Anyone have to deal with this?

A person would have to be a fool not to give the unit back, assuming the monthly payment records were produced first. If the records do show it was paid every month and that auctioning it off was truly an error, then the bid winner is not legally entitled to the contents.

If the records show that the payments were made on time, then how can the error occur in the first place? I would think the owner of the facility would double check everything before putting the locker up for bidding.

Human error does kick in from time to time.  I know one of the people my wife works with expirenced this first hand years ago.  Their mothers or grandmothers (forge which wife said) unit was sold at auction.  It was next to the unit that was suppose to be sold.  Someone cut the wrong lock.

Think most places now triple check the paperwork.  I know last week we had to wait around at one location as they were still verifing everything.  I was like, they already cut the locks, so what is to be verified.  They were checking to make sure no one paid up at last second, unit #s, etc.