I have bought in auctions for 20 years. I have never called in advance. I trust the website.

It was reasonable, just not true.

Yes and no. Personally, if it were me, I would have looked immediately at the individual lots once my Full set lot closed and declared me the winner. I would not need to tabulate the totals of all 12 cards, but could see that one or more remained open with clocks still running. This would alert me that something was amiss and I would be on the phone at once.

Sounds like the real loser was the consignor, as some pretty meaningful $$$ were left on the table due the bungling manner that this was set up and explained.

I don’t think we’re allowed to say that around here.

A couple years ago when several AH were having "glitches" with their sites going down in the final minutes, I was declared the winning bidder on some items, only to be told later that, because some bidders had been unable to get bids in, the auction would resume the next day. Everyone who thought they had won..... hadn't.

Using Powell's analogy, I was the winning bidder. I had the high bid when time for those lots expired, the site declared the lot closed, and declared me the winner.

Later I found out I wasn't. I realize the circumstances (and dollar amount) are different in this case. I'm just saying, it's not the first time an AH has declared winners and later pulled the proverbial rug out from under them.

This isn’t the first time an auction has ran as a set and individually, right?

I feel like a high grade 52 Topps set was run like this fairly recently.

It's probably the first time this type of auction was run in an "individual lot closing" format. That's the issue here.... Heritage's software was not properly equipped to handle the overtime bidding.

Mark, I had the same thing happen to me on several lots. I can’t remember which AH it was but I was not a happy camper 😟

If you were never formally invoiced, how did you know how much money to send them? I know you could figure out the total after the 20% BP, but what about the sales tax/shipping/insurance? Did you just guess at the amount due?

Using this situation as a reference, then Heritage should reopen these lots for bidding.

The set lot that Powell was bidding on closed - he couldn’t enter any more bids (I feel like this keeps getting lost). So, because of a software “glitch” and everyone NOT being able to bid, the lots should be reopened.

I’m also blown away by the “victim blaming” - Powell should have checked to see that the other lots were still open, etc… and done what? Placed a bid in his closed auction item? I don’t think he (or individual winners) did anything wrong - and blame shouldnt be placed with them. Any vitriol towards them is mind boggling.

And yes, it’s just cards, but I can’t comprehend going to bed and assuming you had won a once in a lifetime set and woken up to this mess.

In my opinion, the solution is to reopen the lots and perform the auction as was intended. Individual versus set competing.

Correct, Heritage could claim "Technical Issues" with the close of the auction and re-open the auction for those lots if they wanted to. Heritage, as well as most other auction houses, reserve the right to re-open lots, cancel sales, cancel bids, etc for just about any reason.

it would not be the first time by any means that an online auction was re-opened for bidding after "ending" due to technical reasons - it happens more often than most realize.

And just to reiterate, an emailed notice of a winning bid is not a guarantee of actually "winning" the item. Emails / Notices can be sent in error for a number of reasons. Especially with all of the ways to bid these days, clerical errors can and will be made by auction personnel when executing bids. And just about all Auction Terms & Conditions protect the auction house from these "errors". In this case, the bidding system just was not set up properly for that type of auction and sent a winning bid notice in error.

Obviously a frustrating situation for all involved with no real way to make everyone happy, but hopefully a big learning experience for Heritage.

I got what I would describe as a “blow off” email from Heritage.
Not even the courtesy of a phone call.

And hopefully a lesson for all of us!

In the cold light of day on Monday morning, it seems like the only way to make sure that you win the whole set is to bid like a drunken sailor on all of the individual lots, plus on the lot for the full set.

Because otherwise you're leaving yourself open to a potential that you win the lot for the set, but lose overall.

I do wish Powell the best of luck with his approach and process. Maybe Heritage will decide to attempt to declare that the bidding should be re-opened. But I wouldn't bet on it.

I agree and raised this as an equitable solution under these circumstances early on in this discussion. Nothing can be done to reverse what’s happened in the past. And, choosing a legitimate winner at this point directly screws someone or many someones. Whereas reopening the auction gives everyone a fighting chance and only indirectly screws someone or many someones by virtue of their own underbidding.

