Jewellery bought at auction House that was not what they said it would be

sisistaw

in July last year I fell in love with a necklace of peridot and diamond. I spent all my savings to buy it around £29,000. (I know more fool me)

The necklace arrived but instead of being 43 cm it turned out to be just around 40. too small for me so I contacted them and asked to return. This was straight away.
They said that in auction there is no return and what they can do is resale it for me and refund me the premium of £6,500.
Well the necklace went on sale a few times and only achieved £12,000. When I complaint that their estimate which I asked before purchase wasn't correct they basically said tough.

I haven't had the necklace of my money for nearly a year.

They won't refund me the money and now won't even give the primum back.

Sales of goods act apparently doesn't work in auctions and there doesn't seem to be any Ombudsman or Trading body that deals with them.

Consumer credit/Citizen Advise also said they can't help.

Does anyone know who else I could complain too? Don't have the money to take them to court and it seems it's going to be pointless as Jewellery auctioneers seem to do what they like without any questions?

Please help if you have any knowledge.

Thanks

powerful_Rogue

Sale of Goods act hasn't been in force for 10 years for consumers. It's the Consumer Rights Act 2015, but is limited around auctions.

Did you have the chance to view the necklace before bidding?

Grumpy_chap

sisistaw said:

in July last year I fell in love with a necklace of peridot and diamond. I spent all my savings to buy it around £29,000. (I know more fool me)

The necklace arrived but instead of being 43 cm it turned out to be just around 40. too small for me so I contacted them and asked to return. This was straight away.
They said that in auction there is no return and what they can do is resale it for me and refund me the premium of £6,500.
Well the necklace went on sale a few times and only achieved £12,000. When I complaint that their estimate which I asked before purchase wasn't correct they basically said tough.

I haven't had the necklace of my money for nearly a year.

They won't refund me the money and now won't even give the primum back.

Sales of goods act apparently doesn't work in auctions and there doesn't seem to be any Ombudsman or Trading body that deals with them.

Consumer credit/Citizen Advise also said they can't help.

Does anyone know who else I could complain too? Don't have the money to take them to court and it seems it's going to be pointless as Jewellery auctioneers seem to do what they like without any questions?

Please help if you have any knowledge.

Thanks

Was this a real bricks & mortar auction house auction, or some online auction, or something else?

Did you view the necklace before purchase and / or did you undertake any due diligence to ascertain the provenance and quality of the piece prior to purchase?

If this was an auction purchase, what was different between the auction you attended when the price reached £29k and the later auctions when you tried to resell the piece it only reached £12k?

Did you at any point in time have the jewellery valued at a local jewellers?  
What sale price can you achieve for the piece selling to a local jewellers rather than the auction house?  I mean proper jewellers, that will value the item as jewellery rather than just the commodity value for the precious metals and precious stones?

Have you verified that the stones are the grade stated in the auction catalogue listing?

Is this necklace a "choker" style?  At 40 cm, that would be 15.8" and at 43 cm 16.9".  What collar size would you be for clothing?

Are there any options for the necklace to be extended so that it is wearable?  It might be far cheaper than losing the £6.5k premium (or more if the sale value is now much lower).

eskbanker

sisistaw said:

Well the necklace went on sale a few times and only achieved £12,000. When I complaint that their estimate which I asked before purchase wasn't correct they basically said tough.

I haven't had the necklace of my money for nearly a year.

They won't refund me the money and now won't even give the primum back.

Just to be clear, has the necklace been resold or not?

TELLIT01

Two auctions of the same item can achieve very different prices.  It needs at least 2 or 3 people really wanting something to push the price up.  Without that the price will be far more limited.

Okell

TELLIT01 said:

Two auctions of the same item can achieve very different prices.  It needs at least 2 or 3 people really wanting something to push the price up.  Without that the price will be far more limited.

The risk at auction is that you are likely to buy at too high a price and/or sell at too low...

twopenny

Sounds like an online auction?
If so did you read their terms and conditions? I know, I can hear the groan from here 😉

Have a look now and see what they say.
Can you get a screenshot of the necklace with their measurement?

