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Bad Experience with Heritage Fun Auction

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  • Monsterman- HUH??? Where did we go from FIXING THE MISTAKE BY BEING ACCOUNTABLE for our actions to "shoot the employees" . Geeeez.....that is quite a leap!! Get off the caffeine..and away from the window. Oh....and I was a rocket scientist in the 80's and you couldn't afford me at any price (you don't have the desire to have things done right....and still believe it to be cheaper to hire incompetence at 1/3 the price).

    Once again folks......YES....we all make mistakes. It is how we handle on our mistakes and treat the customer/client after the mistake that determines how successful our business is and how our clients/customers view us. If I make a mistake...I would always step up to the plate and be accountable. Is it too much to expect the same from those I choose to give my business to??? I for one.....think not.

    The bleeding hearts think otherwise...but I can't agree with you Monsterman (or CG)..........after all........you haven't seen paperwork until you have done my job. I spend my life doing paperwork...and I take my job seriously...and double and triple check everything I do to ensure that errors do not occur. Yes....it means I have to be more focused then everyone else....but that is why my clients pay for my services. They expect/demand that things are done right. Would you expect less from your surgeon if you were going in for major surgery?? What about your defense attorney if you were wrongly accused of a serious crime?? This situation isn't as serious...but why shouldn't we expect professionals to do a professional job for which they were hired/contracted for.....and when they don't.....pay the price to make it right (at their expense)??

    We live in a world where everone and everything makes excuses. The next generation is being brought up to blame others for their shortcomings and failures. We are facilitating this world of under-achievers and their 9 to 5 mentality (I do my job and go home...and don't care if it is done right type of thought process). I despise incompetence although I encounter it daily. Those of you who shrug it off and say "We all make mistakes...and that is ok"....just encourage this type of behavior in others (specially our children). I think we need to make everyone accountable for their actions. When this occurs.....the number of mistakes will go down and the focus will improve (this is only done thru accountability).
    Marc
  • jpkinlajpkinla Posts: 822 ✭✭✭
    Good discussion. In the long run I just know that Heritage values everyone's business from the small customer to the big whale. I suspect that if you contact one of the principals with your mishap, they will do their best to remedy the situation. In my instance, it was so inconsequential that I am not even bothered by it. BUT, I think with the 1000's of lots that went off, they did a pretty darn amazing job. Consider the viewings, the auction itself, the shipping, etc. To have a couple of errors is no big deal but they should still stand behind everything and knowing them I believe there intentions are good. I cannot believe otherwise.

    Windycity, let them know what happened and I am sure it will be corrected. They know how important each and everyone of us really are to their business.

    Now if you can just help me figure out how to get MY employees to stop making dumb mistakes!

    Good luck!

    My $10 Indian Gold Registry Set
  • DMWJRDMWJR Posts: 6,008 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I agree with you jpkinla.

    My post earlier in this thread was ignored. They made a mistake and auctioned off a consignor's coins without proper authority. They have gone around to the individual buyers and offered DOUBLE the hammer to buy them back. When I was called, the situation was explained and I readily sold mine back to them. They told me that everyone they had contacted had agreed to do the same. They didn't try to buy it back any cheaper either. They came right out with the double hammer price.

    That earned a little respect from me.
    Doug
  • DMWJR- That is definitely trying to do the right thing. Big time Kudos for them going the extra mile to make it right for everyone.
    Marc
  • I talked with and have written to Heritage twice in the past two weeks. I've purchased 4 PCGS coins from them on different occasions and paid promptly at conclusion of auction. 3 times it took a month to get the coins and they came Priority with a delivery confirmation and NO insurance. Why do they charge 9 bucks postage hmmm??. The 4th coin was purchase back on Dec 20th and still hasn't arrived. Sent them a reg letter today stating if it wasn't in the mail as of the date of receipt of this letter they could expain to the state attorney general. Think I will buy from them again..?


    << Never tell your wife you paid more for an old fishing lure than her wedding ring >>

  • brumabruma Posts: 28 ✭✭
    gabby,
    You can be sure Heritage has "insurance" on their shipments to you. It isn't USPS insurance because that is 'way more expensive than private carrier insurance when you mail a lot of stuff. In fact, my guess is that Heritage acts as their own insurer because they do enough that they could. The delivery confirmation gives them a starting place in any claims evaluating.

