Heritage Auctions

[Jaybird]

It's lame. Anyway you slice it, it is bidding against the lifeblood of an auction house (its bidders). You may be making the consignor happy by inflating the prices but you sure aren't making any friends with the bidders.

And I, as a consignor, wouldn't want to do business with an auction house that was alienating bidders. The fact that it is in the rules doesn't matter. It isn't right.

[Bugsy]

I also think any seller, be it a large house or a small-timer on eBay, placing a bid on their own listing is shill bid. You want to have a price floor on an item? Put a reserve on it before the auction even begins...

...but this conversation is re-creating the wheel, no?

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...=shill+bidding

[Jlighter]

I don't think it is that big of a deal. They are bidding with the intent to own. This means they think the price is too low. Its not like their shill bidding thousands of dollars on a Mordedcai Brown which will never be sold for a profit at that level. I do believe that it should be disclosed on a auction lot if Heritage is bidding, it very well may be, I'm not that familiar with Heritage.

[E93]

Despite the clarity and ease of Heritage's website (extreme sarcasm) I could not find their auction rules. However if I remember correctly they allow house bidding without restrictions. They also allow employees to bid with insider knowledge of other bids and bidders. The representative on this thread may claim that they only place house bids seven days in advance of closing - a problematic policy at that - but there is nothing in their own rules to limit house bidding to that in any way. Personally I do not feel comfortable bidding in this sort of situation. If I have misrepresented due to my faulty memory, please clarify where I am wrong.
JimB

[HRBAKER]

They tell you what they do and to Jim's point they don't seem to limit themselves in the fine print unless he missed it. They make no secret about it, if you don't like it don't bid with them. I don't like it and I don't bid with them.

[OTWCards]

Perhaps next time I bid against a "house" bid, they'll put me on an even playing field by waiving the 20% advantage the "house" has by not having to pay the BP...

[sflayank]

they do the same thing with coins in the last 18 months theyve sold the same coin 5 times including giving it on consignment to a dealer who then tried to sell it to my outright...if its not illegal it should be

[E93]

It creates a false market with false prices realized. In the case of the program above, if Heritage is in fact "the owner", it is misleading in that respect as well.
JimB

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by Jlighter

I don't think it is that big of a deal. They are bidding with the intent to own. This means they think the price is too low. Its not like their shill bidding thousands of dollars on a Mordedcai Brown which will never be sold for a profit at that level. I do believe that it should be disclosed on a auction lot if Heritage is bidding, it very well may be, I'm not that familiar with Heritage.

The fine print says they reserve the right to bid, it does not say they must bid only 7 days before the auction ends, that is their own self imposed rule that they can disregard at any time without breaking their disclosure in the fine print that 99 percent of the bidders haven't read. It should be in bold print on each auction listing./

And Jonathon, if it is Heritage's policy to limit themselves to 7 days before the auction ends, why isn't that in the disclosure?e

If a babe ruth bat is expected to sell for a million dollars and heritage's wholesale limit is 650,000, and they know for certain , 100% that the end bid will be above that price, do they still place the 650,000 dollar bid 7 days before auction ends if the price has not hit that level yet? Remember, they know the big boys who are interested in this piece, they probably sent out golden engraved invitations to them.

do they put in the 650,000 bid anyway, granted they want to buy it at that price, but they know for a fact it will go higher. The secondary effect of placing the bid they know the can't win is to bump up the price sooner in the auction. They can always say they wanted to buy it at 650,000, but since the knew they couldn't ever win it at that price, do they place the bid anyway? Is it ethical for an auction house to place that bid they know they can't win on a hot item they know will go through the roof?

That's the slippery slope of auction houses who want to be dealers as well. Why not just be an auction house? How do customers benefit by competing against the auction house itself for items? The auction house has all the inside informtion, the customers don't.

[Publius]

I closed my Heritage Account over a year ago because of shifty rules like this, poor customer service and a horrendous website. I would never consign to Heritage, or obviously bid on anything they have for sale. I'm a drop in the bucket, but drops eventually add up to a waterfall.

Joe Squires

[Jaybird]

Double post /////

[Jaybird]

Perhaps this thread is worth moving to the Main Page?

I agree that everyone should go in knowing that this business is shady and only be surprised when they aren't.

However, the only way a company changes the way they do business is for their customers to speak up and demand the change both in words but also in action. I've stopped biding with Heritage as I did when the information about H&S came out in a previous thread. H&S changed their policy. Will Heritage follow suit or blatantly ignore concerns in favor of short term gains?

[travrosty]

we spoke up and demanded they stop listing their autographs with a jsa auction loa before the items were actually seen by jsa, and it took several people several attempts before they changed it and people got their accounts banned from heritage as a result of demanding this change.

so speaking up has its punishment.

I consigned 1 item to heritage, and it got an internet bid several days before it hit the live auction floor. it got no further bids on the floor but heritage told me the buyer did not pay so i got my item back and never got my money. heritage couldnt tell me who the winning bidder was. If they would tell me who bid on my item and didnt pay, i would feel a lot more confident that it wasnt heritage bidding themselves and then getting buyers remorse. I have no poof heritage bid on the item, but i have no proof they didn't bid on it either. Obviously I haven't consigned anything else to them. I had three months of my time wasted regardless.

What disturbs me and something I didn't realize is not only does it say nothing about heritage's ability to bid on an item right up to the hammer, it expressley reserves the right to modify or bid right up to the hammer.

This 7 day bid limit that jonathon mentioned is nonsense.

it also is very distubing that it says it can modify its bid right up to the hammer using any data received. so if they find out something about a lot that isn't known or disclosed to the general bidding public, they reserve the right to cancel or reverse their bid, or lower it, but of course you can't.

[keithsky]

Didn't Mastro get shut down and in trouble for shill bidding? Isn't this basicly the same thing that they are doing but maybe they word it different? I don't know. I guess each auction house does what they want and if you want to participate you do and if not your choice. There is alot of auction house to choose from and that is probably a good thing.