MastroNet Lot Misrepresentation – Results of a Discussion with Doug Allen

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Posted By: Mark Finn

First – Sorry for the long post – but you may find this interesting:

In the December 2006 MastroNet Auction, I was the successful bidder on Lot #56: 1941/42 “Uncle Sam” and “Home Defense” Original Artwork Collection (71 Different). When I received the Lot, and checked off each delivered item to the published Lot description (both the catalog and the Website), I noticed that there were 85 artwork items listed in the Lot Description. 4 of the missing 14 were from the harder to find Home Defense series.

I initially contacted Jim, MastroNet Customer Service, who agreed that the Lot Description “was materially different than the Lot Title. However, the title stated 71 items, and you received 71 items".

I had a discussion with Doug Allen regarding this issue. Doug said that “he understands the issue; the Lot Title stated that there were 71 items but the Lot Description listed 85 items”. Doug stated that when this type of inconsistency occurs, “MastroNet needs to stand up and take accountability”. Additionally, “since I was a good customer, under these circumstances, I have the right to return the Lot and it will be offered to the under bidder".

Here are some key points from my discussion with Doug:

1. The Title, all associated pictures, and detailed Description describes the Lot. In the event that a listed item is missing from the delivered lot, Mastronet and the consignor will be the sole determinant of the value of any individual item within a Lot. MastroNet and the Consignor will decide if any remuneration (including the level of remuneration) will be offered and/or if the successful Buyer might have the option to return the Lot. I know nothing about Baseball cards, but here’s the example Doug used: The Lot is for a Complete Set of 1952 Topps Baseball cards. When delivered, if a common card (Joe Bagodoughnuts) was missing, MastroNet would replace that card. If, however, the Mickey Mantle card was missing, MastroNet & the consignor would decide what happens.
2. Doug said “Mistakes happen, we are only human, things will be better. The current commission structure should be sufficient to cover all Quality Control issues”.

Here’s my conclusion: BUYER BEWARE

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Posted By: Wesley

Are you returning the lot for a refund?

Or are you receiving some compensation for the missing cards?

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Posted By: peter chao

Mark,

It appears that you not happy with the transaction. You need to take into account that Mastronet is a business and needs to make a reasonable profit. Given that, what did you hope Mastronet would do for you.

Peter

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Posted By: Harry Wallace

Out of curiosity, if the title and description said 71, but 85 were listed, why didn't you confirm the number. Obviously, there was some sort of error out there. I surprised that someone did not point it out to them before the end of the auction.

How could the extra 14 cards have been listed? Seems like a weird error.

Tough situation for both sides.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

If there was a lot with 71 items I wouldn't be counting all of the items. I would be counting on the ones that I was interested in. In other words, I'm not counting and tallying every item described, especially if there are over 50 different items. If a card is listed in the item description, it needs to be delivered with the grouping. If I did happen to count the items and I saw a discrepancy I would bring it to the attention of the auction house for clarification. In this case, there were many, many items and like I said before, I probably wouldn't have bothered counting every item in the item description.

I'm sorry but I have to side with the bidder here. If it's listed in the item description then it needs to be delivered. In the case of a huge error then the auction house should provide the bidder ability to OPT out of the commitment to purchase (which they seemed to have done). There is about 30+% of goof money (buyer and seller premium) available to correct the situation. I would have thought that the consignor would have looked over the item description when the auction started but I guess the ultimate responsibility belongs to the auction house to have an accurate description of the lot.

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Posted By: Scott B.

After reading this, the first thing popup in my mind is I should only bid on Robert Edward Auction next time.

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Posted By: dan mckee

WOW! not an easy fix here. I know Mark well and bet he would like to keep the lot but would like to be compensated for the missing 14 pieces. That is a tough scenerio because who decides the value of those 14 on something this rare? Doug was super in offering a full refund but Mark doesn't want to lose the other 71 pieces. Mark bid as if there were 85 pieces. I agree with an above post on 1 thing, how do you list 85 pieces in the description when you only have 71? An honest error I am sure but it does seem weird to list something you do not see in your hand.

Mark my friend, you have a tough decision coming I bet. Keep the lot and probably at the price you paid or return it and get a full refund. Unfortunately, negotiating a remedy settlement and keeping the lot may not happen. Good Luck to you and Mastronet on this very unfortunate error. Dan.

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Posted By: leon

I see both sides of the situation. The lot title said 71 and 71 were received. Unfortunately the description had more listed than were in the title. If the 71 were worth the price of the lot then keep them...if not then return it...not sure how more fair it could be? Mistakes do happen....

