Heritage Auctions

[Shoeless Moe]

(Sorry Jonathan, but this perplexes me and irritates me)

Heritage "sold" this program in Nov 2011 to the "high bidder" (which had to be Heritage) for $8365.

http://sports.ha.com/c/item.zx?saleNo=7041&lotNo=81228

You can buy it now from the "owner" on their Site for $10,456.

It's currently on Ebay being sold by Heritage:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/120941283288...84.m1438.l2649

Is this just a case of Heritage bidding the item up, nobody then outbid Heritage, so Heritage was "the winner" and is again trying to sell the item.

I find the buy it now from the owner on Heritage Site for $10,456 a little odd since nobody bid as much as $8000 for the item except them. No wonder theirs is the only auction house I can never win anything from. They outbid you, not other bidders. I see things I thought I lost to someone else being re-sold by them. I would have won a few of these items had it been just me against other bidders. Why they stack the deck against you is pretty irritating.

[travrosty]

they use their n.p. gresham in house account to bid on items they think are worth getting at that price. they admit they are buyers and they will turn around and try to resell it at a profit. the difference between shilling/pushing the price up that way, which could lead to accidentally getting stuck with an item on ocassion, - and bidding with the intent to buy the item and win it outright because they want the item, is intent. since nobody can prove what their intent is when n.p gresham bids, their disclaimer that they reserve the right to bid on items, which is in the fine print, stands and it's legal but i don't like it. they should either be dealers or auctioneers, but not both in my book.

[Heritage Sports]

This is an issue that has been discussed on the board previously, and Mr. Roste has it almost completely right. Every bid Heritage places is an intent to buy at wholesale level. We don’t expect to win much at this level since the vast majority of our offerings sell at retail, but we offer the same price we would at a dealer’s booth at the National, for instance. These “house bids” are placed exactly seven days prior to the closing of the auction.

In these two regards, our “house bidding” policy is distinctly different from shill bidding. A shill bidder has no interest in owning a piece at his high bid. We do have an interest. And, most typically, shill bidding is used to “run up” another bidder’s absentee bid. Our “house bids” are placed a week prior to closing, long before the vast majority of competitive bidding takes place.

I hope this makes the distinction clear, but I certainly invite anybody who wishes to discuss it further to email me directly, or to call me at the office. My contact information is below.

[barrysloate]

This should be an interesting thread.

[Bicem]

Sketch. Any chance of not doing this?

[Jay Wolt]

Although legal I'm sure, it doesn't seem all that ethical.
Unless I'm missing something.

[RUSH2112]

[QUOTE=Heritage Sports;1015232]

In these two regards, our “house bidding” policy is distinctly different from shill bidding. A shill bidder has no interest in owning a piece at his high bid. We do have an interest. And, most typically, shill bidding is used to “run up” another bidder’s absentee bid. Our “house bids” are placed a week prior to closing, long before the vast majority of competitive bidding takes place.

QUOTE]

You can use terms "house bids" but there is no difference between a "house bid" and "shill" bidding. I been attending auctions since I was a teenager and I have seen just about everything at auctions. While bidding by the owner of an item, who shows up at the sale, is considered shill bidding, it is accepted and happens very often. When the auction house places bids, it's again, "shill" bidding.

I have seen an auctioneers bid on an items but only because they could not get a decent starting bid and only seen this a couple times in my life. I have also seen auctioneers bidding against their own staff and everbody knew what was going on. No customers were getting bid up.

So you can call it what you will, but personally, if I knew an auction house was placing bids on items that were on consignment, without disclosure to the other bidders, I would never set foot in that auction house again.

[keithsky]

I think it's still shill bidding in my little mind. Heritage says they bid a week before. What difference does it make if you bid a week before or that day the auction ends they are still jacking the price up starting the bidding off early. It's making people bid higher on an item more than it should be. That is what gets me with ebay. You see an auction start at 6 days and people bidding right out of the box. Never could understand the reasoning with that unless someone won't be by there computor for the next 6 days but not likely considering all the people that bid early. All that is doing is rasing the price up.

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by Heritage Sports

This is an issue that has been discussed on the board previously, and Mr. Roste has it almost completely right. Every bid Heritage places is an intent to buy at wholesale level. We don’t expect to win much at this level since the vast majority of our offerings sell at retail, but we offer the same price we would at a dealer’s booth at the National, for instance. These “house bids” are placed exactly seven days prior to the closing of the auction.

This doesn't make sense, you say "Every bid Heritage places is an intent to buy at wholesale level". Well your bid here won the item, yet you immediately re-list for sale on your Site and you attempt to re-sell it on Ebay. So did the "Consignor" of this item to Heritage actually get paid? I highly doubt it. It most likely is an item owned by Heritage, you bid it up attempting to get max value. It's shill bidding, but you can get away with it because you clearly state we bid on items aka shill bid.

And your claims of Sales totals are very false, because I'm sure you include all these items that were "sold", but really remain with Heritage for future auction or sell on Ebay. So anyone then can say they sold millions of dollars in their auction but when your "winning" your own items, it's a false claim.