Good faith solution is good for business, HA and the consignor make more money, cards go to fully informed and highest bidder.

Jesus. After all those years and all those dealings, that is truly appalling.

Just absolutely astounding negligence from the largest sports auction house in the world. Powel should have been awarded the win, but I'm assuming at this point since invoices went out that cards may be on their way to individual lot winners already.

I think I would have questioned how things were going to go once I realized that you had to add up the individual lots yourself. How annoying would that be if they were doing this same type of setup with 524 T206 cards? Or a complete 1952 Topps set?

I read this thread last night and was wondering how it would be addressed.
Very surprised.

While I hoped you would have gotten a different response, this was to be expected. It seems like we are numbers to them, not people.

1- Powell bidded on the SET lot and ended just like a normal lot would end.
2. The other single lots kept going as normal and ended like normal.
As reffered by others as 2 separate Heat Races.
3. When the races end, the highest WINS.
OK. so, Powell loses then.

I can see the other aspect, have the lots joined together and closed at 1 time, but it was never disclosed that way. Just that the highest lot(s) won. Right?
(i did not look at the site, just basing on what i read here)

HOWEVER- the case with the winning bidder invoices??
thats the part figuring out, was it a payment due type invoice?
Thinking this invoices/winner should never been sent out,
most people think it says you won the lot, then you won.
Thats why i question, if it asked for payment??

Either way, hate to see the set split up, so beautiful. Be nice to see it displayed too.

Wow, I would have thought a phone call would be warranted with as much business as you have done with them. Also, an explanation of how exactly the process worked as there is a bit of conjecture on that subject.

Did they even speak to the details here?

Or was it just like, "Thanks for bidding, and thanks for your email. Our next auction opens 11/4. Best of luck!"

Consignments accepted.

At the end of the day, Heritage is a behemoth auction house which doesn’t need Powell and is arrogant enough not to care what he thinks. They may pay some lip service but they really aren’t concerned. REA wouldn’t handle it this way, I assure you all. Spend 5 mins with Heritage’s owners and Brian Dwyer and you’ll quickly understand.

Is it possible they're contacting each of the single card winners and cutting a deal with them to back out of their "wins"? Seems reasonable they are doing background before contacting you. Not saying it is the correct course of action for a long-time client, but I would be willing to guess Heritage would extend substantial incentives to the single card high bidders to get you the set. I think this solution would make everyone happy. The Baker will be challenging though, and certainly of no fault to Aaron, but like they say: "everything is for sale at a certain price"...bummer for all on what should have been an exciting evening!

What did the “blow off” email say?
 

I assume multiple calls were made to Heritage to try to put a stop on the cards going out, what has come of that? They’ve had days now to plan what they are going to do about it. It’s 2:30 TX time now, they can’t just sweep this under the rug I don’t imagine.

Jeff,

Sadly, I think you are exactly right. Arrogance.

That would definitely be awesome for Powell.

But even in my wildest dreams, I have a hard time imagining this alternative universe.

Not only that, but sometimes there is a price, but the price is 10x or 100x the hammer price actually paid.

The words from Brian might have been a little different but at the end of the day my sense is that the result would have been the same. And by the way, I think Chris is one of the good guys in the hobby.

Hard to believe they would be doing something like this without letting Powell know they were trying to satisfy him because of how poorly they ran the auction for these cards. If he hasn't heard anything by now then it likely means the results will remain as they are.

It appears that Heritage is going to take the view that the auction was conducted in accordance with the rules. Avoiding discussion regarding why they allowed this particular auction to proceed in accordance with rules that seem to be designed without consideration of these circumstances. Confusing at best and misleading in practice and apparently suboptimal for the consignor (although whether Powell would have persevered under better rules is unknown). No doubt Heritage will perform any similar auctions different in the future, benefiting from Powell's illumination of the likely scenarios.

