David Hall T206 Part IV – Auction Ends April 16, 2020!

[Hooliganlv]

Do we have any recourse in reducing the buyers premium if we win tonight?

[bounce]

i'm sure there's fine print somewhere that says they can do this

glad i'm not the only one who thinks it's pretty poor form

a quick replay of the action -
auction appeared to hard close at 10pm
within about 8-10 minutes it was back up, every auction had a clock with 30 minutes to go and bids could be placed
sometime around 10:20pm it extended for 24 hours

if they're going to reset to a 24 hour clock, i think they should have considered setting all the bids back to where and who they were as of 10pm last night, told everyone they had an issue and how they were going to handle before doing all the clock messing around above

it created massive confusion, and some people like me, made some decisions in that interim thinking the countdown clock was back on

as others have mentioned, any bidding strategy has now been totally shot to hell and many, like me, i suspect are just done with this auction

[Hooliganlv]

I was looking over Heritage’s terms and conditions. Their outage policy allows the auctioneer to extend an auction up to 24hrs. The problem is that an outage did not occur. A technical difficulty to my knowledge is not an outage, just an auction house error. Extended bidding did occur, just not on time. There was no outage.

I am done with Heritage Auctions. I will most likely file a BBB complaint for unethical business practices. I suggest everyone else do the same and spread the word on social media. Disappointing.

[bcornell]

Originally Posted by Hooliganlv

A technical difficulty to my knowledge is not an outage, just an auction house error.

No, that's the exact definition of 'outage'. Some failure of the auction platform caused the site to be unavailable.


And it's not unethical, it's incompetent. There's a difference. Some of us may remember that the HA site was completely off-line for 3 days last fall except for a homepage that mentioned "malware".

[Hooliganlv]

Originally Posted by bcornell

No, that's the exact definition of 'outage'. Some failure of the auction platform caused the site to be unavailable.


And it's not unethical, it's incompetent. There's a difference. Some of us may remember that the HA site was completely off-line for 3 days last fall except for a homepage that mentioned "malware".

The problem is we can’t determine if the cause was from incompetence or a deliberate decision by someone without investigation. Seems like a simple software programming for extended bidding not working is rare and least culpable. This raises a huge red flag.

[bcornell]

Originally Posted by Hooliganlv

The problem is we can’t determine if the cause was from incompetence or a deliberate decision by someone without investigation. Seems like a simple software programming for extended bidding not working is rare and least culpable. This raises a huge red flag.

"Simple" is an easy word to use, but there are many explanations how this could happen. You're voting for malice; I bet that's not it.



In the last year, we saw REA have to extend their auction by a day after the site froze up for hours on the final Sunday, we saw Heritage go off-line for 3 full days, and we saw Goodwin shut down his auction at the last minute (okay, that doesn't count since it's Bumbling Bill).

[hcv123]

I think most would understand a glitch or problem and the need for an auction house to address it. Not clearly and rapidly communicating with your clientele about it is really poor business practice. I think the idea of rolling bids back to what they were at 10PM is a good one albeit a little too little a little too late. Sorry to all those affected by this - I placed a single bid and let it go at that - so wasn't affected personally, but I feel your pain and frustration.

[bounce]

Originally Posted by bcornell

No, that's the exact definition of 'outage'. Some failure of the auction platform caused the site to be unavailable.


And it's not unethical, it's incompetent. There's a difference. Some of us may remember that the HA site was completely off-line for 3 days last fall except for a homepage that mentioned "malware".

I disagree that it was an outage. The site was not “down” - I was able to still login and out and look at my account, etc etc.. It simply stopped accepting bids for this auction, and was showing all lots “closed”.

Within minutes, it was back to accepting bids in the extended format with a 30 minute countdown clock on all items - I and others know this because we bid in that period - I’m calling that period of time as the “interim”.

It was during that “interim”, when the clock went from counting down from 30 minutes to suddenly counting down from 24 hours.