    Their late deliveries used to gall me, too. My personal check seemed to add 7-10 days to the delivery time so I would sometimes use a credit card just to speed things up. Still seemed to take two weeks plus. After five years and a few dozen coins they now send them to me even before they get my check. Now internet auctions show up in about a week, and where the coins were at a show and have to be transported back to Dallas I usually have them within two weeks. Not the same as talking to a dealer who can have your coin to you the next day, but I have always gotten my stuff within what they would think of as timely fashion, even if comparatively it wasn't. They are B-I-G and I have allowed a little for that and have been satisfied with their service...........Bruce
    Trying to collect anything else would only make me more painfully aware that I do not have enough money for the Morgans I think I need
    My Morgan 58's
  • oh marcalan84.....

    i made my comments tung in cheek....i hate mistakes ( except my spelling ).... ..we do live in a country that is loaded with the bleeding hearts...and thats why i have so many employees off shore

    but your wrong here

    >>>Get off the caffeine>>>i love my caffeine

    >>>and away from the window>>> cant do that as my plane has them everywhere

    >>>and you couldn't afford me at any price>>> i bet i could

    >>>you don't have the desire to have things done right>>> my pilot better...and my mechanics too

    >>>you haven't seen paperwork until you have done my job>>> well i just spent 3 months in washington ( thanks enron ) with so much paperwork i thought i my name was Weyerhaeuser....btw when i run into ken lay im going to slap him

    >>>What about your defense attorney if you were wrongly accused of a serious crime?? >>>opps your goofed....id would really want a competent attorney if i was rightly accused of a serious crime



    ok...ok your right..i was just kidding about the mistakes....i just hand them a shovel and a pistol...and they dig their own graves

    monsterman
    my goal is to find the monsters and i go where they are but i sometimes miss some.... so if you have any and want to sell IM THE BUYER FOR THEM!!!

    out of rockets ...out of bullets...switching to harsh language
  • tradedollarnuttradedollarnut Posts: 20,162 ✭✭✭✭✭
    id would really want a competent attorney if i was rightly accused of a serious crime

    I'd want a competent one if I was wrongly accused as well! image
  • WindycityWindycity Posts: 3,524 ✭✭✭✭✭
    All,

    I had the opportunity to talk with Greg Rohan at Heritage about this and am pleased to say he took the time to explain in detail and to my complete satisfaction exactly what happened. Every company has problems and at times and Heritage is dealing with this in the proper manner. He was not only helpful but very professional. My faith in Heritage has been restored and I now feel very comfortable doing business with them again. I only wish Greg and I had spoken immediately after the auction.

    Thanks all for a wonderfully intelligent discussion.

    Pat
    <a target=new class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.mullencoins.com">Mullen Coins Website - Windycity Coin website
  • I'm tried of their mistakes (many this year for me). I'll just buy and sell elsewhere, even if it costs more. They've just bit off more than they can chew with all the volume, and too few employees.
    morgannut2
  • IrishMikeIrishMike Posts: 7,737 ✭✭✭


    << <i>All,

    I had the opportunity to talk with Greg Rohan at Heritage about this and am pleased to say he took the time to explain in detail and to my complete satisfaction exactly what happened. Every company has problems and at times and Heritage is dealing with this in the proper manner. He was not only helpful but very professional. My faith in Heritage has been restored and I now feel very comfortable doing business with them again. I only wish Greg and I had spoken immediately after the auction.

    Thanks all for a wonderfully intelligent discussion.

    Pat >>



    After all your previous comments in this thread are you going to enlighten the rest of us as to what actually happened and the resolution?
  • BAJJERFANBAJJERFAN Posts: 31,125 ✭✭✭✭✭
    <<"I talked with and have written to Heritage twice in the past two weeks. I've purchased 4 PCGS coins from them on different occasions and paid promptly at conclusion of auction. 3 times it took a month to get the coins and they came Priority with a delivery confirmation and NO insurance. Why do they charge 9 bucks postage hmmm??. The 4th coin was purchase back on Dec 20th and still hasn't arrived. Sent them a reg letter today stating if it wasn't in the mail as of the date of receipt of this letter they could expain to the state attorney general. Think I will buy from them again..?">>>