This is the start.

Okell

Grumpy_chap said:

sisistaw said:

in July last year I fell in love with a necklace of peridot and diamond. I spent all my savings to buy it around £29,000. (I know more fool me)

The necklace arrived but instead of being 43 cm it turned out to be just around 40. too small for me so I contacted them and asked to return. This was straight away.
They said that in auction there is no return and what they can do is resale it for me and refund me the premium of £6,500.
Well the necklace went on sale a few times and only achieved £12,000. When I complaint that their estimate which I asked before purchase wasn't correct they basically said tough.

I haven't had the necklace of my money for nearly a year.

They won't refund me the money and now won't even give the primum back.

Sales of goods act apparently doesn't work in auctions and there doesn't seem to be any Ombudsman or Trading body that deals with them.

Consumer credit/Citizen Advise also said they can't help.

Does anyone know who else I could complain too? Don't have the money to take them to court and it seems it's going to be pointless as Jewellery auctioneers seem to do what they like without any questions?

Please help if you have any knowledge.

Thanks

... Are there any options for the necklace to be extended so that it is wearable?  It might be far cheaper than losing the £6.5k premium (or more if the sale value is now much lower).

I'd definitely be looking at that as an option.

Undervalued

sisistaw said:

in July last year I fell in love with a necklace of peridot and diamond. I spent all my savings to buy it around £29,000. (I know more fool me)

The necklace arrived but instead of being 43 cm it turned out to be just around 40. too small for me so I contacted them and asked to return. This was straight away.
They said that in auction there is no return and what they can do is resale it for me and refund me the premium of £6,500.
Well the necklace went on sale a few times and only achieved £12,000. When I complaint that their estimate which I asked before purchase wasn't correct they basically said tough.

I haven't had the necklace of my money for nearly a year.

They won't refund me the money and now won't even give the primum back.

Sales of goods act apparently doesn't work in auctions and there doesn't seem to be any Ombudsman or Trading body that deals with them.

Consumer credit/Citizen Advise also said they can't help.

Does anyone know who else I could complain too? Don't have the money to take them to court and it seems it's going to be pointless as Jewellery auctioneers seem to do what they like without any questions?

Please help if you have any knowledge.

Thanks

Was this the only identified deviation from their catalogue description? The fact that on a different day bids only went up to a much smaller figure, below the estimate, doesn't in itself prove anything.

When you bought for £29K some other bidder must have been willing to pay one increment below that on that particular day. Any sale estimate is not the same thing as a valuation

Normal auction t & c's will caveat the descriptions as far as possible. That said, a clearly wrong measurement could suggest that they were negligent which might override any t & c. That is far more black and white than any assessment of the quality of the stones etc.

I think some of these questions have already been asked. Apologies if I have missed the answers.

Is the item now sold? If so have you received £12K?

If not sold, do you have it back and have you obtained an expert valuation?

What due diligence did you do before bidding?

Are £12K to £30K items of jewellery typical of the items this auction house sells? Or was it out of their league?

Have you taken any legal advice?

Does your house insurance include legal cover? 

Grumpy_chap

Undervalued said:

a clearly wrong measurement could suggest that they were negligent 

I wondered whether the necklace is of a style that lays flat on the lower neck, so the size depends whether the measurement is taken on the "inside" or the "outside" or the "middle".
Sort of like this pearl necklace (chosen to just give a picture to demonstrate my comment, not to reflect what the OP's necklace is like):
https://www.majorica.com/en/products/necklace-white-kate

There are a few queries in the thread that hopefully the OP will clarify.  The OP does not seem to have been back since their first post so we have to assume they only have the access during weekdays and will update tomorrow.

pinkshoes

@sisistaw - can you clarify what sort of auction this was?

If this was an online auction, then they need to have the measurements stated correctly. 3cm difference in a "choker" style necklace is quite a large percentage, so if there was no opportunity to view it, then you ought to be seeking a full refund.

If you did however have the chance to view it, then that's unfortunately you didn't spot this.