Way Out West Auction

Some parts of this report are true
1) I was contacted about four months prior to the desired auction time and was told what items I would probably be selling and it sounded like it was going to be a pretty good option and I can pretty much estimate in my mind what the auction might grossWhen I
was contacted to come out and look at the estate most of the items that I would consider headline items and of the most value had already been stolen from the house and garage Once I looked at all the items that were going to be sold I realized that with the customers insistence that the auction be held on site it would need a huge amount of day labor manpower to help run the sale and without the headline pieces that she had talked about the value of the sale went down greatly and I told her I was not interested in doing the sale at or even 40% and that the only way I would be interested in doing the sale would be at 50%.
2) the week later I was contacted Again by the customer who said that she would agree to do the auction at 50% but felt like that I had her over a barrel in her words and that no other option company would touch the auction and that we were the only company interested in even doing the auctionThat is because like I said most of the good items were gone and both the garage and the shop we're very full as the deceased was a hoarder in many respects
3) once again I told her that it just wasn't worth doing the auction for any less and that what I thought might have been gross sales that number now was less than half with most of the good items that she had told me about for months previous had been stolen from the property
4) when we agreed to do the sale it was over the phone and therefore no contract could be signed unless I drove all the way back out to the property and brought a consignment formThe agreement was verbal and the auction was scheduled for that Saturday I told her that we would come and do the auction setup and preview and conduct the sale and at the end of the sale we would add all of the purchase tickets and split the money fifty-fifty and that I would pay all of the ads, staff, and expensesSo there was no risk of charges to her other than the 50% for the sale
5) it should also be noted that both weekends of the sale she was offered a 30% commission for selling if they brought the merchandise to our auction house or paid a nominal fee to have us move it to our auction house For whatever reason both weekends they refuse to consider the idea of having the option at our auction house and wanted it done on site .
6) are verbal agreement was that the family would stay so that folks could load out and that the day after the sale they would need to be available for people to come back and pick stuff up that was purchased period normally we wood charge the customer an hourly rate for staying or for pick up the next day or increase the commission and the customer was not interested in any of that and agreed to stay for Loadout purposes
7) in regards to the auction signs being left out on the corner that was the Gold Rush auction signs and I believe they simply forgot to pick them upIf after the very first person stopped by their home regarding the auction sign being out they had called either myself or Gold Rush auction I'm sure we would have went straight over and pick them up which makes me wonder why if this was a nuisance we were never notified
8) our company has always cleaned up after ourselves and always willI have never left any Trash behind at an auction and in this case never actually brought any TrashAny trash that the customer is speaking about his items that were of no value and not sellable that were left either in the garage or the shop
9) after the first sale they were encouraged to contact someone else to run the second weekend if for any reason they were not happy with how we conducted the saleThe next day while customers were loading out the customer asked one of the representatives from Gold Rush auction who happened to be there if we would consider doing the auction for 40% the following weekendI told them that we would not be interested in doing the auction at 40% because of how little money we made it the first auction and how little money we were probably going to make it the second auctionThis is not normally the type of option that we would take on because of the low quality of items that were sold but I did feel sorry for the family because they kept getting ripped off
10) the customer was instructed not to take any items from the sale area once they were photographed and advertisedUpon arrival of the first day the four best items that I had in my photograph add or suspiciously missing and I was upset enough that I did not want to conduct the auction as my customers were going to be very upset that these items were taken out of the saleI went ahead with the sale because I did not want my customers who traveled to the sale to miss out on any items that were leftWhich made working this sale that much more frustrating because the items that were suspiciously taken out of the first auction were almost 25% of the value that I had calculated
In in conclusion if the customer did not want to conduct the sale at 50% then they simply should have said noButt I made it very clear that due to the low value of the auction that I would be willing to conduct the sale but 50% would be the minimum amount I would do it forIf the items that she had told me about on the phone or in the sale I gladly would have done the sale for 30% because the value would have been much higher

I've shopped here for several years, and they are always helpful. I drive from Olympia because they have a rare collection of ornamental fencing, metal art and curios. They go out of their way to make sure I get a good deal, because their business depends upon return customers and word of mouth. If you want to wander around and look they don't bug you, but they come right over if you have a question or need some help. Wish there were more business like this one, great products and super customer-oriented!