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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;benhur767, post: 2932129, member: 36818&quot;]Auctions are fundamentally different than retail, in that auction houses serve both client and customer. The client is the consigner, the customer is the bidder. By law, auctioneers have a fiduciary duty to maximize the return for the seller (the client), not to convenience the bidder (the customer). Any auctioneer that is found to be negligent of this responsibility will face legal consequences, which can be as severe as the loss of their auctioneer&#039;s license, fines, and even prison.</p><p><br /></p><p>Their legal obligation to the buyer involves posting and upholding the terms of the sale, as well as to transfer the property once payment is collected. They have an ethical duty to treat the customer courteously and fairly. But there is no fiduciary responsibility to the bidder. People who complain about hidden fees with auctions simply haven&#039;t done their due diligence. There are no hidden fees. The terms of sale and all associated fees are clearly stated. It is up to the bidders to familiarize themselves with the terms, then bid accordingly, or refrain from bidding.</p><p><br /></p><p>To gripe about auction fees or the auction &quot;business model&quot; is to misunderstand auctions. With auctions, prices are bid up from a low point, whereas with retail prices start high and are negotiated down. In an auction, a customer must be vetted and approved. It is a <i>privilege</i> to bid. The customer willing to pay the most has the <i>privilege</i> of winning. Participating in and winning an auction is an <i>elitist</i> privilege. It is a function of class and status. Cheerfully paying the buyer&#039;s fee, shipping, ad nauseum above hammer price is a way to demonstrate elite status. Of course, there are countless low-end junk auctions where any manner of flotsam and jetsam can be purchased for a dollar. But I&#039;m mainly referring to the international art and collectibles market.</p><p><br /></p><p>Auctions are generally not a good fit for people who are on a tight budget, and it does not fit with the contemporary retail business model within which &quot;the customer is always right.&quot; But auctions are not retail; they are an alternative to retail and in many ways opposed to it. One of their main functions is to establish the market price of chattel through offers obtained from bidding. With retail the market price has already been determined.</p><p><br /></p><p>The auction format is designed to encourage robust bidding by creating a feeling of excitement, immediacy, and exclusivity. It is therefore not in the best interest of most traditional auction houses to remind people of the buyer&#039;s fee during bidding, as this may suppress hammer prices. Buyer&#039;s fees are never going away, and I doubt most major auction houses will do much to make it more convenient for bidders to calculate it into the total cost of items during bidding. If bidders don&#039;t want to calculate buyer&#039;s fees — if bidding in auctions is too inconvenient — then they are better off buying coins at retail. Understand that an auction is more akin to a gambling table than to a retail store: it is a game with well-established rules, and is heavily regulated by the government. Most important, the odds are with the house.</p><p><br /></p><p>Heritage seems to be an exception. They have done a good job of developing online bidding software that calculates buyer&#039;s fees for you, and does so during online bidding. But they are positioning themselves as more of a &quot;populist&quot; auctioneer. This is why they unnecessarily slab most of the ancient coins they sell. They position themselves as friendly to novices and first-time auction participants.</p><p><br /></p><p>A personal anecdote to illustrate auction houses&#039; attitude toward bidders:</p><p><br /></p><p>A major European auctioneer — who has been identified as a favorite of several posters here — once allowed a third-party company accidentally to charge my credit card without my permission (through the third party&#039;s access to the auctioneer&#039;s own website). When I contacted the auction house and asked them to credit the charge, the director sent a reply to me saying it was my responsibility to contact the third party to obtain the credit.</p><p><br /></p><p>I replied telling him to do it, since it was done through his website. He then sent me a lengthy email dressing me down for being &quot;crass&quot; and &quot;rude.&quot; No head of a customer-oriented establishment would ever handle a simple error on their part by denying responsibility and then <i>berating the customer</i> for objecting. Of course he had them credit my account (which he should have done in the first place).</p><p><br /></p><p>And I&#039;m still a customer of this auction house, despite. After all, they&#039;ve allowed me the continued privilege of doing business with them, despite my crassness and rudeness having been a personal affront to the director. If I want the privilege of owning a particular item that they are handling, then I have no choice but to deal with them, or else forego that privilege.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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