Schwenke Auctioneers

Complaint: [redacted] I am rejecting this response because: I think it reflects the difficulty I have had dealing with this auctioneerHe has an unhappy cus***erRather then resolve the issue as most reputable businesses would attempt to do he instead attempts to question my integrity in voicing my dissapointment I am a frequent buyer of online auction sitesSome of them are the most reputable auctioneers in the worldAll to a tee accept pre-bids first before taking bids from those on siteThis is the first and only time I have seen an auctioneer reject the pre-bidMy bid was placed two weeks prior to the auction date and should have been provided preference over later bids This is what honest aucitoneers do percent of the timeThis auctioneer in his response blatantly admits to placing preference on onsit bidsThis is highly unusual and completely out of line with established industry practices Sincerely, [redacted]

Complaint: ***I am rejecting this response because:
Auctioneers submission clearly shows that my bid was placed well in advance of the auction date and that he chose to accept another bidThis is in clear violation of accepted auction practicesI am therefore now interested in his solution to resolve this issue
I do not think that his argument that I should be required to pay more above and beyond my valid initial bid is a solutionLive Auctioneers the platform used stated that the auctioneer clearly recieved my pre-bid and chose to ignore it
His argument that I should have somehow known that he had given my winning bid to someone else is ludicrousWhy would I possibly place a higher bid against myselfThat is simply illogicalI believed I had the winning bidI therefore did not go any higherwhen I later saw that I did not recieve my winning bid notification I then started asking questions which the auctioneer was kind enough to provide you copies of
Auctioneers response that there was no other contact from me prior to the bid is incorrectThere were two contacts with the company one prior to the auction in which they acknowledged my pre-bid and another one where I asked specific questions about the itemThat question also recieved a response from them again showing there were no issues with the software platform
If I don't make the attempt to bring this issue to light then auctioneers can use internet platforms to drive up the price of bids and then sell to onsite bidders for quick resolutionThe submission by the auctioneeer clearly shows his efforts to get me to pay far and above what was a valid pre-bidThis to me is highly unethical and certainly not a valid solution
It appears the auctioneer has left out the many threatening messages where he threatened me with legal action if I sought the help of mediation sources like yourselfApparently I am not allowed to be an unhappy cus***er and seek the help of this valuable resource
I thank Revdex.com for taking the time to attempt to mediate this issue
Sincerely,*** ***

Complaint: ***
I am rejecting this response because:
*** *** tends to attempt to overwhelm and overstate the issues in this caseI have therefore tried to highlight some of my disagreements with his widely inaccurate response:
“Those terms were agreed to by
consumer *** for our December 7th auction.”
I have included this verbiage
since it highlights the disrespect *** *** shows his cus***ersNote the
use of my last name without proper title as is cus***ary in proper business
correspondenceNote also the verbiage on terms being agreed toThis ties into
the auction approval process which I will touch on later
“The facts, including a complete
record of all communications with *** and attachments and exhibits, have
been set forth here by me in great detail in my previous response to this
complaintThey clearly show that there was no “problem” with the bidding on
lot #8, and that I made a diligent and sincere effort to explain that to
***He has repeatedly rejected the facts and refused to accept any
responsibility for his mistakes - seeking to blame me.”
*** ***’s facts do make my case and prove that *** *** as
an auctioneer acted in an highly unusual manner that is outside common practices
of reputable auctioneersI do reject the comments of Live AuctioneersI
believe they attempted to appease both parties in this case as I have
previously shared with this site and *** *** *** has been kind
enough to also share their efforts to appease himHis last response contains a
knowingly misleading defamatory statement suggesting that there were emails
from me which I did not include with my submissionThat statement is false
I will note this response
since it will tie into some of his other denials
He continues to manifest a failure
to understand, or an indignant refusal to accept, that his $minimum
absentee bid on lot #in our December 7th auction was not placed
“in the auction” but was in effect submitted to an online “escrow” bidding
platform,
*** *** now blames
the live auctioneers bidding platform when at other times he uses Auctioneers
discretion as his defense.
Not only are the bids hidden until
the auction, but there is also no time advantage to those escrowed absentee
bidsSince they are not presented to the auction house until the lot is
opened, the recognition of those bids is subject to the auctioneer’s discretion
if and when there are other competing bids on the lotPreviously *** ***
blamed the platform now he claims the rights of AuctioneersDiscretionWhich
is it Faulty platform or is *** ***
now admitting he chose to ignore the pre-bid?
When lot #was opened at our auction, the
first bid recognized at the $start bid was an absentee bid which had been
placed directly with us on December 5thIn fact, that was actually
the first bid “in the auction” on lot #8, not ***’s invisible absentee bidPreviously and also
provided to you as evidence by *** *** he claims that the item was sold to
someone onsiteThe first response to my inquiry was the claim the item was
sold onsiteDoes *** *** and or his staff routinely lie to their
cus***ers as a business practice? He now claims that the item was sold
to an absentee bidder? Which is it?
Now look at *** ***’s
Claim that he my bid was invisibleHe also claims that he did not receive any
other communications from me and did not have any other communications with me
as previously highlightedThe Live Auctioneers bidding platform is not
au***aticWhen I placed my pre-bid it au***atically sent *** *** a
request to allow me to participate in his auctionHe or his staff accepted my
bid and accepted my application to participate in his auctionWithout his
approval I could not have been able to participateHe admits in his response
that I had the ability to bid on this auctionHe therefore admits that he had
accepted my bid and accepted my application to participate in his auctionIn
this response he denys receiving this bid and he tries to admit acceptance of
that communicationWhich is it?
*** *** could view
the pre-bids on his itemsIf you go on the Live Auctioneers site and view any
auction of your choosing that is pending you can see which items have pre-bids
on themThat without the level of access afforded *** ***At the point
the item became live *** *** could and did see the bid and chose to ignore
itThis is highly irregular and puts into question his practices as an
auctioneer
I will again state that I
am a frequent active user of online bidding sitesI have bid with some of the
most reputable auction houses availableAll without exception accept Pre-bids
before they accept bids from onsite biddersUnless its now an absentee bidder?
Who knows *** *** appears to be having difficulty keeping his story straightUnreasonable refusals and rejections
were repeatedly offered up by ***The disagreement continued unresolved
and culminated in *** filing this complaint.
*** *** could redeem his reputation and possibly
learn to provide the better business I seekHe either violated general auction
practices knowingly or by accidentIf by accident then I have given him the
means to redeem his reputation and restore my faith in his businessIf
knowingly and as it appears by his responses without remorse then warning the
general public through this venue of his highly unusual practices and total
disregard for good cus***er service may be the only solution
Once again I thank Revdex.com for
providing me with the opportunity to try to resolve this issue with this
extremely difficult and highly irregular business person
Sincerely,*** ***

