Do i have a case?

What is the name of your state? FL

Basically, I agreed to consign an item of mine to an auctioneer, under what I believe were under false pretense and uninformed. The auctioneer made misleading promises in order to get me to consign my item to him, sold it for less than half it's actual value, and after the fact told me that I basically shouldn't have listened to what he told me and not consigned my item to them.

He also promised me that i would recieve my funds the day after the auction, and it's been nearly a month now and when i call about the money they give me the same excuse that they are just dealing with the merchants who purchased the items and recieving the funds, when before the auction they said they take payment right away so that I can get paid right away.

The only contract I signed was agreeing to the terms of the fee that the auctioneer.

I stressed a lot of concerns of mine before agreeing, and was told a lot of lies I believe that persuaded me to agree to consign to them. So my question is do I have a case against them to retrieve cost of the item or, for anything really?

Thanks in advance for any response.

spartacus1428 said:

What is the name of your state? FL

Basically, I agreed to consign an item of mine to an auctioneer, under what I believe were under false pretense and uninformed. The auctioneer made misleading promises in order to get me to consign my item to him, sold it for less than half it's actual value, and after the fact told me that I basically shouldn't have listened to what he told me and not consigned my item to them.

He also promised me that i would recieve my funds the day after the auction, and it's been nearly a month now and when i call about the money they give me the same excuse that they are just dealing with the merchants who purchased the items and recieving the funds, when before the auction they said they take payment right away so that I can get paid right away.

The only contract I signed was agreeing to the terms of the fee that the auctioneer.

I stressed a lot of concerns of mine before agreeing, and was told a lot of lies I believe that persuaded me to agree to consign to them. So my question is do I have a case against them to retrieve cost of the item or, for anything really?

Thanks in advance for any response.

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If you were lied to in order to induce you to enter into a contract, then you may have recourse. Having said that, generally speaking you would need to convince a judge that you reasonably relied on the lies, that they were material misrepresentations, and that you would not have entered into the contract otherwise.

Sour grapes over the selling price probably doesn't fall into that category. What false promises were made?

While i agree i'm sour about how ridiculously low they ended up selling it for, that's not entirely what i'm upset about.

I told them up front that I wanted a reserve because if it was only going to sell for a few hundred dollars I would rather just keep the item. They told me that the item in question does really well in their auctions, that they have hundreds of people who come and they advertise online, in a magazine they make and send to people and that their auctions are a 'big deal' among collectors.

They told me that it was in my best interest to put it into their auction that was taking place in a couple day's, rather than waiting for one of their later ones, and that I could recieve the money for the item the day after the auction was completed. When I said that I wanted a reserve on the item, they told me that if that were the case than they would not even put it in the auction, and basically if i wanted to sell it I had to just leave it to whatever they wanted with no real safety for myself. Because it's not an item I can just go and sell to anyone I really felt like I had no choice but to succumb and allow them to sell it with no reserve. However they assured me that it wouldn't be an issue.


Well the auction took place and what they failed to tell me, was that since they talked me into putting my item into an auction that was taking place in a few day's, that they weren't actually going to be advertising my item, and not going to have it in their magazine that they send out and that my item, was actually going to be among the very last items they had over the course of an auction that saw over 5000 items probably in a two day period. What they failed to tell me is that while items like mine do really well in these auctions, at the period of time that my item would be presented to bid on, there would be barely anybody left at the auction and instead of having hundreds of people like they said, there was like 15 or fewer, i know because i was there.

Had they told me that my item would be 2nd to last to be displayed and bid upon, and that there probably wouldn't be that many people to bid on it I would have never agreed to sell it through their auction, especially with no reserve. It doesn't matter what an item's estimated value is, if there's only one person there who wants to bid on it then the process doesn't work. Something they mislead me to think wouldn't be an issue by saying they have hundreds of people at the auctions and advertise heavily, which they claimed to be the reason they would charge me 30% of the winning bid.

Well the item sells, for much less then half, probably closer to a quarter of its estimated value because there was nobody there left to bid on it when they finally got around to presenting it. On top of that, the 'you can get paid as soon as the day after' was almost a month ago. Whenever i call them and ask when i'll be able to get the money, they give me the same line that they are working on getting th emoney from the people who bought the item....it's been a month since the auction.


I'm just very fed up with the fact that I very, very clearly and explicitly expressed my concerns and reservations about the auction and they very deliberately falsified and exaggerated the information in order for me to agree to consign it to them. Which had they been clear and upfront with me I never would have done.