Shanus-REA suit

[ls7plus]

Hi, Ryan. No offense taken to your comments. As a lawyer, I'm more than used to dealing with different points of view (I always prefer the judges to share mine, however), and wouldn't even begin to suggest you are not absolutely entitled to yours. One of the greatest values of this forum is the opportunity to not only share information, but discuss such different approaches.

As to the stray cats, I'm a confirmed cat lover (have two, and have had as many as four at one time through two distinct periods of time), and I probably would not only feed a stray cat, but endeavor to find out if it had a home, and if not, take it in!

I sincerely wish you the best in your collecting! Thanks for the discussion,

Larry

[ElCabron]

Steve,

A sensible bidder can absolutely be stolen from. In fact that's exactly what has been happening. It doesn't matter what you're willing to pay for something. If you are willing to pay $3,500 for an item in an auction and you wind up paying that exact amount for it, you're saying you should be happy, right? Well, what if the next highest legitimate bid was $1,000. That means you should have gotten the item for the next bid over $1,000. We'll say $1,100. Are you still happy that you had to pay an extra $2,400? Will you be happy when you try to sell your item and find out that you can't seem to get more than $1,000 for the item you paid $3,500 for? Surely, if you paid $3,500, that means at least one other bidder was willing to pay somewhere close to that amount, right? No, you just had $2,400 stolen from you. STOLEN. S-T-O-L-E-N.

It's not ebay where you can put in a snipe at the last minute. On ebay, I've often won items for 10% of what my snipe was. Other times, I've won them very close to what my max was. Either way, I'm happy. I think that's the kind of example you were trying to make, but it simply doesn't apply to these auction houses. It just doesn't.

I think part of the problem is that most people are generally good and it's hard to imagine that there are so many shady people in a hobby that is also filled with a lot nice people who you wind up becoming good friends with. There are many people that I've met over the years in this hobby that I would remain friends with regardless of whether or not either of us collected anything. That's one of the great things about this board.

But people who steal from you are not your friends.

-Ryan

[steve B]

I'm absolutely not saying there are no or few shady people in the business. Anytime there's enough money shady stuff will happen. Even some of the biggest names in antique auctions and stamp auctions have been found out.
Christies and Sothebys for price fixing, and a bunch of stamp guys for collusion over several years. I think for them the fine was something like 3 Million, a couple guys did a bit of time and one major company was cut loose by the parent company and closed.

If I've bid 3500 and win it over a shill with the next legit bidder at 1000 and cant find a buyer later at anything over 1000 I've bid 2400 more than I should have. A mistake and a painful one and compounded by the shilling, but still my mistake for them to take advantage of. Without the large overbid, there would be no room for a shill. If the shill was the auction house or the auction was feeding someone information it's illegal and they should be punished. In most cases it's hard to tell wether the underbids are legit.

Some of what's been described does look very bad. being bit up to a maximum within minutes of placing the bid would put me off bidding if it happened regularly. Or more likely I'd bid lower and on fewer items.

I've seen some crazy stuff at live auctions. I used to work for a car dealer taking used cars to an auction. The auction got away with more than anyone would have thought. Shilling was common, by the auctioneers, competitors, friends of the seller, even a random guy one day who "won" a car and literally ran off when he won. The guy I worked for always stood against the back wall so there couldn't be any "bidders" behind him. Plus reverse shilling. If a car sold for over 1000 there was recourse if it had problems like a bent frame and the auction had their own mechanics for inspections. once in awhile a care would rapidly be bid to 900 and sold as soon as the bid was placed. Usually accompanied by arguments from guys who thought their bids had been missed. A fine environment to learn how to walk away at a certain price.

Steve B