Rick - I believe that most of the major auction houses charge a BP that is greater than 17% these days. :(
Val

I think auction houses would love to get paid right away and could live with the ~.03% fee, but they are afraid of paypal or credit cards, because of the possibility of reversing a charge. They want all the power if a dispute should arise.

Lovely Day...

What iggyman said +1, except that I think the fees are ~3% as opposed to ~.03%.
Val

Auction house shipping?
 

I've done business with most of them and rate Legendary the quickest to ship and Heritage, by far, the slowest.

The Heritage vs SCP test - shipping

I won fairly large card lots from Heritage on November 10/11, and from SCP on Nov 19 (8 day head start for Heritage). Paid for both with cashier's checks. Heritage received their check on Nov 18 and has not yet shipped. SCP's lots are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.

Customer service

Heritage - responded to one email, stating that they received my check on Nov 22 and would ship in 7-10 days plus additional time due to the holidays. The signed tracking slip said otherwise: Nov 18.
SCP - timely shipping, so guess I'll never know - sounds like a pretty good business model.

I called up Heritage yesterday to ask about my order that I paid 7 days ago and they almost laughed me telling me it'll probably not go out until late next week. I realize thanksgiving is in there, but when you pay via paypal it's instant and shouldn't take 2-3 weeks to deliver. That's why Goodwin / Legendary get a lot of my business - fast shipping and great customer service. They can't even use the excuse that they have a lot of items to ship out, their magazine is the same size at REA and they shipped the same day.