SCP Auctions - poor customer service w/ auction item

[scooter729]

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend who is not a board member, but will encourage him to join and chime in.

My friend purchased this Red Auerbach nameplate in the SCP Auction which ended on 7/13.

Lot #11: RED AUERBACH'S DESKTOP NAMEPLATE FROM HIS BOSTON OFFICE (PHOTOMATCH)

http://www.scpauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=15064

He paid right away, and received the nameplate in the mail very shortly thereafter. The nameplate itself was nice as described, but there was no photomatch of the nameplate to Red's office, as was described in the auction title.

He then called SCP on several occasions, and was assured twice that it will be sent to him, but nothing ever came. He called again on Friday 8/19, and was told that he needs to speak with someone named Dan the following week. The person he spoke with said to "keep calling until you reach Dan." He did not offer to take a message or make an inquiry.

My friend then sent several emails to every email address listed on the SCP site, threatening legal and BBB action. He received an email back last Saturday from Dan, as follows:
=====
Ralph,

I am very sorry for the "runaround". I will be back in the office on Wednesday and will handle this personally. I do believe we have the photomatch and I will contact you immediately upon my return to let you know the status of getting it sent to you. Again, sincere apologies.

Dan Imler
Managing Director
SCP Auctions
=====

Two days have now come and gone since Dan promised to respond, and there has been no response. My friend has sent him another email yesterday and today, and nothing has been answered. This wasn't exactly a cheap item - nearly $1K with the juice - so I'd expect better customer service here.

His bids on the item were based on getting a photomatch of the nameplate, and after a month of a runaround, I offered to share his story with the board. This sounds unacceptable to me, and I would hope SCP will reach out to him ASAP with both the photomatch and some refund for his troubles, or an offer for an immediate full refund.

Is this par for the course for SCP? I have had minimal experience with them myself and haven't had any issues, but want to see how others have found their dealings with SCP.

Thanks,
Scott Sar1an

[Leon]

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend who is not a board member, but will encourage him to join and chime in.

My friend purchased this Red Auerbach nameplate in the SCP Auction which ended on 7/13.

Lot #11: RED AUERBACH'S DESKTOP NAMEPLATE FROM HIS BOSTON OFFICE (PHOTOMATCH)

http://www.scpauctions.com/LotDetail.aspx?lotid=15064

He paid right away, and received the nameplate in the mail very shortly thereafter. The nameplate itself was nice as described, but there was no photomatch of the nameplate to Red's office, as was described in the auction title.

He then called SCP on several occasions, and was assured twice that it will be sent to him, but nothing ever came. He called again on Friday 8/19, and was told that he needs to speak with someone named Dan the following week. The person he spoke with said to "keep calling until you reach Dan." He did not offer to take a message or make an inquiry.

My friend then sent several emails to every email address listed on the SCP site, threatening legal and BBB action. He received an email back last Saturday from Dan, as follows:
=====
Ralph,

I am very sorry for the "runaround". I will be back in the office on Wednesday and will handle this personally. I do believe we have the photomatch and I will contact you immediately upon my return to let you know the status of getting it sent to you. Again, sincere apologies.

Dan Imler
Managing Director
SCP Auctions
=====

Two days have now come and gone since Dan promised to respond, and there has been no response. My friend has sent him another email yesterday and today, and nothing has been answered. This wasn't exactly a cheap item - nearly $1K with the juice - so I'd expect better customer service here.

His bids on the item were based on getting a photomatch of the nameplate, and after a month of a runaround, I offered to share his story with the board. This sounds unacceptable to me, and I would hope SCP will reach out to him ASAP with both the photomatch and some refund for his troubles, or an offer for an immediate full refund.

Is this par for the course for SCP? I have had minimal experience with them myself and haven't had any issues, but want to see how others have found their dealings with SCP.

Hi Scott
You know well my feelings and board policy on this type of post. I have no issue whatsoever with the post but you or your friend are going to need to put your full name out here. I don't think it's fair otherwise, especially where our policy is concerned. Thanks for your understanding.

[scooter729]

Thanks Leon - done!

[Matt]

SCP has had other issues - I imagine a forum search would turn up some threads.

[RichardSimon]

SCP has had other issues - I imagine a forum search would turn up some threads.

Instead of SCP in the above sentence,,, say most auction houses.
Shilling, fakes, fakes, fakes, more shilling, Delehanty, Wagner, game used or NOT, 3rd parties playing favorites, hidden reserves, etc, etc, etc.

[travrosty]

I agree with Richard,

auction loa's, pre-certified, fake, secretarial, shilling, hidden reserves, auction houses bidding on the items. playing favorites.

it's all there and more.

[calvindog]

Allowing consignors to bid on their own items, win their own items, auction houses lying about their ownership of items, etc.

[vintagechris]

Auction LOA's and pre certified is something that need to change. With some of the things I have seen authenticators authenticate, I have no doubt many times these authenticators do not look at the items.

Sadly the auction houses do not hold them accountable. They just assume it is an honest mistake when in reality it is painfully obvious to people with autograph knowledge that they did not even look at them.

I recently returned an autograph lot to an auction house because of the large number of fakes. Not only fakes but obvious fakes that took me no more than three minutes to know there were major issues.

To the credit of the auction house, they allowed me to return for a refund. However, what I would like to see even more is the auction house to start holding this "authenticator" responsible for this garbage. The sad part is whoever forged the signatures, didn't even try to sign like the player. They just signed however they wanted to and somehow these passed the "authentication process"!

