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| - If you're considering bidding online at J. Levine auction....just don't. Spare yourself the frustration.
Maybe, if you're lucky, you can register to phone bid. That's what I tried to do, but 2 phone calls, one left voicemail, 2 "contact us" emails on my part inspired zero follow through on theirs.
Unable to connect with them for the phone bid, I set up electronic bidding via their website. I set up a pre-auction bid. It acknowledged that. I added to the bid amount, also pre-auction. It didn't acknowledge that one. During the auction, I increased my bid. A pop up informed me that I was the highest bidder. The sale ended, showing the item sold for $20 less than my highest bid. So, naturally, I assumed I had the winning bid.
Nope.
The item went to someone who bid less than I did. When, confused, I telephoned, I heard from 3 different people that yes, that happens all the time. Whoops!
Why 3 different people? Because I called 3 different times, each time being told someone would get back to me. It wasn't even until the 3rd call that anyone apologized, and even then it was, "Sorry you had to overhear our employees talking in quite colorful language about another customer when they thought you were on hold,"- not "Sorry we sold the item you wanted to someone else who bid less than you."
And that several day's late "Sorry" was no effort to resolve the situation. Did I miss something? Isnt the generally accepted foundation of auctions that the highest bidder gets to buy the item? That NOT happening was, from what the company employees told me, commonplace at J. Levine. Heaven forbid they should try to rectify that. I know for a fact that Christie's and Sotheby's would have called the "winning" bidder, telling them what happened, and giving them the opportunity to either relinquish the item or sell it to me at the higher price I had bid during the sale. J. Levines? Nah, they just said it happens all the time with their online bidding , as though there isn't anything wrong with that.
I felt disappointed about not getting the item. I felt shocked by the organization's lack of concern.
I deal in antiques, and bid several times a week in auctions around the world. So believe me when I tell you that this is the least professional auction house I have ever encountered, and if I ever needed to buy something they offered, I would pay someone in Arizona to wear a day-glow colored suit and sit in the front row, in full view of the podium with a flare gun and a whistle so that the auctioneer can't say he didn't see my representative. But hopefully I will never need anything they are offering, and hopefully you never will either.
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