I have been away from my office and just now received the notice of this
complaint. While as stated above I will provide complete documentation
in a supplemental email communication, I will briefly outline the facts.The complaint which has been filed is inaccurate, and also false and...

misleading. I am the owner-auctioneer of [redacted] and will provide complete documentation of all correspondence between the complainant and myself, including communications with third parties, all of which will substantiate my position both that my actions at the auction were beyond reproach and also that complainant is proceeding in bad faith. It is unfortunate that the disgruntled individual has chosen this course of action in light of the facts, which are incontrovertible on their face and also clearly illustrate the lack of good faith inherent in the complainants actions.What complainant fails to disclose is that his absentee bid of $300 was placed on Live Auctioneers which is an internet platform not associated with [redacted]. In so doing, he agreed to the posted Terms & Conditions covering that auction on the internet, which, in short, provide that bidders accept the risks inherent in electronic communication, and also agree and understand that the auctioneer has the discretion to accept bids from any source in the order he/she chooses and that bidders in the sale room are given preference over internet bidders. In this case, as was explained to complainant in complete detail, there was a competing bid in house at $300 which I accepted first. Complainant admits that he was watching the auction of the lot live on the internet; he chose not to place a subsequent live internet bid for $325, which would have been the next bid increment. Accordingly, the lot was sold to the in-house absentee bidder for $300. Complainant argues that I had an obligation to accept his bid first, since it was placed first in time, but that is not in accord with established auction principles or our posted Terms & Conditions. In addition, if I had accepted that bid first, my absentee bid in-house was higher so the lot would still have been won by the in-house bidder. Complainant has intentionally misled this Organization with the statement that I subsequently offered the lot to him at a higher price, which is completely false. What I told the complainant (in response to his written statement that he was prepared to bid higher) was that if he wished to indicate his level of interest I would pass  that on to the successful purchaser in a good faith effort to assist him to claim the lot. He subsequently failed to provide any statement of his level of interest, even though I offered twice, and the lot has now been paid for and picked up by the successful bidder/purchaser.This is a simple matter where complainant failed to advance his previously placed absentee bid, which was his immediate and best solution, and has instead embarked on a course of action to discredit me and my firm without justification. There were many emails between me and complainant, which I will provide in their entirety in a supplemental email, with attachments, including my final communication with complainant which contained a forward of an email from Live Auctioneers which supported all my statements to complainant and also concluded that my actions in handling the sale of the lot in question were entirely appropriate and in no way improper. What I told the complainant is that I would hold him responsible for any expenses, loss or damage resulting from the action he threatened, which he has now unfortunately carried out in filing this baseless and fraudulent complaint.My supplemental response will be filed on Monday, January 5th 2015.Thank you for your time and consideration.Sincerely,[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted]
[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because:
I think it reflects the difficulty I have had dealing with this auctioneer. He has an unhappy cus[redacted]er. Rather then resolve the issue as most reputable businesses would attempt to do he instead attempts to question my integrity in voicing my dissapointment.
I am a frequent buyer of online auction sites. Some of them are the most reputable auctioneers in the world. All to a tee accept pre-bids first before taking bids from those on site. This is the first and only time I have seen an auctioneer reject the pre-bid. My bid was placed two weeks prior to the auction date and should have been provided preference over later bids.  This is what honest aucitoneers do 100 percent of the time. This auctioneer in his response blatantly admits to placing preference on onsit bids. This is highly unusual and completely out of line with established industry practices.
 
