Heritage Auctions: Ambush Marketing?

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Posted By: JimB

No offense, but I find this discussion absolutely ridiculous. With all the real problems in the world (or even in this hobby), why one would bother getting all stirred up over Heritage promoting their auction via Ebay seems like a complete waste of time and brain cells.
JimB

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

Jim,

I guess you must exclusively consign cards to auction houses when you sell. For the rest of us who do sell on ebay this represents a double standard. So I am not so sure this is so ridiculous to address. Certainly there have been far more ridiculous threads but I don't recall you posting twice on those threads. Are you getting banner ad money too from Heritage?????

Greg

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Posted By: Rob D.

If we're going to use the "real problems in the world" as a measuring stick of what's appropriate to post about, then just shut down the board.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Catalog Sales


Listings of catalogs from which buyers may directly order are not permitted.

Old and collectible catalogs (from which you can no longer place an order) are permissible. However, the title or description may not contain extensive lists of specific items included in the catalog. Sellers wishing to list these catalogs should review the Additional Information section below and adhere to its policies.

Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:

Listing cancellation

Limits on account privileges

Account suspension

Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings

Loss of PowerSeller status

EDIT TO ADD I suppose one could argue no violation because one cannot "directly order" from the Heritage catalog.

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

This is an email from ebay that was just forwarded to me from someone who reported the 101 Heritage listings:

We will thoroughly review the listing(s) you have reported for
violations of our Listing Policies. In order to keep eBay a safe and fun
place to trade, we often rely on members like you to bring such listing
violations to our attention.

In light of our privacy policy, we cannot share with you any action
taken by eBay with respect to this listing. If we determine that the
listing violates eBay policy, we may:

1. Send the seller an informational alert;
2. Remove the listing; or
3. Suspend the seller.

Account suspensions are usually reserved for those sellers that
continuously disregard policy.

If you would like to review our Listing Policies in more detail, please
visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-ov.html

Thank you for your report.

Regards,

The eBay Community Watch Team

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Posted By: quan

ok not real world problems (because who cares about the real world here)...but in the auction world where we were being charged $75 for the right to bid, hidden reserves, shill bidding, house bidding up to meet reserves, prepping and enhancing of material by auction houses before sending them in for grading, outright alteration and reparation of material w/o disclosing it, misrepresentation of material bordering on fraud and ignoring the winner when he brought it up...i'm glad we're drawing the sand here today!

i'm glad there's an ebay watchdog group to look out for ebay's best interest...when you send your complaint to heritage do also cc that email to you.are.being.taken.advantage.of!!!!!!@ebay.com so they can review all those auctions and shut them down pronto...because they are an eyesore and represent what is wrong with our hobby today.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Quan, those other problems are too depressing, especially the prepping/enhancing/alteration, if we thought about them enough and acknowledged the extent to which they likely were actually taking place, we wouldn't be able to buy cards any more. So it's more practical to focus on the little stuff.

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Hello world, this is business, American style. If I ran Heritage, I would do the exact same thing; as would I suspect those who run eBay. I think its extraordinarly naive to believe this is inappropriate.


edited a typo

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Posted By: davidcycleback

It's nothing new. REA, Sotheby's and others have done the same.

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Posted By: Dave F

REA has done this David? When was this?

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Posted By: barrysloate

Corey- ebay has rules and what Heritage did is against those rules. They simply worded and presented it in such a way as to hopefully slip pass ebay's search. So I will disagree with your statement. Ebay may ultimately shut it down.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

For all we know they cleared it with ebay in advance. Literally it may not violate the policy as it is not a catalog from which a customer can "order directly" although the intent of the policy as a whole seems to be to distinguish between catalogs of historical interest and current ones.

I find the "Jackson" photo to be more of an issue.