    What gets me is that the package is just left in the mailbox with NO assurance that the intended recipient actually received it. If I say it was stloen then who is SOL? Them or me?
    theknowitalltroll;
  • Dear Forum members,

    Since many of you have asked, here is a brief rundown of what happened with WindyCity and a few others. A consignor gave us his reserves well in advance of the sale posting on-line. We inadvertently mis-filed it resulting in the reserves not getting posted. The morning after the session where 8 of the coins sold, the consignor brought it to our attention. Item #17 of our Terms and Condition of Sale state as follows:

    Auctioneer reserves the right to rescind the sale in the event of nonpayment, breach of a warranty, disputed ownership, auctioneer's clerical error or omission in exercising bids and reserves, or otherwise.

    We still felt terrible about the error as it was completely our fault. Three of us (myself included) spent 4 hours that morning in Florida figuring out what happened, meeting with the consignor, and meeting with the buyers who were in attendance at FUN. In as many instances as possible, we worked out a deal with the consignor so the bidder got to buy the item at a fair price well below the reserve and we paid the consignor and made up the difference out of our own pockets, which we believed was more than fair considering that we had every legal right based on the terms to negate the sale in the event of a misplaced reserve.

    Looking back on the situation, we absolutely should have called those bidders (like WindyCity) who were not in attendance at FUN that morning and dealt with them the same as the bidders we sat down with in person. I regret having not done that. I won't make excuses, we made some mistakes that morning with how this was handled, and I take full responsibility for that serious lapse in customer service.

    Though things went pretty darn smooth at the Heritage FUN Signature Sales, with 8,000+ bidders and $61MM in coins and currency sold to 2,950 unique bidders, we learned from this incident and have since placed a double check system in place to help insure this doesn't happen again. If it does, hopefully we will handle it better. Steve, Jim and I have been involved with rare coins since childhood, we love what we do and we don't take it for granted. We are working every day to make the customer experience as good as we can, whether buyer, seller, bidder or consignor, which is one of the reasons we have been the only company to disclose reserves on-line so you know if you are bidding against a real bidder or against a consignors reserve. We know that they key to customer confidence is transparency, and we learn more every day.

    This forum seems to be nice place for some people (not WindyCity who is a first class guy in my book) to throw out random attacks on us while hiding behind the anonymity of a username. You certainly have every right to do so, but if you truly want to resolve your problem I invite you to email me directly to Greg@HeritageGalleries.com and let me see if I or someone on our staff can either fix your problem or explain why we did what we did. Even though I'd love to, in the litigious society in which we live in we won't get into a public debate on a Forum with anyone about their business dealings with us, even to defend ourselves when we are confident in the fairness and reasonableness of our position.

    Thank you all for your input.

    Sincerely,
    Greg Rohan

    ===
    Gregory J. Rohan
    President
    Heritage Galleries & Auctioneers
    3500 Maple Avenue, 17th floor
    Dallas, Texas 75219-3941
    Phone: 214-528-3500/800-USCOINS(872-6467)
    Direct fax: 214-528-2596
    Email to: Greg@HeritageGalleries.com
    Assistant: Vandy Little 214-252-4218 Email:Vandy@HeritageGalleries.com
    ===
    Join www.HeritageCoins.com. Please also visit www.HeritageGalleries.com and www.HeritageComics.com. Over 185,000 members!
    Greg Rohan
    President
    HERITAGE AUCTIONS
    3500 Maple Avenue
    Dallas, Texas 75219-3941
    Phone: 214-528-3500 / Private fax: 214-409-1596
    Email to: Greg@HA.com
  • "Growing Pains" at Heritage, is my main complaint with them. Maybe they can repair damages for most of any mistakes made, but I also think there are some damages that will go unaddressed and Heritage will lose a few customers, which they can spare, as they have grown so fast and furiously the past two years. Thats life !!

  • tdn

    >>>I'd want a competent one if I was wrongly accused as well! >>

    thats what he said...then i said.....i would want a competent one if i were rightly accused too

    monsterman
    my goal is to find the monsters and i go where they are but i sometimes miss some.... so if you have any and want to sell IM THE BUYER FOR THEM!!!

    out of rockets ...out of bullets...switching to harsh language
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