6/17 I paid quickly, within an hour as usual, and expected to see a shipping notification in the next few days. I still didn't have one this morning so I emailed them to inquire about it and got the response below:

"Thank you for your. Unfortunate no shipping will be done until next week as we are currently working towards our deadline to finish our printed catalogue for the March sale. Because of this all other office tasks have been set aside until we finish this Friday. We very much apologise for the delay and appreciate your patience. Once they have gone out next week sometime we will send you the email notification."

I get that "small change" bidders like myself probably come after the big fish who can afford to bid in these printed sales but it seems wrong to me to expect someone to wait 2 weeks just for their package to get into the mail, especially when the reason amounts to "we don't have time to ship your package". I can understand if there are export/customs issues because those are non-negotiable but this just seems ridiculous. I've won some coins I really enjoy from Roma, especially the most recent win which I'm really looking forward to, but this sort of thing will certainly make me think twice about spending my money with them in the future.

 

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Kudos for honesty, but what kind of business are they running? You pay and must wait till they get another catalog finished? Something very wrong there.

 

Interesting. I would never respond as such, nor have my business behave as such, under any circumstances. Priority is to your end-user. Customer Care is paramount, or there will be no need to have the next catalog.

 

I had a frustrating situation with a different UK auciton house. I won a single coin at the opening price abd since the instructions were clear I paid the same day and emailed them to notify them as such. Two weeks later I get an email telling me that if I didn't pay soon that they would start charging me interest and block me from future bidding. Silence ensued and the coin arrived a few days later.

 

LOL "silence ensued".

However, how frustrating!

 

That's nuts. I've luckily never experienced anything like that.

 

Such behavior is difficult for me to comprehend.

 

It is easy. When those of you who have enough surplus money to buy coins from people who treat you poorly continue to send that money to them, why should they treat you like anything but a sucker? I have a limited budget and choose to spend it with dealers who say 'thank you' and do not bother with the ones who consider themselves too good for the likes of me. If you can not enjoy your hobby without the coins offered by such dealers, it is not a hobby but an addiction.

 

I'd be ...upset, and probably ask for a refund, but somebody'll tell me i'm wrong

 

It takes 3-4 weeks for coins to get here from the UK anyway that I just accept the fact I'll have to wait a while. If you're otherwise happy with the way the auction was run and you have had good experiences with them in the past, I'd accept their apology as sincere and continue to use them.

I am also awaiting shipping of a coin I won at that same auction--a very attractive Faustina I denarius--and I figure it won't get here until early March. I like Roma and this doesn't bother me near as much as the debacle I had with Agora with their December 20 auction, where they didn't even check to see if I had paid them--and ignored three e-mails--until I called them three weeks later to ask where my coin was.

 

Damn, I thought I kicked all my addictions.
I've not really dealt with any big auction houses as far as coins go.
Unless you count CNG, but they're actually kinda small.
I agree with Doug though, if I'm not shown a little appreciation it'll be a while if I return at all.

 

In contrast to Roma, I ordered a coin last Wednesday from a European dealer, he mailed it Friday via FedEx, I got it early this morning. I paid $19 for shipping and it was well worth it.

 

I could understand if the reason for it taking so long was shipping and I fully expect coins from overseas to spend some time in the mail. I even accept that they will take a few days to ship, but it seems to me that their priorities are out of order if getting the next catalog out means leaving existing customers waiting. For what it's worth, I ordered a silver victoriatus from another dealer based in London later last week. That coin is already in the US working its way through customs.

 

Germania Inferior Numismatics by chance? I've bought many coins from him as well and I am always pleased with his shipping, especially with auction houses sometimes charging near that much for registered mail.

 

No, it was Munthandel G Henzen, based in the Netherlands. I was quite impressed with the professional handling of the transaction.

 

I'm waiting for a little inexpensive Hadrian denarius from Roma. I also paid within an hour of getting the invoice and have been waiting for a reply since 2/6/17 as well. I just figured it was normal for an auction house but it's sad to see that they don't treat big and small buyers the same. It was my first bid with them. I have been learning to be patient to a point.

 

You're kidding, right? CNG is a big name in ancient numismatics and a much bigger operation than Roma. They hold twice as many auctions, have offices in the US and in England, and are a much older company.

Edited: Oh, you may not have been making a CNG/Roma comparison. Nonetheless, CNG is a big company relative to ancient numismatics.

 

Dolf is excellent! I enjoy working with him.

 

No, not comparing the 2.
I agree they are big or well known but the over all size of the company (atleast stateside) seems small. Maybe they aren't. I do like dealing with them atleast they have a family business type atmosphere.

 

I also won one small lot in the Feb 4 Roma auction and received an unprompted e-mail yesterday the same as red_spork 's. Maybe Roma is feeling the heat and sent out a blanket e-mail to everyone? While we clearly don't need the coins immediately (for reasons other than to stave off coin withdrawal symptoms) my view for any product is that if a vendor expects quick payment then I expect quick shipping in return. For coins I consider quick shipping to be anything within a week of the auction close or the purchase date if from an online store.