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Posted By: barrysloate

If it were okay to list a catalog for sale Heritage could have done that in a simple straightforward manner. The convoluted way they presented it suggests they were trying to circumvent the rules.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

Barry not necessarily, the way they did it (listing individual cards) is far more likely to generate "hits" than just listing a catalog.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Peter- don't you think there are more than a fair number of people who looked at Heritage's listing and got confused? Also, it is against ebay rules to do what they did. If that's a valid advertising campaign I think it is a poor one. My vote is this was carefully planned to list the catalog for sale without ebay figuring it out.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

I guess we'll see if ebay takes down the listings.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Anything is possible but I say they were trying to slip one past the goalie.

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Posted By: CoreyRS.hanus

Barry,

That may or may not be true. But the gist of the complaints on this thread pertained to the bush league tactics of what Heritage was doing, not that it might have violated eBay's rules. And that was the focus I was responding to. And I will reiterate my point that it is naive to expect any profit-seeking auction house to have done anything differently if they felt by doing so they would negatively impact their prices realized.

And to go further, is this action any more repugnant that the action of an auction house puffing their catalog offerings to the point of arguably crossing the line to outward misrepresentation? You and I have discussed that on a number of occassions. We abhor such practices, but grudgingly admit that with some auction houses it is a common occurrence.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Corey- no auction house would ever dare do that.

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Posted By: Dave F

Corey-

You say it's naive to think any profit seeking auction house would not do this, you really feel REA would stoop to this? I know there are many auction houses that do things that I shake my head about...but, i'm asking about one in particular that I personally put head and shoulders above the rest.

Heritage states themselves that they have the largest customer base of anyone..so why the need to do this? Why they are at it why not put flyers on everyone's mailboxes to?

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Posted By: Jimmy

Barry,

I guess I was just trying to be nice to Heritage on my last post, but you make some good points. I do not sell as much as you do, but at some point I will be doing more both on eBay and off. These are the kinds of issues that do bother me and have I been on eBay a long time. I really try not to go crazy on this board, but with my experiences with some of the auction houses and the news I hear just disappoints me more about the hobby. This hobby is intended to be fun and enjoyable weather you are making money or not. Certainly there are some aspects to the hobby which are necessary to keep business going, but sometimes you have to question about what maybe going on in the hobby today. I really try to keep it simple and straight forward when it comes to my website, shows and eBay.

Jimmy

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Posted By: Alan

Also, keep in mind that this is the time of year (April-May) this particular Heritage sports auction has to go up against at least REA & Legendary (Mastro) major auctions for collectors' money. Remember, Leon's thread about "Don't forget about Heritage"....

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Posted By: James Feagin

Don't forget about Huggins & Scott either.....sorry for the shameless plug

James

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jimmy- Toward the end of last year I was selling some consignments on ebay and getting ready to start my November catalog auction. I thought it would be a great idea to post my website address on each ebay listing and steer more traffic over there. But I asked a couple of people with more ebay experience than me and I was told ebay will shut me down if they catch it. And I certainly couldn't risk that as how do I tell a consignor I can no longer sell their material because I was shut down?

So when I see Heritage's listing I have to think they knew that too but were more clever than I was. They simply found a way to beat the system.

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Posted By: Jim VB

Corey said: "...this is business, American style."


I don't find that to be an acceptable excuse for a practice that is ethically lax.


I do agree that it is relatively minor compared to things we see from some other auction houses. This isn't a deal breaker for me. Failure to pay consignors, card tampering, shill bidding, fake sales, and many more common practices are much worse.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Agreed. This is a minor transgression, but since we seem to dissect everything, this is fair game.

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Posted By: John H.

I could care less that they have listed their auction catalog. It's strange and somewhat misleading for people who don't or can't read but, all in all, it's unimportant to me. What bothers me is that they didn't list them as "Buy It Now" and they have left the auctions open to bid for those people who think they're bidding on a Pete Rose rookie card rather than a catalog.

