Hi all,

I'm writing to encourage everyone to boycott auctions that add an additional 10% "buyer's premium" onto your fees, on top of the 10% sales tax you already pay, depending on your area!  In California, that's 20% OVER your bid!
When you bid over $1000, that becomes extremely expensive.  A $1000 bid will cost you $1200 total.   American Auctioneers is doing this now.  Be sure to ask before you go to an auction.  If they do that, please boycott them, and encourage all the other bidders you know to boycott them.   They already make a very good commission from the vendor, so they are double-charging for the same job, with no real service to you.

Enough is enough.

Other auctioneers are doing this as well, but I don't have a list to share.  I'm new here, so I'm sure the members are far more familiar with this than I am.  Apparently in England they are getting even more gouged than we are.  Here is a link to an article on this price gouging:

ganews.co.uk/premium.html

I know this is a fulltime business for many of you, but if there is a way to boycott these Auctioneers that have gotten out of control (sound familiar?)  please do so.
Please also call American Auctioneers at 800 838 7653, and other houses that do this and let them know what you think of their 10% additional "buyer's premium", when they are already making a good commission from the storage facility.

Thanks.

Hi there,

I am new to storage auctions, and a few months ago was burned in a way I didn't know was possible.  I think you should be warned about this:  I recently went to an auction at one of the biggest storage facilities in Los Angeles; I bid on a non-descript locker with old furniture, many boxes of papers, and several large duffel bags of clothes.  I got it for under $200, so I thought I wouldn't take too much of a loss on it if there was nothing there.

The furniture was heavy but falling apart, but I had bought it for the duffel bags of clothing.  Sure enough, as I thought there were almost 20 pairs of jeans and jean jackets in the duffel bags; not many were name brand, but I could at least sell those.  
That is, until I discovered that the clothes were so mildewed that nothing was going to get it out.  After multiple washings, I gave up.
Well, I knew I was taking a risk.   Now I had a locker with heavy useless furnture and boxes and boxes of papers to throw out; there were hundreds of family photos including framed wedding pictures, however, and I felt bad that the owners had lost those.  
I told the facility that I wanted to return the photos, and one of the staff inadvertantly informed me "Oh, don't worry about it; that locker has been up for auction THREE TIMES already, and the owners never contacted us.  It's been over a year; so don't worry about it.
I asked her how it was possible that it could have been up for auction three times, and she said "well, no-one bid on it before, and when that happens, we wait three months and then put it up again".  I guess in the hopes that people will have forgotten about it by then.
That explained why the clothes were so mildewed:  they'd been sitting there for a year, when they'd told us it was only three months.
I was so disgusted I walked away from the locker to let them clean it out themselves, and forfeited the cleaning deposit.  

Now here's the kicker:  I found out online the other day that ANOTHER sucker bought the same unit I walked away from three months ago!  He complained about a locker that sounded exactly the same as mine, at the same facility.  That's right; this storage facility put the same locker up for auction a FOURTH time, and another guy bought the same crap, not knowing the history.  This storage facility simply keeps the crap they can't sell in their units until someone pays them for the privilege of cleaning out their locker.  
Is this legal?  Is there any regulation of this?  

Please be advised:  if they say it's only three months old, don't believe them.  You could be looking at a locker that has sat there for over a year, and been auctioned off over and over again until the facility can get someone stuck with cleaning it out for them and paying the dump fees.   It never occurred to me that they might do that; I should have left a note behind taped on one of the boxes saying "Warning:  This stuff is a year old and you are bidding on garbage they can't get rid of".  

Has anyone else had a similar experience?  Thanks for any input.