While it is sad to see anybody (in this case, Powell) misled into ecstasy only to be kicked to the curb despite earnest efforts to win at all costs, I don't see the presumption that because he was "declared the winner" of the Set Lot he achieves any primacy over the higher bidder(s), who were declared winner with bids that were more beneficial to the consigner. Under the (sloppy) rules in effect being Set Lot winner was not the same as winning the cards, because they could go to the Individual Lot winners. And they did.

I disagree vehemently.

that's shocking. sorry to hear it.

LOL, if you had just disagreed I would have been OK, but since you have vehemently disagreed I will give my position some extra thought. I hope you were just disagreeing with the first part. All my interactions with Chris have been great. Stay well my friend!

What an absolute cluster that they could have and should have prevented from happening prior to the start of the auction. The ONLY fair approach for ALL parties is to open the auction back up from where it left off and let only those bidders who had placed existing bids allowed to proceed. To take it one step further, Heritage should waive all buyer fees for this set/items since both the consignor and bidders were negatively effected by their lack of awareness of how this could take place. It gives each bidder a fighting chance to spend more money with no buyers fees and puts more money in the consignors pocket since Heritage ultimately caused the consignor money with how this ended and took place. They shouldn’t be rewarded with the commission from this fiasco that they caused. If you really think about it, this fiasco caused more consignors money because the bids that the “Winners” of the set and individual lots probably would have bid on other auction items but didn’t because each had thought they were the winners of their lots.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

HA discussed this live during the extended bidding, individual lots were less than 4k from the full set price with less than 30 minute to go.

Seems inevitable it would exceed the high bid on the full set

https://youtu.be/_tkRi0UHgZg?t=7351

which begs the question, if the singles were they bid up to over the current $525k and became the higher of the two, HOW was the high bidder of the group bid supposed to be able to top it? In a nutshell he could not have, even if he hit the bid button repeatedly, it would only raise his max bid and not his current high bid. He was handcuffed by the system.

lolol

Of Powell, the individual lot winners and the consigner, who is Heritage most concerned about from its fiasco (in order)?

1. Heritage
2. Heritage
3. Heritage
4. Heritage.

sb1: He could have bid on the Individual Lots. He assumed it wasn't necessary under rules that weren't in place.

Sent from my motorola edge 5G UW (2021) using Tapatalk

He had no reason to think he needed to outbid himself.

Re: BGs in Heritage
 

As do I.

He could have called--that's why people are in the office during the auction

Why would I call? My account said I won. And the set lot was blocked so there was nothing I could do anyway. It was a fiasco

Have you tried to call since?

You can die on the “it said I won” hill but it might do some good to talk to someone at Heritage.

I also hope that if I ever get to the level of buying half a million dollar items, I’d have a direct line to someone to address my concerns before, during and after an auction.

Not to mention, if he was going to bid on the individual lots, he would've had to win all 12 of them to accomplish what he was trying to do by bidding on the set.

I don't understand the argument that he should've been bidding on the individual lots. As Peter says, it would've been bidding against himself and accomplishing nothing.

I am surprised that HA is not on the phone with all involved trying to come to a resolution.
I am sure they are having internal discussions how to resolve.

Covid
 

If Heritage could have gotten a little more Covid money I think all of this could have been avoided...Jerry

I took post 252 to mean they've already made that determination.

Misread that part.
Thanks for clarifying

Not what I expected at all.

This sounds more like a recent election rather than an actual auction… go to sleep thinking you won and then you wake up and…

Feel bad for Powell who I don’t know but it sucks…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Let's not forget the consignor, let's assume Powell was willing to go 750k on the set, The Heritage set up never allowed him to go all in. Bad set up all around and really poor management after the fact by Heritage.

But the next time they have a card someone wants, that someone will bid anyway. Bad behavior never gets punished in this hobby.

After this shitshow I would assume REA just secured a new consignor.

If the consigner was well-versed in the auction process he would have complained to Heritage during the month the lots were up about the software not providing a comparison of the full set lot price vs. the individual lots total at each bid. Anyone actually think the consigner, unless he reads this board, actually was told what fully went down by Heritage? How much money was left on the table due to Heritage’s incompetence?