Sincerely,[redacted]

Re:
Complaint #[redacted] filed December 13, 2014
 
“Terms and
Conditions of Sale
Bidding on items indicates review of and acceptance of the following:
 
“4. The auctioneer has the sole and
exclusive power and authority, without exception and without liability, to (a)
resolve any disputes between bidders, (b) determine whether to pass or re-offer
any lot for sale, (c) reject or challenge any bid or advance at the start of
the bidding or during the bidding, and (d) otherwise regulate the bidding and
its increments.  . . . The highest bidder
as determined by the auctioneer shall be deemed the purchaser. If the
auctioneer receives more than one bid of the same value, only the first
acknowledged will be accepted. If any dispute arises after the sale, the sale
record maintained by [redacted] is conclusive.  Although [redacted] will endeavor to
execute accurately any absentee/phone bids, these services are offered only as
a convenience to clients who are not physically present at the auction, and we
are not responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur in the exercise
of these services.
 
5. [redacted] offers the
internet bidding platform tool as a convenience to our clients. Please be aware
that in some cases an absentee bid submitted on the internet before or during
the auction may not be received by the auctioneer conducting the sale, or if
received may not be accepted. This may occur even when the internet absentee
bid was placed earlier than an equivalent absentee bid. No bids may be
submitted after the auctioneer has closed the lot. The auctioneer has final
discretion over which bids to accept, as described elsewhere in this document,
and live bidders in the room are recognized first by the auctioneer.”
Those terms were agreed to by consumer [redacted] for our
December 7th auction. They are clear and unequivocal, and they are
not hard to understand. Clearly they show that this consumer complaint
#[redacted] made and continued by consumer [redacted] is frivolous and without merit. 
The facts, including a complete record of all
communications with [redacted] and attachments and exhibits, have been set forth
here by me in great detail in my previous response to this complaint. They clearly show that there was no “problem” with the bidding on
lot #8, and that I made a diligent and sincere effort to explain that to
[redacted]. He has repeatedly rejected the facts and refused to accept any responsibility for his mistakes - seeking to blame me. 
His last response contains a knowingly misleading defamatory
statement suggesting that there were emails from me which I did not include with
my submission. That statement is false. I included ALL our correspondence, and
those emails are a matter of public record within the proprietary email system
of Live Auctioneers, and there were no other communications. His stated concern
about auctioneers using internet bids to drive up prices is illusory, and has
nothing whatsoever to do with his mistakes and failure to bid. And he has
warped and misstated what was an honest overture from me to pass on an offer after
the sale to the winning bidder. More important, though, is that [redacted] is
using this consumer complaint forum as a vehicle to make false and misleading
statements in a pathetic attempt to support his flawed claim. Those actions by [redacted] are totally improper, and clearly demonstrate his bad faith. 
[redacted] is a disgruntled auction bidder who refuses to
accept responsibility for (1) not knowing or understanding the consequences of
where and how he placed his absentee bid, and (2) making a mistake in deciding
not to advance his bid live at auction time when he knew or should have known that his absentee bid was not winning the lot, and (3) not
responding to my good faith offer to transmit a post-auction offer to the
winning bidder.
He continues to manifest a failure to understand, or an
indignant refusal to accept, that his $300 minimum absentee bid on lot #8 in
our December 7th auction was not placed “in the auction” but was in
effect submitted to an online “escrow” bidding platform, Live Auctioneers, whose
own instructions to bidders clearly state that prior to the auction those bids
are kept private and secure from other bidders and the auction house, and are not
transmitted to the auction house until the time the lot is opened on the
auction day. The absentee bid acknowledgement to which [redacted] refers in his
last response did not come from us, it came in an email directly from Live
Auctioneers, and that is a matter of public record. The other communication was
set forth in full by me in my previous response, which [redacted] overlooked. [redacted]
is quite simply wrong again, still either failing to understand or refusing to
accept what actually occurred, and misstating the facts in a futile attempt to
support his baseless claim.
 
