Purchase from an auction house

neilmcl

ThumbRemote wrote: »

The following paragraph contains the sentence "However, the auction house does have some responsibilities, for example, it must not make a false statement about the goods"

Exactly this.

shaun_from_Africa

StumpyPumpy wrote: »

it is unreasonable to expect an auction house to get precious metals reassayed and stones mohs tested to prove what they are

Which is why a sensible auction house will not call something gold, silver etc unless they are 100% of it.
There is an auctioneers near to where I live and the following are descriptions from some of their catalogues:

5 white metal pendants and 3 yellow metal rings.
Ladies yellow metal French pocket watch.
Yellow metal pendant marked 375 and sundry items.
Box of farthings and yellow metal shavings

It doesn't matter if you buy from an auction, a private seller or a high st shop, any description of the goods must be correct and it doesn't make any difference if they have a SOGA disclaimer as this can't override their statutory obligations.

StumpyPumpy

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

It doesn't matter if you buy from an auction, a private seller or a high st shop, any description of the goods must be correct and it doesn't make any difference if they have a SOGA disclaimer as this can't override their statutory obligations.

I'm not saying the auctioneer doesn't have any obligations, however the gripe the OP has is with the seller, not the auctioneer. If the auctioneer has misrepresented the goods then that is a matter between them and the seller.

I am in no way defending the auctioneer or their attitude, but I believe that given the information presented here, the chances of a successful action against them (rather than the seller) is minimal. The auctioneer will claim that they acted as an agent for the seller in good faith and that is assuming that the buyer can prove to the court that the goods they have are the actual ones sold in the first place. To be clear, I'm not accusing the OP of anything, but any half competent jeweller can replace real stones with paste, how are they going to show to the court that they haven't done this? They have already admitted that they have had the rings altered.

SP

hollydays

StumpyPumpy wrote: »

I'm not saying the auctioneer doesn't have any obligations, however the gripe the OP has is with the seller, not the auctioneer. If the auctioneer has misrepresented the goods then that is a matter between them and the seller.

I am in no way defending the auctioneer or their attitude, but I believe that given the information presented here, the chances of a successful action against them (rather than the seller) is minimal. The auctioneer will claim that they acted as an agent for the seller in good faith and that is assuming that the buyer can prove to the court that the goods they have are the actual ones sold in the first place. To be clear, I'm not accusing the OP of anything, but any half competent jeweller can replace real stones with paste, how are they going to show to the court that they haven't done this? They have already admitted that they have had the rings altered.

SP

When I go to auction houses I find the exact opposite. You can get free valuations, they catalogue the item, what it is in THEIR opinion, because otherwise it would be chaos if you relied on the clients opinion which is invariable wrong.They are usually graduates in fine arts. If they aren't sure, they will refer you to, for example, the jewellery expert. Personally I've ocasionally sseen some dubious behaviour at the middle of the road auctions I used to attend very regularly, and I don't trust auction houses from my limited experience.
In fact I've benefited once when I Bought an item described as a copy that was the real thing.
This auction house has already shown itself to be liars when they say they didn't have a record of the catalogue-very very hard to believe and shows them in a bad light.
I'd be inclined to deliberately ask them if they have a record of their online sales-see what they put in writing-act all naive..

IDProtected

StumpyPumpy wrote: »

I'm not saying the auctioneer doesn't have any obligations, however the gripe the OP has is with the seller, not the auctioneer. If the auctioneer has misrepresented the goods then that is a matter between them and the seller.

I am in no way defending the auctioneer or their attitude, but I believe that given the information presented here, the chances of a successful action against them (rather than the seller) is minimal. The auctioneer will claim that they acted as an agent for the seller in good faith and that is assuming that the buyer can prove to the court that the goods they have are the actual ones sold in the first place. To be clear, I'm not accusing the OP of anything, but any half competent jeweller can replace real stones with paste, how are they going to show to the court that they haven't done this? They have already admitted that they have had the rings altered.