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Posted By: Red

"Jimmy- Toward the end of last year I was selling some consignments on ebay and getting ready to start my November catalog auction. I thought it would be a great idea to post my website address on each ebay listing and steer more traffic over there. But I asked a couple of people with more ebay experience than me and I was told ebay will shut me down if they catch it. And I certainly couldn't risk that as how do I tell a consignor I can no longer sell their material because I was shut down?"

Promoting your own auction along with a website address was something that was well known to be against Ebay rules. You were advised on how to change and word your message so it would not be against Ebay rules. Using Ebay to promote your business is a very wise thing to do. It's advertising just like an ad in SCD only it's seen by a lot more fresh faces. It's foolish not to push your nearly free "advertising" to the maximum allowed by Ebay.

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Posted By: T206Collector

<<It's foolish not to push your nearly free "advertising" to the maximum allowed by Ebay.>>

I think this is akin to spamming email. I don't think its illegal or particularly malevolent. I think its somewhat adolescent and goofy and smacks of desperate marketing.

Ebay is already filled with this so-called "advertising" and it further dilutes the ability of collectors to get to actual cards on ebay. If everyone that promotes a business uses ebay in this fashion, then pretty soon ebay stops being at all useful for its intended purpose.

Here's my next Net54 thread: "Authentic T206 Wagner -- Cheap!"

Text of message: "I wish I could find one. In the meantime, I'm eating at Sloppy Joes, on the corner of 34th and 2nd."




Visithttp://www.t206collector.com for Net54 T206 archive, signed deadball card galleries, articles and more!

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Posted By: Claude

It is easy to understand why they don't have a "Buy it Now" they don't try to sell the catalog they are advertising their auction, the Buy it Now would stop the advertising if somebody use it.

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

Yeah - another comment on the Heritage "Jackson" photo. Apparently when it was cirulating in 2005 - it appeared as shown below -what's that, a 1919 date! Wasn't Joe otherwise busy in 1919? Why is this date not shown in the current auction ?

[/IMG]

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

Hey! Look! Isn't that Charles Comiskey hiding under that hat right next to Shoeless Joe?

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Posted By: John H.

"It is easy to understand why they don't have a "Buy it Now" they don't try to sell the catalog they are advertising their auction, the Buy it Now would stop the advertising if somebody use it."

Of course they're trying to sell their catalog, Claude. That's why they have an opening bid price on it. They want to sell the catalog to people that they hope will use it to bid on their auctions. The logical mistake they are making is NOT having a "Buy It Now" price on the catalog because I don't think they really want people to bid one of their catalogs up to $113 which is where the Rose rookie catalog is now.

I haven't received a response to my email to them.

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Posted By: JimB

Greg (BOTN) wrote:
"Jim,

I guess you must exclusively consign cards to auction houses when you sell. For the rest of us who do sell on ebay this represents a double standard. So I am not so sure this is so ridiculous to address. Certainly there have been far more ridiculous threads but I don't recall you posting twice on those threads. Are you getting banner ad money too from Heritage?????

Greg "


Greg,
I don't know what I ever did to offend you, but you regularly take offense at my comments on this board. As for the enormous losses your Ebay business is incurring, why don't you just inform us all of your Ebay names so we can be aware of them and bid accordingly.
JimB

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

What's so incredible here is that on close examination - you can see that the current Heritage Mark Americans photo is physically the same photo in the same mat as the one circulated in 2005 - and someone has done a very poor job of trying to eradicate the date!

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Posted By: Bottom of the Ninth

YIKES!!!! Guess that settles this case. Hope Heritage does the right thing here.

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Posted By: Dave F

At what point if your the CEO, President, or heck the Customer Service Director do you actually come on these boards and say something? Anything?


Too many of these auction houses lately have had things pointed out on this board...and the result is always silence.

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Posted By: Rob D.

I'm sure they're not hiding, Dave.