The following email from Live Auctioneers was received by me
on Thursday, January 9, 2015 at 2:18 pm:
 
“Hi [redacted],
We received a
follow up regarding the bidder [redacted] and the bid they felt was ignored
at auction. You had requested an explanation of how our platform communicates
absentee bids.
We operate on a
secure bidder network. Below is an explanation of that system: 
Secure
Bidder Network: Secure Bidder Network ensures that a bid is kept secure and
completely private from auctioneer and other bidders until it is executed on
the auction day. 
How it
works: Live Auctioneers' system will bid on your behalf against other competing
bids up to the maximum bid price you have placed. At no time are other bidders
or the auction company made aware of your maximum bid amount. 
Absentee bids
are submitted during the time of the live sale, just as live bids are. In the
case of . . . a single absentee
bidder, we attempt to execute their bid at the lowest amount possible, and
their bid is submitted incrementally at the time of auction, as dictated by the
live bidding process.
Prior to auction, the absentee bids are hidden from other users and the auction house.
Let us know if you need anything else."
Not only are the bids hidden until the auction, but there is
also no time advantage to those escrowed absentee bids. Since they are not presented
to the auction house until the lot is opened, the recognition of those bids is
subject to the auctioneer’s discretion if and when there are other competing
bids on the lot. When lot #8 was opened at our auction, the first bid
recognized at the $300 start bid was an absentee bid which had been placed
directly with us on December 5th. In fact, that was actually the
first bid “in the auction” on lot #8, not [redacted]’s invisible absentee bid. And
that recognized first bid was higher than $300, but was recognized only at the
minimum start bid of $300. Our internet clerk properly entered that bid into
the Live Auctioneers clerking module as the first bid. [redacted] admits that he was
logged into Live Auctioneers and was watching the auction of lot #8 on his
computer. He saw on his computer screen that the bid at $300 was not his, but
was a “competing bid”, and he was being prompted in
red to bid $325. [redacted] stated in an email to us on December 9th:
“I was watching online and would have been willing to
bid much more but I trusted that your auctioneer was honoring my pre-bid and
therefore I did not bid anymore when I saw the bid stop at 300.” He admittedly
chose not to bid, disregarding the indication on his chosen bidding platform
that the then current high bid was a “competing bid” from another bidder and
was against him. He decided, incorrectly and with no justification, that the
“competing bid” shown as against him was somehow his own previously submitted
absentee bid. He was wrong. [redacted] made an affirmative decision at that moment
not to bid another $25 increment to guarantee he was the high bidder. As a
result of his failure to bid further, he was not the high bidder, and therefore
he was not the winning bidder. The auction of lot #8 thereupon closed and the “competing
bidder” in-house was the high bidder, and was correctly determined to be the
winning bidder. [redacted] acquiesced in the win by the “competing bidder” by
failing to bid further himself. That was a mere $25 error in judgment, but is a
fatal flaw in his complaint. [redacted]’s statement in his last submission that he
does not understand how he could be expected to bid against himself is another
example that he did not comprehend the bidding process and that he continues to
be in denial of the obvious mistake he made.
All auctions have winners and losers. That is the concept of
auction – bidding competition on a given lot continues until the highest bidder
is acknowledged the winner by the auctioneer after all other bidders have
ceased bidding. The auctioneer is the “referee” of the auction, vested with both
the authority and the responsibility to determine the order of bid recognition,
to determine the highest bidder, and to declare that highest bidder to be the
winner. That is why every auction house without exception expressly conditions
participation in their auctions upon a bidder’s acceptance of the finality of
the auctioneer’s discretionary decisions. Otherwise, chaos and disputes and
complaints would be rampant, just as if there were no referee in a boxing
match, or no umpire in a baseball game, or no line judge in football.  
This is actually a simple matter involving something which
routinely happens every day in auctions all over the world, but which for some
inexplicable reason is being protracted unreasonably and unfairly by [redacted]’s
blatant refusal to accept the facts as they actually exist. There is no problem
to be addressed or remedied other than for [redacted] (1) to accept responsibility
for not understanding the bidding process on the platform he himself chose, and
(2) to accept that the reason he lost the lot was that he made a mistake in
second guessing the information which was clearly presented to him on that very
platform.  
No amount of factual distortion, misrepresentation or
fabrication by [redacted] can change what happened on December 7th at the
auction of lot #8 in our estate auction in Woodbury, Connecticut. There is no
remedy or solution available to [redacted] because there is no problem presented. The
handling of the bidding on the lot was strictly in accordance with well-established
auction practices and totally in conformity with our published Terms & Conditions.
When [redacted] inquired after the sale, he was provided with an honest, complete
and transparent explanation of what happened and why there was no irregularity
or impropriety in the bidding or the way his bid was handled. The explanations
came from me and also from Live Auctioneers. Unreasonable refusals and
rejections were repeatedly offered up by [redacted]. The disagreement continued unresolved
and culminated in [redacted] filing this complaint. 
 
Respectfully,
[redacted]
Owner/Auctioneer
Schwenke Auctioneers/[redacted] LLC