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Posted By: warshawlaw

At 15% commission and 20% BP is it too much to ask them to proof read the copy? We still don't have any explanation of what happened. Did these items exist and not get into the package? Did they not exist at all?

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Posted By: barrysloate

As Dan said, how do you catalog 14 items you don't have? As the 14 missing ones were being typed up, what source did they use for their list? That is what I don't understand.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

of 85 represents 16% of the items in the lot missing. I'd think 16% of the price bid plus commission in a refund would be a win-win for both sides. Even if there was zero commission on the sell-side, There should be enough of the 20% that Mark paid on the buy-side to cover that 16% they'd lose.

There's a ton of pictures on that lot. Are there 85 items pictured?

While a 100% refund is somewhat of a win for Mark, I'm sure he'd rather have the lot at less than he'd have bid. On the other hand, I guess they're thought is that maybe the lot'd still bring that amount with 71 items if relisted and checklisted correctly.....

Tough call......

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Posted By: shane

A similiar thing happened to me with Mastro a year ago. I brought the problem up with them and they were willing to resolve the issue right there. The problem I had with their options to resolve the issue did not help me out but helped them out. They told me the same thing that they would be glad to take the item back for a full refund and either sell it next auction or go to the under bidder and offer it to him. I really wanted to keep the item and not send it back but their description was not only misleading but inaccurate, why should I suffer in this deal? My resolution was that in business you do make mistakes and we are all human. My take was instead of me losing how about you losing your commission for screwing up? Why should you get paid 17.5% (VIG at the time) both ways when you MATERIALLY misrepresented an item. They agreed and sent me my portion of their commission.
They handled my problem the right way in my opinion and I was happy with the transaction.

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Posted By: dan mckee

Hi Tom, the problem with your offer is that the 14 missing pieces are the more expensive art. A simple percentage will not fix the compensation here if I understood the original post correctly. But a truly good thought though. How is Mr. Mills doing? dan.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

the plot thickens.....didn't really figure that out from the email (or didn't read it closely enough). If that's the case, I guess I'd be more inclined to send back the whole lot and hope it got re-auctioned. OR make that part of the settlement that it be re-auctioned and not sold to the underbidder. If he'd have that type leverage.

Guess Tom's doing okay (Mills, that is). Haven't talked to him in a while.....

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Duh.... something just occurred to me. If Mastronet is going to offer it to the underbidder then that would be 10% less than the hi bidders bid amount. Why not offer it to the high bidder at that price. It would be a 10% discount which isn't too bad. I agree with Adam though. For the amount of the buyers and sellers premium being paid you'd hope the item description is accurate. Oh yeah, I forgot, everyone makes msitkaes...

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Posted By: Dave Grimes

And what happened if the underbidder turned it down on finding out that the lot was 71 cards not the 80+ cards listed in the description- and so on down the line?

Since they listed all the cards in the description, I presume with grades, they should be able to work out a compensation number based on a close approximation of value?

Or is that just too logical - or more relevant, too profit depleting?

One would think with a 35% spread of commissions they would get it right the first time with the lot title matching the description? If not one would hope they initiate an internal review to find out how the mistake happened...or.....who might have appropriated the missing cards?

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Posted By: leon

I forgot too....the consignment fees in todays competitive market aren't what the auctioneers state, for the most part....I would guess they rarely get full boat on the consignors fees in order to bring in submissions.. If you go to the store and buy something...get home and it's not all there do you negotiate with Target? I can see it now...Hey, my widget didn't have the cap that was supposed to be on it. I will give you $10 less for it? ...and the clerk says, sure we barter all of the time.... Here's the deal...either work it out or return it....it's that simple.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I would think it depends on what was missing that was described in the description. If it was a very large autograph collection and it came missing 6 Phil Garner index cards, it would make little difference and the winner might not notice. However, if it missed four Mickey Mantle signed baseballs that were described and pictured and the winner anticipated getting, then there would be legitimate complaint-- even if the number in the title was accurate.

As a bidder, I ordinarilly base my bid on the number in the title-- but also read the description to see what I should be getting. It's unlikely I would count the number of things in the description itself, but would know that I was supposed to be
getting four Mickey Mantle signed balls. It would be possible I would never actually count what I received in the UPS box, but would know if I was missing a Mantle.