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Posted By: George H. Counter

Just another case of restoration and stabilization 'a la mastro'?

http://www.network54.com/Forum/153652/message/1102513863/WHAT+IS+THE+KEELER+ROOKIE

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Posted By: Mark

From Heritage:

"Circa 1922 Barnstorming Cabinet Photograph with Chicago Black Sox.... This lot has been withdrawn from this auction. Bids are no longer accepted and previous bids are cancelled."

I can only say that if they had some competence in evaluating the content of photos like this - they never would have accepted it in the first place. I appreciate that most auction houses are dependent on the honesty of their consigners and can't maintain a staff that can expertly evaluate content - it may just be too small a part of their business. But still, this one was ridiculous.

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Posted By: leon

In the end doing the right thing is most important, at least to me. Scott and I have made a mistake or two in our auctions and we rectified them immediately upon learning of them. I would guess just about every single auction house has, and will, make mistakes. We are human.....

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Posted By: JimCrandell

Dave,

You make a great point. After Mastronet talked about taking creases out of cards and Rob sent out his famous letter(s) I invited a number of auction houses to come on the boards and state their policies on crease removal, bidding on their own auctions and a number of other topics. The result was a resounding silence except from a couple of smaller other auction houses that I did not ask. In fact, a number of posters accuseds me of a witch hunt or something to that effect. Not a lot of other businesses that I can think of where companies will not speak to their companies policies. Certainly all were aware of the post and none chose to respond.

Jim

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Posted By: John H,

They finally responded saying that they will not accept payment from anyone who doesn't realize that they won a catalog. This scheme wasn't very well thought out.

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Posted By: Mark

I'm still waiting for my thank you note from Chris Ivy (:

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Posted By: Jim VB

John H,

Actually Heritage has been upfront about that from the beginning. Chris Ivy said that in his response to me, which I posted earlier in this thread (April 15, 2009 4:51 PM).

I agree, it was poorly thought out.


I also agree that it is a good sign that they pulled the other auction. I wish all auction companies would be more proactive on this kind of thing, but realize it is incredibly difficult, especially in the world of memorabilia. With cards, they have all come to rely on third party grading (and we all have varying opinions on how well that works.) but memorabilia is still living in the wild west days.

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Posted By: Jim VB

Mark,

My second note to Chris went unanswered except for the auto-response that said he was out of the office until 4/21.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Among the more dangerous areas in the memorabilia market is photo identification. It's impossible to count the number of times I have seen players misidentified in a vintage photograph. And in virtually every instance, a nondescript player is mistaken for a baseball immortal. It's really all about the money, and how the presence of a famous ballplayer dramatically increases the photo's value.

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Posted By: Mark Fimoff

Hey Jim VB,

Chris may be out of the office til 4/21 - but this morning someone there decided to pull the photo. Anyway, I really was just kidding about a thank you note.

I first contacted Heritage about this back on 3/30 - based on my own analysis posted on Net54 at that time - but they were adamant the photo was good (without explanation). The problems were obvious to me and several others (who really are experts), even without knowledge of the date erasure.

I also recently contacted Robert Lifson at REA about another photo that had already been sold - I must say the response was entirely different - mature and intelligent and with a clear ability to understand a photo analysis once presented. He immediately proceeded to offer the buyer a refund. I will be posting info on this photo soon - it's quite interesting.

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Posted By: Peter_Spaeth

It certainly didn't hurt JP's business, or Brian's, or anyone else's not to engage on this forum. I think they probably figure that as long as they have what we want, they have more to lose than gain by coming on here and engaging. Most things have a tendency to blow over and the next time they have something we want all is forgiven or forgotten.

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Posted By: Ron Diamond

Heritage send me a T200 Premium with a missing corner(it was there in their catalog) and refused to make me whole! They are so big, they don't give a damn if you live or die. Such is life for those stupid enough to trust a company so large. I used to be. Never again. There are too many other trustworthy companies(Rob Ed Auctions, Mile High...)