SP

"They have already admitted that they have had the rings altered." I don't think I like the sounds of that. Yes, I have had them re-sized but I most certainly have not had the stones replaced with synthetic Spinels, nor have I changed the date on the hallmark to make it read 1973 instead of a Victorian date! Why would anyone do that?

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

How do you know that while resizing them the jeweller didn't replace the stones with synthetics? Or substitute a newer ring?

How long were they out of your possession?

wealdroam

IDProtected wrote: »

...I most certainly have not had the stones replaced with synthetic Spinels, nor have I changed the date on the hallmark to make it read 1973 instead of a Victorian date! Why would anyone do that?

Well one reason might be fraud... to indicate to the seller/auctionhouse that they had mistakenly described the rings.

Of course I'm not saying you have done that, just answering your question why anyone would do that.

StumpyPumpy

IDProtected wrote: »

"They have already admitted that they have had the rings altered." I don't think I like the sounds of that. Yes, I have had them re-sized but I most certainly have not had the stones replaced with synthetic Spinels, nor have I changed the date on the hallmark to make it read 1973 instead of a Victorian date! Why would anyone do that?

Why? To defraud the auction house and seller, of course!

I'm not accusing you of anything, but can you not see this is the sort of defence the vendor could come up with, that you have no way of proving otherwise? You might not like what I said, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of where you stand. You cannot truthfully deny the simple question "Have you had the rings modified since they have been in your possession?" All you can say is "Yes, but only to have them resized." To which the follow up question is either "How can you prove that?" or "Did you stay with the jeweller at all times and witness them being resized?" and the truthful answer will lose you the argument.

You had the chance to view the goods and make an assessment. If a date letter was included with the hallmarks then you should have been able to instantly recognise (or very quickly look up) that the date in the description was inaccurate.

Though, actually the date in the description might not be inaccurate. It is interesting, to me at least, that you say the date is 1973. Because 1973 is the date of The Hallmarking Act which made it an offence to claim that an unhallmarked item is gold (or silver, or platinum) when selling, this caused an upsurge in unmarked precious metal objects being assayed in 1973 & 4. Mostly, these were larger pieces and these days anything before 1950 is exempt, but initially the cut off was 1920. Lots of items were hallmarked for the first time and much was done "to be on the safe side".

Highly unlikely though it may be, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that a jeweller, aware of this act, paid to have all his unmarked stock assessed and assayed. Therefore the auctioneer could even claim that though the hallmark is for 1973 their assessment is that the ring is older but assayed later due to the act.

Getting all aerated about it and feeling your virtue has been called into question will not make one jot of difference if you take this to court and they chose to defend. How are you going to prove that what I have said is bunkum in your specific case? Because that is what your job will be. The answer is you can't. You cannot prove you didn't alter the rings because you did alter them; you cannot prove the date of the rings manufacture because hallmarks don't show date of manufacture, they show date of assay; and worst of all you cannot even prove that the rings you have now are the same rings as they sold.


SP

[Deleted User]

Years ago (20+), I bought a computer from a local auction which was described as having xxxMB of memory except that it didn't. Of course I had fired up the computer at the time and believed that I had confirmed the amount of memory in the computer using the appropriate (don't ask me what it was!) DOS command. The result was displayed .....

When I got the machine home I realised that I had been 'had'. the DOS (.com) command had been replaced by a hidden (.bat) file which displayed what the 'shyster' wanted people to see if they checked as I did.

The point is, I returned it to the Auction House and told them that I had bought it 'as seen' and not 'as deliberately misrepresented'. One of the chief auctioneers was also a local magistrate and I was told that the seller would not be getting paid with money (but I was refunded mine :j)

Apologies for the long story, but my point is - If the item has been mis-represented at the time of sale, you were misled and should surely be entitled to a refund ???

wealdroam

Sleazy wrote: »

...my point is - If the item has been mis-represented at the time of sale, you were misled and should surely be entitled to a refund ???

Unfortunately, in the OP's case, he has no way of confirming that the goods as supplied are still in the same condition - they clearly aren't as they have been resized - but were the stones described accurately or were the stones, or the complete rings, changed after the sale?