Thanks Bruce. I've always suspected this and that's why even on eBay
I either use a sniping program or do the equivalent when manually
bidding by being there as the time runs out. It's not just fear of
what can happen on the seller side, but also what can happen from
competing bidders that get spiteful. The can jack up the price is the
get a sense that you have a high bid in and that they're not going to
win. I've done this myself with certain competing bidders I do
nor like. That said - here's a suggestion for you -anonymous
bidding. That fixes the problem of spitefulness - almost. Even so I
would still be there at auction end and bid manually. And, it's more
fun that way!
Holiday
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
From: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
Date: January 9, 2010 8:23:01 AM EST
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MOPO] Auction houses that can see absentee bids, and the
huge conflict of interest
Reply-To: Bruce Hershenson <[email protected]>
When I first started preparing auctions for Christie's in 1990, I
told them I did not want to know what any absentee bidder had bid on
ANY item, and then told me that this information was HIGHLY
confidential, and never given out in any way. Over the years I came
to find that this was pretty much an "in name only" policy at every
auction house I would come in contact with (for example, when I
became friendly with the owners of several other auctions, they
would freely volunteer to me what items had high absentee bids, and
how much, when I would show up in person at the preview on the day
of the auction).
Obviously, this is a huge conflict of interest! If the auction owner
tells me in passing that someone placed a $9,000 absentee bid on a
$1,000 item the morning of the auction, I can later go to that
auction and, with an absolute certainty, bid up to $8,500, KNOWING I
will be outbid. Of course, that may well mean the absentee bidder
pays $9,000 instead of maybe $5,000 (or $3,000, or $1,000), but the
auction house makes a lot of extra commissions, and they get the
prestige of selling an item for a sky-high price, and it is a
"perfect" crime, for there is no way for them to get caught, and
there is no paper trail whatsoever (they can say a "floor bidder"
was the underbidder, and they don't even have to have a record of
who that bidder was).
I detested this, and never took any part in it in any way (either as
an auctioneer or as a consignor), but saw it happen with regularity
in auction after auction, and it made me sick. When I switched my
major auctions from Christie's to Howard Lowery, one of the biggest
draws for me in doing so was that Howard assured me that this
practice never occurred in his auctions, and I believe that was 100%
true.
This is why I was so drawn to switching over my entire business to
eBay in 2000. The greatest benefit to auctioning through them was
that WE could not in any way see the high bidder's secret high bids,
and what was even better, it seems certain that, unlike every other
auction house, eBay protected those bids from ANYONE accessing them
(other than people in their tech department, and I never, ever heard
of anyone breeching that security in any way).
When I left eBay, I found Auction Anything, a wonderful auction
host, that offered everything I wanted in running my own auctions.
But once I had the auctions set up, I discovered to my dismay that
there was a "secret" view I could go to that would show me bidders'
"secret" high bids. I immediately called the owners of Auction
Anything, and asked them to get rid of this view, and not
surprisingly, their people told me that NONE of their other auction
clients had ever asked them to do this, and that they did not have
that capability!
I asked them what it would take to remove this from my auctions only
(because they said they were sure many other clients did NOT want to
remove it!), and they said that not only would it cost a lot, but
that also it would take a lot of their time, and that they had more
urgent things to do at that time in adding features that would
benefit all their clients, so they could not then spare that time.
So I made certain that I never accessed that "secret" view, and I
told my employees to never access it either. But a couple of months
ago, I started thinking about how I had 23 employees, and that I
could not really guarantee their actions, and so I again called
Auction Anything, and told them that this was a "deal breaker" and
that they would have to find the time to get this changed. They
agreed to do so for a considerable fee, and a couple of weeks later
they told me that the "secret" view had been removed, and I checked
and it appeared to be.
But over the next few days, I found a "back door" to access that
same information that they had not closed, and once I found that I
then searched their entire site, and discovered two more "back
door", and I called them and they apologized and closed those, and
now I can say with a certainty that neither I, nor anyone at eMoviePoster.com
, can access any high bids placed by any of our bidders in any way.
Not only can we no longer view the hidden high bids, but we can also
no longer "look up" bidders' passwords, so ALL we see is what any
user of our system sees (except we don't see what they themselves
bid on). This does mean that when a user forgets their password they
will have to go on the site and click on the link there to have it e-
mailed to them (rather than calling or e-mailing us), but this is a
small price to pay for knowing that your bidding information is 100%
protected.
We know of no other auction house (other than eBay and now us) where
those who run the auctions do not even have the ability to access
their bidders' proxy bids. We urge all other auctions to implement
the same software, and we urge all bidders to inquire of auction
houses they are considering bidding with to find out if their
employees are blocked from viewing high bids and passwords as ours
are.
I first announced the above in my e-mail club message #472, sent
December 13th. A few days later, one of my longtime buyers called me
and told me the following story:
"I have been a buyer in major poster auctions for over 20
years. I have bought some in your online auctions, but not that
much, because I am not that comfortable with computers. I have been
learning how to do so, and have been bidding with you, and I
recently noticed that one of your competitiors has online auctions
as well, and I looked at them.
I found 11 items to bid on, and I gave my secretary 11 bids to
place on those items for me. A couple were between the estimates,
but most were over the estimates, and I had bid odd amounts (like
$235, etc).
A few days later I got notification that I had won all 11
items, and I told my secretary to pay for them, and she asked me why
EVERY item was EXACTLY the price I bid! I looked at the list, and
just as she had said, I was the high bidder on every item at EXACTLY
my limit.
Now I could see that happening on a few of the items, or even
five or six, BUT ALL ELEVEN? I mean, that is astronomical that it
could be caused by chance. It would be like picking the winners of
11 straight horse races! It makes me very sad and angry, but it is
easy to figure out what happened."
I told him that many other people had told me very similar stories
over the years, and that the best way to deal with this is to either
not bid in such auctions, or, if they have items you would like to
have at some price, then go ahead and bid, but assume that they will
"make" you pay your maximum, so only a bid a price you will be happy
to pay.
Of course, it is very sad that they have to have this charade
of an auction, and that there are surely many, many, people who
don't "catch on" for years, if ever, but until the government ever
steps in and regulates this completely unregulated industry, it is
likely to not change one bit.
Incidentally, I have heard auction owners defend their actions
by saying that no one is really hurt by this, because after all, the
buyers are getting to buy items for the price they themselves set as
the price they were willing to pay, but I don't buy this for one
second, because there is gross misrepresentation in "how the game is
played" (even if the auctions put in the fine print that they can
bid on their own items, that consignors can bid on their own items,
that reserves can be over the estimates, etc).
A couple of weeks later, that same longtime buyer called me back and
said that once he got over being so mad, he took my advice and
simply bid prices he was willing to pay. He said he had just placed
three bids, and he bid three VERY odd numbers (like $171.50), and in
all three cases, he "won" the items for EXACTLY his limit! But at
least now he knows "how the game is played", so he is not as mad,
although he said he will likely bid less and less high in the future
in those auctions (but he mentioned how he had bid $400 in an eMoviePoster.com
auction recently and won the item for $160!).
Does anyone know of any place that auction movie paper where the
auctioneers CAN'T see the hidden high bids, other than eMoviePoster.com
and eBay? And what do YOU think of this? Have you had experiences
where you felt an auction house took advantage of their knowlege of
your "hidden" high bid?
Bruce
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