The one and only time I got badly burnt at an auction left a really bad taste in my mouth. I have been very wary of auctions ever since. We use to have one of those big auction warehouses nearby that involved the buyers inspecting the goods a week beforehand and placing their bids. You had to write your bid on a form and hand it in. You had no idea what anybody else was bidding.
I always bid far too low on everything, although I always considered my bids to be fair. Well one time something caught my eye that I really was keen on. So I placed an enormous bid thinking that I would only be outbid by someone else. To my great surprise, this time I was the highest bidder and won the item. A momentary feeling of victory soon gave way to a bad case of "buyer's regret", because I then I had to pay for it. In all truth I found myself scratching the bottoms of my pockets! Unlike eBay, this auction place also charged the buyer a commission and other fees on tops of sales. So they were getting a commission from the seller as well as from the buyer. It was a clear case of "double-dipping" if ever there was one. So I ended up paying another 15% or whatever it was on top of what I had bid, making the item very expensive. Another problem was I thought I was bidding on only one of two items, when the fine print later revealed that I was actually bidding on two items. So even though my bid was "per item", I actually had to take the pair, meaning my bid was in effect doubled. So I walked out the place that day about $800 lighter.
The auction place only showed you the results of the bidding after the auction had closed. It turns out that the second highest bid was only $10 and I had bid $350. I never went back to that auction house again! Last I heard they had closed their doors. Good riddance I say! The staff were always extremely ignorant, hostile and rude in any case. Many times I stood there waiting and nobody would even serve you or acknowledge your existence. I cannot even remember what they were called now. Hardly matters. I still have the items - a couple of rusty antiques that do not even work - and valued at about a 20th of what I paid for them almost a decade ago. Never again!
Last edited by vint_mow; 17/06/17 07:50 PM.