No disrespect at all to Powell, but Heritage Auctions is not going to miss one consignor.

https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions...chedule-111815

From all that I have seen and read about this here, Powell is the winner in my opinion and is getting screwed. I see a lawsuit coming.

What are his damages, assuming for argument's sake he has a cause of action? He's out nothing (I assume Heritage has returned or will return the wire transfer) and he has stated he had no intent to resell.

Often a claim that someone done you wrong does not translate well into a lawsuit.

Powell.... So they wouldn't talk to you? Did they at least refund the wire transfer you sent?

That’s for a judge and jury to decide what his damages are. I’m just an average Joe.

They will refund my money. I’m hopeful they will restart the auction at the point the set lot closed. Otherwise, my binding on the set lot was illusory. It was impossible to win. That’s the antithesis of an auction.

I thank Leon for his warm and supportive call.

I thank everyone on this board most of whom agreed with me. I respect the ones who disagree with me too except the one who called me a “sore loser” as that was uncalled for.

It’s not looking good but “it’s not over until the far left sings.”. Heritage can still make this a fair competition. I’m hopeful the will.

So are 90% of you guys all really going to sit here and continue to pretend that the listing didn't expressly state that you could win the set lot but still end up losing if the individual lots closed higher in aggregate?

In what universe is Powell the rightful winner under the terms set out in the auction itself? Half you guys are lawyers, and you really can't figure out this one simple little paragraph? It's not exactly a riddle.

The rules were stupid. We can all agree on that. But they were extremely clear. This shouldn't have surprised anyone. This exact outcome was very predictable. If you wanted to ensure a win, you had to bid on every single lot, including the set. If you weren't sure about that or how it might work, you could have easily picked up the phone and asked.

I would be very surprised if this results in a lawsuit.

Strongly disagree. Of course the individual lots could win, but they should all close at the same time. Otherwise, the set option was illusory.

The issue here is timing. I can’t see how powell was on notice that bidding on the individual lots would continue after the set lot closed. That’s counter intuitive and contrary to the intent of the auction. I am skeptical that gives rise to a legal claim, but I think, placing the focus on him is not warranted.

I am a trial lawyer. I almost always represent the “little guy”or the underdog. However, I have very rarely sued in my private life. Most companies do the right thing. Rendering the set lot illusory is not the right thing. If I had to bid on every single lot to win the set then why have a set lot? The rules must be interpreted in a way that makes sense. And if contract law applies as it should the set was sold to me when the set lot closed. Last but not least, the whole point of an auction is to have a fair chance to win and I was deprived of my fair chance to the detriment of the consignor, Heritage and me.

I'm going to change my tone a bit, as I genuinely do feel bad for you. But I don't understand why you continue to ignore what I see as the elephant in the room, which is the fact that the listing included the following warning:

Did you not see this message in the listing? And if you did see it, how did you interpret it? And under what interpretation can you possibly still believe you are the rightful winner? If you assumed all lots were ending at the same time, why did you make that assumption? That was not stated anywhere, and that's not how Heritage runs their auctions. You could see individual timers for each of the lots during extending bidding. When you went to sleep, you could clearly see that those other listings were still live. Did this not concern you at all?

I know Peter has already pointed this out in the thread, but I can't believe you are saying that Powell should have bid against himself. If he would have bid on every individual lot, that would have raised the price for the high bidder on the complete set. That bidder was Powell as well. No auction should require a bidder to bid against himself to ensure a win.

I guess Powell should have just alternated between bidding against himself on the set and every individual lot and raised the price to infinity?

Powell, sorry to read this happened to you on a once in a lifetime set. I know hindsight is 20/20, but it seems amazing after the fact that HA did not foresee that they needed to keep the complete set open as long as even one individual card from the set was still open.

I don't think "bidding against himself is required. All (I'm not defending Heritage -- they were very sloppy and careless, to Powell's surprise and disappointment) that is required (and clear in hindsight) is for him to submit one-increment bids on each individual lot in the early going so that he could pick those bids up in overtime if the Set Lot closed first and the Individual Lots then went on to win.

