Mastro consignors not paid yet?

[RichardSimon]

"I'd sue Mastro and its chief henchmen immediately and start taking depositions."

I would be first in line to buy tickets when the Mastro principals get deposed,,, how sweet.
We can call it "The Revenge of Bill Daniels"

[Exhibitman]

I retrieved one of my old Mastro consignment agreements today to see whether it said anything about sending out my stuff on spec. Not surprisingly, there isn't a word in there to that effect. In fact, the agreement has this gem:

"If any Buyer does not pay us for any Memorabilia within sixty (60) days after the end of an Auction, you have the option to withdraw the Memorabilia and have us return it to you, at your expense, or you may leave the Memorabilia with us for placement in another Auction."

So, not only did Mastro NOT inform consignors that it had the right to send their stuff out without payment, they affirmatively represented to the consignors that if the item was unpaid for 60 days, it could be reclaimed. By definition, if the item could be reclaimed from Mastro by the consignor after 60 days, Mastro had no right to send it to a bidder without payment first being received by Mastro. Therefore, any item that was not paid for should be in Mastro's possession. If it is not and the consignor is unpaid, it means one of three things:

1. Mastro was paid for it and then misappropriated the funds;

2. Mastro was not paid for it and knowingly sent out the item despite having expressly represented to its consignors that the items would still be there if the items were unpaid after 60 days; or

3. Mastro had the items and transferred them to Legendary when Legendary "bought" the assets, and Legendary has them. I bring up this possibility only because we all know of consignors to Mastro whose unsold items were summarily transferred to Legendary and auctioned off by Legendary.

I don't know what happened, but I have a very strong suspicion that Mastro operated much like a giant confidence scheme in which it allowed certain privileged clients to have items without payment, hence the need for the minimum 45-day float between auction close and payment to consignors so that those bidders could resell and pay off. All the risk of loss was shifted to the consignors instead of on Mastro.

No matter how you slice this turd, it still stinks.

[slidekellyslide]

I think somewhere along the line they started robbing Peter to pay Paul...they also placed too much trust into big customers...this probably was no problem while the economy was humming along. I'm guessing this will eventually go to court and the full story will come out.

[Leon]

Mastro Auctions, Inc. v. Fisher

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Plaintiff:	Mastro Auctions, Inc.
Defendant:	William Fisher
Case Number:	1:2008cv06108
Filed:	October 24, 2008
Court:	Illinois Northern District Court
Office:	Contract: Other Office [ Court Info ]
County:	Du Page
Presiding Judge:	Honorable George W. Lindberg
Nature of Suit:	Contract - Other Contract
Cause:	Diversity
Jurisdiction:	Diversity
Jury Demanded By:	28:1391 Personal Injury
Amount Demanded:	$113,000.00

[oldjudge]

Leon--What does this mean? Do you have any idea what the case relates to?

[Leon]

I am just guessing that by the looks of it Bill Fisher, previously aka Yorkstown on ebay, allegedly owes Mastro money? I have done (a few years ago) a couple low 5 figure deals with Bill and never had an issue...

[Kenny Cole]

It was basically a breach of contract action by Mastro against Mr. Fisher. According to the complaint, he bought $466k or so of items in the April 2007 auction and failed to pay for $112,000 of them. The case was dismissed without prejudice in February of this year, apparently because the defendant filed bankruptcy.

[oldjudge]

This auction business is a mine field.