Sold Item at Auction, lost money in the transfer

jimmyfenn

I recently sold a piece of art on an highly respected online art auction site that has offices in the UK LA and New York, though i think it was started in the UK though Im not sure.

the amount sold for was fairly healthy, and of course a commission was taken off.

I have just received the final amount after two and a half months, but the amount which showed in my account was lower by about £200 which they had sent, this I have just found out after asking them and then asking my bank was a foreign money exchange rate commission fee.

Becuase the money was wired from the US when it arrived into my account Barclays exchnage it to Sterling and that incures an exchange rate fee. which i was not expecting and it is a hidden charge that does not show up on statements.

It seems obvious that foreign money needs to be exchanged and there are always fees, but is the company in the right to expect me to pay this as i was not made aware this would happen. could they have not payed me from the UK, the item sold could have been bought by a uk buyer as it is an English Artist.

Does anyone think i should look into this more closely and expect to claim this back somehow from the company, should they have paid me in sterling?

thanks for your help/ as im not really familiar with any of this!

sportsarb

I'm not 100% on this yet but I am pretty sure US banking has to be done in US dollars and they wouldn't have had the option to wire you GBP. I'll see if I can find more on it.

jimmyfenn

thanks, when i signed up to sell i honestly expected to be dealing with them in the uk.

campdave

jimmyfenn wrote: »

thanks, when i signed up to sell i honestly expected to be dealing with them in the uk.

And presumably you've read all the documentation you agreed to rather than assuming this was the case?

RFW

Some of the bigger auction houses are rather ruthless at getting as much as they can from you.

There's obviously no harm in questioning the fees. Also look at how you approached them and how you ended up dealing in the US rather than the UK. If you did approach the UK office and they never correctly informed you that they'd be passing you to the US office you may have a good case. It could be worth contacting your local Trading Standards, they like to tackle big companies.

jimmyfenn

well when you go on amazon or ebay do you expect to lose money on a currencey exchange? or any other multinational company?

i read alot but nothing mentioned having my final fee exchanged and fees may be charged.

jimmyfenn

yes but i wouldnt have thought that the auction company is getting anything from my bank when they applied the currency exchange fee

RFW

jimmyfenn wrote: »

yes but i wouldnt have thought that the auction company is getting anything from my bank when they applied the currency exchange fee

I don't know if that is or isn't possible, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did. It's also possible that they charge themselves in addition to the bank fee.

Obviously this is too late for you but there are a series of questions to ask when selling in auction. The first would be how long after auction do I get paid, the next is, is there a flat seller fee and are there any additional charges beyond that.
One of the tricks the smaller salerooms do is to charge a lotting fee. I've known at least one auction house to charge a lotting fee, list items individually (so the seller gets a charge for each), then when it comes to the auction sell them all in one lot.
There are some straight up auction houses who treat buyers and sellers fairly, sadly there are plenty more that aren't. No matter the size or reputation, when dealing with an auction house for the first time, consider the possibility that they will try and rip you off. That's from someone who was an auctioneer for 15 years!

PasturesNew

Can you clarify?

I read this as an unexpected bank charge. A charge the bank made for receiving US$ and converting it into £ for you.

I think others are thinking the auction site charged you additional fees.

Can you confirm which it is?

jimmyfenn

PasturesNew wrote: »

Can you clarify?

I read this as an unexpected bank charge. A charge the bank made for receiving US$ and converting it into £ for you.

I think others are thinking the auction site charged you additional fees.

Can you confirm which it is?

well apparently its not a charge for receiving the money, its a charge like youd get if you changed travel money, a commission fee? as it was recieved in US dollars and they had to echange it, i think thats what they said, i need to get some sort of paper work as it does not show on bank statements.

soolin

jimmyfenn wrote: »

well when you go on amazon or ebay do you expect to lose money on a currencey exchange? or any other multinational company?

i read alot but nothing mentioned having my final fee exchanged and fees may be charged.

On ebay sellers do lose on the currency conversion if they use paypal.