[Shoeless Moe]

Originally Posted by Heritage Sports

In these two regards, our “house bidding” policy is distinctly different from shill bidding. A shill bidder has no interest in owning a piece at his high bid. We do have an interest. And, most typically, shill bidding is used to “run up” another bidder’s absentee bid. Our “house bids” are placed a week prior to closing, long before the vast majority of competitive bidding takes place.

And this......"you have an interest in owning", so if u won this item with hopes of "owning", why is it immediately re-listed for sale and then put on Ebay for Sale as well. You have ZERO interest in owning it, you guys bid it up to get max value, if in your eyes u do not get enough from a real bidder, you win the item by default and thus try to re-sell it.

It's a total crock of sh-t!

Obviously u can't come on here and say yes we shill bid.....but don't come on here and try to slap a coat of paint on a piece of sh-t and try to sell your BS.

Just let us talk about the funny business your company may be doing so bidders and consignors are aware of what you may get with Heritage. If u want to pay retail or higher bid with Heritage, if you want to consign to Heritage be aware that your item may not sell to a real bidder and u may be SOL.

[E93]

As far as I can see there is nothing in the stated policy to prevent Heritage Auctions from checking what all the top all bids are ten minutes before closing of the auction and then raising them all to their limit with the house account. If this does not happen, I think it would be in Heritage Auctions' best interest to formally state that in the rules. In a business with so much room for misleading shenanigans, it seems that formally limiting what can be done in stated rules rather than leaving it open would be a policy that would instill trust. The way it is written now, it is difficult for me to trust what is going on there.
JimB

[jefferyepayne]

Read this article.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2004/1227/156.html

I've learned the hard way that no matter how much I may want something someone is selling, if my gut says I can't trust the person involved in the transaction, I should walk away from the deal. Every time I've ever violated this gut feeling, I've been burned.

jeff

[Exhibitman]

Tyler Durden: Welcome to our Auction.
The first rule of our Auction is: we bid in our own Auction.
The second rule of our Auction is: we BID in our OWN Auction!
Third rule of our Auction: someone's bid is really low, looks like they'll get a bargain, might actually make a profit, we run up the price.
Fourth rule: at least one bidder before we bid.
Fifth rule: one house bid at a time, fellas.
Sixth rule: Just shut up and eat your free food, N54ers.
Seventh rule: auction items will sell for what we say they have to.
And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time bidding with us, you have to be shilled.

[travrosty]

In the name of honesty and transparency jonathan, who bid on my consignment, and then didn't pay? I would really like to know. I don't know and I would like to know, but since heritage knows and i don't, how about honestly and transparently telling me who it was?

It was a sonny liston signed exhibition contract signed "charles sonny liston" to refresh your memory. it was in the signature auction a couple of autumns ago.

You go on to say that heritage doesnt do anything wrong, because it wouldn't be honest.

Is saying that an autographed item has a jsa auction loa and post it for live internet weekly auction bidding when jsa hadn't looked at the item yet, is that honest?

Your post rings hollow to me because heritage has shown to say something that isn't true regarding those jsa auction loa's by listing "jsa auction loa" when jsa hadn't looked at it yet. we all know what 'saying something that isn't true' really is.

I have no proof heritage has ever shilled bid, because any time the house bids on an item, you have to read the mind of the person bidding to figure out if they want to genuinely buy it, or just run up the price. since I don't have a mind reading machine, there is no way to know.

I give them the benefit of the doubt and take your word that they are bidding to buy, but their propensity to tell people to that they are naive and 'don't know how a big auction house works' when heritage claims auction loa's when there is none, and only doing something about it 6 months later after the heat was too much for them does not bode well for their claim of honesty and transparency.

True honesty and transparency would have been changing your policy towards listing premature auction LOA's right away and admitting that it wasn't cool to do it that way, not trying to ride it out for half a year and hope the controversy goes away. And only then say that heritage is doing something that the customer wants and is happy to be the shining example of an auction house, to paraphrase. Then ban people like me on the back end for letting top management know of the problem.

It's very visionary of heritage to put in the rules the ability of heritage to bid on the consignement lots themselves and to be able to modify any bid at any time for any reasn using any data they receive right up to the hammer.

And to put it where arguably most people don't read, admittedly, by their own volition, no one is forcing them not to read it, i agree, but the average heritage bidder is going to have some difficulty finding the page that spells out the terms, and they are also not expecting it to happen that they would have to look at the terms just to find out if it happens at not. It's a foreign concept to a lot of bidders that auction houses can actually do this if they just put it in the terms?

Put it black and white up front on each auction lot so people know! That's real transparency! How does it benefit bidders for the house bidding terms to be on some page they have to search for instead of at each individual auction listing?

If I am wrong, please correct me with point by point, detailed refutations because i want to be totally clear and also fair, and I will admit where I haven't been correct if its pointed out to me, but it also means cutting out the talking points and getting to the bottom of why heritage believes its good for them to auction lots and also bid on them, and the same people in charge of these terms are the same who thought putting jsa auction loa's on items that jsa hadn't seen yet, was an idea that was just fine when they eventually reversed course and took those jsa tags off only after people complained.

[carrigansghost]

Going back to Facebook, less drama.

Rawn