I get what you are saying, but that doesn't seem like a viable solution, either. Some of the individual lots may well be closed by the time 1-2 of the cards drive the individual lots past the set price.

Give it to powell do the right thing

This may have been raised already and if so, apologies for missing it…

But is there a way to know if at the time stamp of the full set’s hammer close and ‘win’ to Powell, that lot price exceeded the aggregate sum of the individual card prices? Yes, the individual cards were still being actively bid on past that point because they themselves were receiving active bids. However, according to the stipulation at the end of each listing:

If price of the set exceeds the sum of the twelve individual cards, the victory will be awarded to the high bidder for the complete set. (HA)

A few pages back, Powell was ahead by a few thousand when the the hammer fell on the complete set lot.

Brutal

For those few arguing that the terms/conditions were clear in the listing, I disagree. On the surface it covers the bare minimum.

The absence of information on how one lot could end while the others continued is a huge miss by Heritage.

It should have explained in detail how this auction was set up. It should have also explained the absence of synchronized coding between the complete set and individual lots. It should have explained that the individual lots did not have a running tally and that users had to calculate the cumulative number themselves.

When you see all the conditions that played out that no one was made aware of from the beginning, the result is a disappointment in Heritage.

That small paragraph really should be around 12-16 sentences long with all the real rules/conditions that were in play.

As typical of Net 54, there has to be hand-wringing over every possible legal avenue and people who just need to be contrarians. It’s very simple: the auction was screwed up by Heritage by shutting down the full set lot while continuing to allow the single lots to run. This was a failure which defeated the very concept of an auction. It is Heritage’s fault, period. No one else’s. As I wrote to a friend in a text at 11:26 pm that night, during extended bidding: “The poor guy who had the high for the set is screwed if we push it over.” Referring to bidding on the individual lots while the full set lot was closed.

The only fair resolution to all the bidders and the consigner is to redo the auction and if the consigner loses money from the new final bids, Heritage should make up that difference to him — BECAUSE THIS MESS WAS THEIR FAULT AND THEIR FAULT ONLY. Instead of spending days trying to cover their ass and lie to all involved, Heritage should simply admit they screwed up and fix it — at their expense.

Presumably the way this should have worked was the aggregate of the individual lots should have been a ‘bidder’ in the software. That way the high bid for the lot would have always been displayed and the lot would have remained open every time a bid was placed on an individual lots since it would have increased the bid of the set lot.

I paid my invoice for the Baker yesterday via wire transfer. I now have a receipt showing “paid in full” and my account balance has been zeroed out with Heritage.

I relied on reading the lot, my account confirming I won and experience in bidding on thousands and thousands of items over 20 years. Did I sit down and read the “terms and conditions”? Of course not! Nor will I ever accept that I should have. That’s like the insurance company relying on the fine print to deny a just claim.

The whole “my account said I won” argument isn’t great.

I mean…PWCC just had an issue and had thousands of “you’ve won!” emails go out. Does that mean everyone should be awarded those items? Obviously not.

Obviously heritage should have ran this auction differently/better but the wording posted above in the set listing is very cut and dry.

Plus we all know as soon as we bid on something, we are agreeing to their rules, terms, conditions etc…even if they suck.

Hi Powell
It was nice getting to meet you on the phone call we had. You seem like a passionate collector who loves the hobby. Much the same as most on this forum.
I think this incident is awful, but is a human error. They happen. I am sure Heritage has a lot to consider. As I said on the phone, if it were my company, I would consult with the consignor, and I would be running the auction lot(s) again. And as I had mentioned, it is debatable to start the lot(s) over from scratch or where they left off. If it picked up where it left off at least 3 bidders are already known (if not more). A redo sounds like the best way to do it to me.

I would say -

We made a mistake and the s/w didn't work as intended. After consulting with the consignor we are redoing the lot(s). We apologize for any inconvenience.


Heritage is a great Net54 partner and I think Chris (hi Chris) and team do a great job. I will continue bidding and consigning with them.

I hope it all gets worked out as best as possible.

Hi Aaron
While I am glad you won the card, how would you feel if you were Powell?
.