All of this occurred PRIOR to receiving any communication from them, which came in the email others noted they received, and I also received.

Ultimately, I have nothing to gain by arguing “legality” of their decision, blah blah blah. The Vice President of Common Sense at my house says they fell short, so for now at least I’m voting with my feet and choosing not to participate any further.

[Hooliganlv]

Originally Posted by bounce

I disagree that it was an outage. The site was not “down” - I was able to still login and out and look at my account, etc etc.. It simply stopped accepting bids for this auction, and was showing all lots “closed”.

Within minutes, it was back to accepting bids in the extended format with a 30 minute countdown clock on all items - I and others know this because we bid in that period - I’m calling that period of time as the “interim”.

It was during that “interim”, when the clock went from counting down from 30 minutes to suddenly counting down from 24 hours.

All of this occurred PRIOR to receiving any communication from them, which came in the email others noted they received, and I also received.

Ultimately, I have nothing to gain by arguing “legality” of their decision, blah blah blah. The Vice President of Common Sense at my house says they fell short, so for now at least I’m voting with my feet and choosing not to participate any further.

Totally agree. Outage is defined, in rule 20 of their terms and conditions, as an internet or server service outage. Right above rule 21 which stipulates that employees may bid on auctions...

[AddieJoss]

I’m not an IT guy and neither are our contacts at Heritage. I asked that they convey the details of the IT issue from thier IT department. I get the feeling that explanation will not be coming. Will it happen again? How do we know if it wasn’t addressed? If it was addressed, it’s easy to explain to give comfort for those bidding.

Cory Weiser

[mechanicalman]

Originally Posted by bounce

i'm sure there's fine print somewhere that says they can do this

glad i'm not the only one who thinks it's pretty poor form

a quick replay of the action -
auction appeared to hard close at 10pm
within about 8-10 minutes it was back up, every auction had a clock with 30 minutes to go and bids could be placed
sometime around 10:20pm it extended for 24 hours

if they're going to reset to a 24 hour clock, i think they should have considered setting all the bids back to where and who they were as of 10pm last night, told everyone they had an issue and how they were going to handle before doing all the clock messing around above

it created massive confusion, and some people like me, made some decisions in that interim thinking the countdown clock was back on

as others have mentioned, any bidding strategy has now been totally shot to hell and many, like me, i suspect are just done with this auction

Agree with everything you just said.

[Santo10Fan]

Originally Posted by bounce

i'm sure there's fine print somewhere that says they can do this

glad i'm not the only one who thinks it's pretty poor form

a quick replay of the action -
auction appeared to hard close at 10pm
within about 8-10 minutes it was back up, every auction had a clock with 30 minutes to go and bids could be placed
sometime around 10:20pm it extended for 24 hours

if they're going to reset to a 24 hour clock, i think they should have considered setting all the bids back to where and who they were as of 10pm last night, told everyone they had an issue and how they were going to handle before doing all the clock messing around above

it created massive confusion, and some people like me, made some decisions in that interim thinking the countdown clock was back on

as others have mentioned, any bidding strategy has now been totally shot to hell and many, like me, i suspect are just done with this auction

I was logged in on Chrome and watched a bid-on lot of mine countdown to zero at 10PM CDT. My plan was to fire one final barrel in the extended. I got a sick feeling when, after a few minutes, it appeared there was no way to make that happen on a once in a lifetime card. The auction had closed. I'm set for OT text messages-never once did I receive one.

I continued to toggle between the lot and the 'my heritage' tab for quite awhile. At exactly 10:30 CDT the bid dialog box reappeared in my bidded lot on Chrome. You can find me announcing that early in this thread. I made my bid and closed Chrome, then took a long walk through Wrigleyville without my phone. So I have no knowledge of how the extended session ended. I checked my phone around 11:45 CDT and, not finding an outbid text, assumed I had won the lot. I checked my email and found that the auction was in fact not closed.