I've won large group lots from the big auctions that included more than was described. For example, I won a Joe Louis collection that was described as having two Louis autographs, but had five.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

What I would be concerned about is the possibility the consignor meant for the full lot to be sold, and thus all cards were listed. Then after the fact, Mastro realized that the 'important' 14 were in the grouping and that they would realize a higher price if simply listed seperately (or in a later auction) as they do with a lot of collections consigned to them. They break them up into the pieces they think will sell best, and go from there.
If they only realized after the description had already been prepared - but pre-auction start, they then just backtracked and re-wrote the title to mention 71 cards, but forgot to go in and fix the cards actually listed in the actual description. My guess anyway. If this were the case and those 14 cards existed originally to be sold as a unit, I think Mark should receive them. If it were a 61' Caddy, with pictures and history and full description of what's original and not - especially where that description fully establishes the car to be a 61', and the auction listing incorrectly listed it as a 62' - you should still get the car being auctioned and described, and not a materially different animal - regardless of the listing blunder.
It's what you bid and paid for, IMO.


Daniel

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Posted By: davidcycleback

There's no doubt in my mind that the description discrepency was an honest error
by Mastro, and not something malicious.

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Posted By: E, Daniel

David, I never said anything was done malicously - I actually think breaking up collections to maximize prices for consignors is perfectly fine practice. I was just surmizing how it may have come to pass that the cards were listed, when it appears they don't now exist.


Daniel

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Posted By: peter chao

David, Daniel, Guys,

David, I'm pretty sure your right, however we are bothered by where description of the additional 14 items came from.

Daniel, your probably overly suspicious, however, you would have been a good District Attorney.

Peter

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Daniel, I agree that your theory is plausable-- that they removed some items for another lot and forgot to clean up the details in the first description. I've consigned items to Mastro where they spread out the items over different auctions.

This is an intersting case, as the title gives the correct number of items. Obviously, if the title said 85 there would be little debate and what the bidder is owned. In this case and using my autoraph analogy (as I'm ignorant over non-sport card art), there's a difference between 14 missing Phil Garners and 14 missing Mickey Mantles-- especially when the bidder read the number of Mantles and was reasonably expecting to receive those. Most would agree that almost any bidder would caluclate his winning bid at least in part on the Mantles described in the catalog-- whether or not there was discrpency number of total items in the lot ... To use the 1952 Topps set analogy, the winning bidder might not care if a couple of common players are missing but will defintaly care if the Mantle or Mays is missing.

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Posted By: Steve f

It doesn't need to be all or nothing;

I'd recently purchased a E95. Upon receipt, the card had grown a new corner crease. The seller admitted it was damaged by him during packing. He apologized and asked if I wanted a complete refund. No way! It was difficult enough scoring this card, the chance of finding another, zippo.

We agreed on a grade decrease, and he agreed to refund one grade's worth SMR. Give it Hell Mark.

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Posted By: Marty

This may have been mentioned and I skimmed over it, but if Mastro will take the lot back for a full refund and then offer it to the under bidder, let the Mark keep it for the underbidders price. That is the amount that Mastro will get if they take the lot back anyway.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

If there is a price that would make you happy, just ask for it. If you are a good customer for Mastro, as they say, the smart thing for them to do is make you happy with the deal, regardless of what happened. Fighting over short dollars with an established customer is just a bad business practice. I know if I was in their shoes and thought of you as a reasonable and valued client, I'd want to handle it in whatever manner would best satisfy you, even if there was a short term cost to it.

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Posted By: peter chao

Adam,

I like what your saying but Mastro's problem is that if Mark gets a special deal, other people may find out about it. Then other customers will ask for special deals. Mastro wants to create a clear policy in order to obtain reasonable profits.

Peter

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Posted By: dan mckee

Other special deals shouldn't matter to Mastronet as they probably won't make these kind of mistakes often. Yes, just refund him the SMR price! What a joke!! PSA doesn't even know what these are let alone be accurate on their SMR pricing. I love this board!

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

Peter,

With all due respect, Mastro shouldn't make anyone a "special" deal, they should rectify the situation in the most fair manner possible. As stated earlier I am of the belief that what ever is listed in the item description is what must be part of the lot. If there were several more items in the lot than the "number of items" indicated then the list of items is what should prevail because people based their bids on the content of the lot. If the most important cards (to the bidder) was missing then that's the worst case scenario. Special deal, No! Fair deal, Yes.

Mastronet is arguably the best (definitely top two) in the sports card auction business. They know what they're doing and I'll bet that they take care of business in a "fair" manner.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Peter:

No one is entitled to profits they did not earn.

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Posted By: Eric B

14 of the missing 17 artworks were SOLD in the December 2005 Lelands Auction:

And Mastronet doesn't feel they should lower the final bid. And the underbidder won't take it at his high bid either.

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Posted By: Judge Dred (Fred)

So, what's happened to the lot. If the underbidder doesn't want it, then what? Does it get offered to the next underbidder?