[RichardSimon]

Auction LOA's,,, pre-certified,,, just more mumbo jumbo from authentication services.
You either examine an item or not.
Why are they allowed to get away with this?
"Well, yeah, we sort of looked at that autograph before the auction, but if you want us to REALLY look at it, ya gotta pay up, sucka."

[travrosty]

on their websites, these companies state that the purchaser of the auction item should really send it in to ensure their highest level of service.

they are admitting you are getting their lowest level to begin with. a 'preliminary' inspection.

preliminary just means sub-standard, why anyone should put up with that is a question i would like these auction houses to answer.


the drunk guy packed your chute, but if you pay us extra money, you can ensure our highest service of packing your chute.

[thecatspajamas]

Anyone have any idea what authenticators typically charge auction houses for these en masse authentications? Do they do it by the total number of lots, number of pieces, by the hour, by the day? Clearly it's not equivalent to adding up their standard rate for each individual signed item, but I'm just curious as to how they go about it.

If there's a previous thread that addresses this, I'd be happy for a point in the right direction. There's so much bashing and discussion of TPA's that it's hard to do a search for it.

[vintagechris]

Auction LOA's,,, pre-certified,,, just more mumbo jumbo from authentication services.
You either examine an item or not.
Why are they allowed to get away with this?
"Well, yeah, we sort of looked at that autograph before the auction, but if you want us to REALLY look at it, ya gotta pay up, sucka."

The sad part Richard, I am really starting to believe that they don't even look at the stuff. I wish I had scanned some of this stuff to show people.

The sad part about the lot I purchased, it was about 350 cards. I myself could personally go through in about 15 minutes and pull out the questionable ones. Questionable meaning either I know they are fake or questionable meaning I have not seen many examples of that person's autograph.

Sadly about 30% of this lot were without question bad. WIth another 20% highly questionable. There were forgeries of Harry Carson and Charlie Joiner in this lot. Guys who have signed TTM for years and their signatures haven't changed much at all if any, and they didn't even look like the person TRIED to form the letters correctly.

How does someone who is a "professional" authenticator not know what a Charlie Joiner autograph looks like?!

These auction houses need to start being more careful because you are letting these guys scam you. Many times they are not even looking at this stuff. I used to question if they looked at them, after this last lot, I know without question this authenticator did not look at them.

As I said in previous post, the auction house allowed me to return it but if they continue to not hold these people accountable for their "mistakes" they will have lost my business.

[scooter729]

To follow up from my original post, Dan from SCP eventually did reach out to my friend over the weekend to offer a refund on the item if he would like, since they do not have the photomatch to authenticate the nameplate (which is why the item got the bids which it did).

The tough thing - my friend really wants to keep the nameplate, but bid higher on it because it was supposed to have a photomatch. So he now has to decide whether to return for the refund offered, or keep it at the full price despite not being fully as described.

[Wite3]

He can always ask for a partial refund. If SCP were any good at customer service, that would have been one of the options from the start (although, if they were any good, they would have the photomatch to begin with).

Joshua

[travrosty]

ask what day is the very latest you can return it, and in the meantime try to find a photo match yourself.

[travrosty]

there are a couple of photos of his office out there, looks like he had numerous nameplates.

here are two photos. several nameplates shown, but not the one you have.

i guess you would have to decide whether having an auerbach estate letter is good enough for you. it would be for me. the alternative is that the estate or someone else manufactured it out of whole cloth to try to fool somebody? seems unlikely. when he died, they probably gathered all his stuff, and this was in it. i would think it is his nameplate, owned by him. it didnt look like he only had one nameplate in or around his office all those years, probably many of them.

[scooter729]

Thanks for the help. Agreed - I feel 100% confident (as does my friend) that the nameplate is totally Red's. It's not a question of authenticity (at least not now - if he went to re-sell down the road, it could be, but that is not at all his intention. He's a die-hard Celtics fan.)

However, there were a couple of different nameplates SCP was auctioning, which were advertised as photomatches. Had this one been listed properly as not having the match, he likely would have bid more on one of the others instead of this one. Now they're all sold though, so it's his call on how to proceed.

So it's not about whether it's real or not - it's more the fact of not listing the item correctly, and then taking over a month to get back to a winning bidder about an item which wasn't described properly.

[travrosty]

agreed, he will have to decide on what he wants to do.

i would think the letter from the auerbach estate and the scp auction listing would be good anywhere as far as resale.

i agree the auction house made an error, but a photo wouldnt make it worth more for me. i would bid my top dollar if i believed it to be authentic, photo or not, not bid if i didnt believe it to be.

if the photo is the deal breaker, then he should return it.

but i do understand his argument, i just dont subscribe to it. for me there is no halfway price for a item without a photo. for me its either good or not, but if scp didnt supply what they promised, they should take it back if the buyer wants to send it back.

if he believes its red's, like i do, and believes its worth the thousand then he should just keep it, and along with the auerbach estate letter, he will be fine, and decide whether or not to do business with scp in the future. but good luck to him.

[perezfan]

But the under-bidder might not have gone as high, had he known there was no photo-match. They provided a faulty description, which may easily have led to a higher than expected price realized.

For both the inconvenience and the incorrect description, SCP should offer an option to keep the item along with a 20% discount (or something in that neighborhood). Even a 20% discount voucher towards a future auction would be a nice gesture of goodwill. Just my 2 cents...

[Tigerden]

Off topic, but I really dig that Washington Capitols jacket in the photo. Can't help but wonder if it has found its way into the hobby.