Dan E.

You can't trust the auctioneers or the reviews on this website, because the company allows them to engage in Review Manipulation and Feedback Extortion. You don't know if you are getting an honest auction house or a shady one. I ended up with two bad ones all in one week, and it was like pulling teeth to get any assistance. One of the auctioneers has been threatening me, stalking me, and took my private information and published it online outside of the website without my consent to retaliate for leaving him a bad review. I called, I sent them screenshots, I demanded and begged them for help, and they gave me a cold shoulder. I couldn't even get a response from them. Shocked and disgusted at the utter callousness of the LiveAuctioneers staff. They shelter shady auction houses who misuse and abuse your private information, who engage in questionable business practice on their site with impunity. I've been cyber-bullied by an auction house on their website "Lot14 Auctions", and when I complained about it instead of helping me they deleted my account and scapegoated my threat of a lawsuit against the auctioneer who was causing this. They shamefully told me I was "threatening" but my threat was that I would sue the auction for harassment and violating my privacy, which I have every right to do. It was the auction who sent me extortion emails and threats- very specific threats designed to get me to shut up about my bad experience there. The auctioneer threatened to wreck the business where I work if I didn't withdraw negative feedback for his business. LiveAuctioneers turned a blind eye to the auctioneer threatening the consumer, but if the customer responds to that by saying they will sue if he doesn't stop it, LA thinks the customer is "threatening". It's not only unethical- THIS IS ILLEGAL. IT'S FEEDBACK EXTORTION. All of the other websites have policies to protect consumers from this, but LA doesn't apparently. They let him get away with it. I sent them screen shots and they did nothing. Their staff told me the auctioneers were "vetted" but here is an auctioneer stalking me online, harassing me, following me to my workplace and trying to embarrass me to friends, coworkers, clients and customers of other businesses, telling strangers about my shopping habits. Does that sound like a "vetted" auctioneer to you? ANYONE would have threatened that auctionhouse with a lawsuit under those circumstances, and that I had an outburst at him with a couple of swear words is a big SO WHAT. They care more about their sensitive ears than the unethical and illegal business practices of the auction houses who sell there. They also told me my language violated their harassment policy, but they will not show anyone the actual policy. What kind of harassment policy covers swear words but does not protect the consumer from actual real-life harassment from the auctioneer? And then there's the other auction house who gave me damaged goods I had to leverage a creditcard chargeback to get a refund. There is a "dispute" process if you don't pay, but there is NO reporting mechanism for recourse against auctioneers who are engaging in far worse behavior than a couple of swear words. The website tells you to report policy violations or problems, but there is little to no actual way for consumers to do that. It also says they take your privacy seriously, but they didn't care about mine at all. Their "bidder support" phone number is ONE person's voicemail, and they never call back. If you get an email response in 3 days, it's lucky. I was left feeling as if I was forced to accept the damaged goods, because they can "dispute" it and keep me from bidding on other auctions. Or the auctioneer can just find your workplace and embarrass you into doing whatever they want. Consumers are defenseless, and the company lets them do it. There is a corporate culture of anti-buyer and pro-seller. Then on top of that, I kept telling them the whole time that auctioneer had never disputed the invoice, and it never said that on my account- I have pictures of this. It actually said "paid after 51 days and no disputes were filed" and then later AFTER "suspending" my bidding priveleges, they changed it to "past due, in dispute" but they claim they are not covering anything up... yeah right. They can't even get that right. And they don't think after all that a customer might just get so aggravated as to utter a couple of slurs? And that's grounds for suspension, but the auctioneer stalking you, actually threatening you with illegal behavior and illegally sharing your private information is not? What planet are these people on?!

I got scammed selling something on ebay- they let the buyer return an empty package. My item was factory-sealed when it was delivered. Ebay told me they were only having the buyer send it back to me for my inspection, and directed me to call them back and verify that the contents were absent. The buyer claimed it was empty on delivery, but the shipping weight and photos refuted this. So when it was returned, against my will, I did as they instructed and called back to be covered by seller protection for not receiving my item back. They completely reversed their attitude and told me that in business sometimes there is loss, and that I should just accept it. Really horrible experience with them. They encourage fraud and actually set up the sellers for this kind of thing. They lie to us and tell us we are covered without any intention of actually protecting us from this.