Problems With Sandafayre Auctions?

Did anyone have a problem with this firm ?? I bid successfully on a lot and asked them for an invoice. They said that I had no successful bids ?? The following month the same lot appeared in their auction. I again bid and was the high bidder. I again asked them for an invoice and received the response that I had no successful bids ?
I will not bid in their auctions ever again. Something fishy going on. Anyone with a similar issue ??

I have been buying from this company 10 to 15 times the last three years, never had any problems. I have a registration with them and they have my credit card details on file.

I've known Vincent Green (runs Sandafayre) for 20+ years and trust him enough to be willing to bid in his auctions without an agent. He has a very solid reputation on this side of the Pond and is a member in good standing of several philatelic organizations. Have you tried contacting him directly to find out what might have caused the issue?

Steve Taylor
www.stephentaylor.co.uk

I have bid on their lots for almost 10 years. I only had positive experiences with them. The stamps they offer are of good quality. Once, the watermark of one set in a lot of several series was not as it should have been. Errors happen. They reimbursed me without problem.

In my experience, it is a highly reliable company. Lots they do not sell turn up three or four weeks later.

I've won a few lots with them and had no issues. Maybe there was some reserve or minimum price so your highest bid was still not sufficient. They should have communicated that to you if that was the case. Ask them directly - would be curious how they respond.

I known Vince from the 1990's ,back in the Greg Manning Auction days. He always was a decent guy to do business with .

If you bid on SAN and are the high bidder when SAN bidding closes, yet they still do live bidding, SAN will still show you as the high bidder in your saved bids, while you were likely outbid live. I've had a similar experience with a smaller auction co. Thought I won several lots. Contacted the auction co owner about not receiving an invoice a week later and was told I was not high bidder on anything, yet SAN still showed I was.

If they didn't do live bidding, ignore the above :D

Their website does not accept bids that are too low. Correction: Their website does not accept bids below 75% of the lower estimate. You have to check for reserves. These can be even lower. Their regular "mailbid" auctions do not have live bidding. They also have live auctions under the "Cheshire Stamp Auctions" label. But they are infrequent. They offer unsold items afterwards at a minimum price.

I don't trust auctions with hidden reserves. Either publish the reserve and force all bids higher, or do not put a reserve on it. Whats the secrecy about?

What is interesting is that no reserve auctions with low starting points tend to attract excitement and I would guess (don't have empirical, only anecdotal) outperform.

NSK - thanks for the additional info. It's been a while since I bid with them.

The standard practice in UK auctiins is to show an estimate, not a reserve.

This is my first time on the forum, so hello everyone. I'd like to thank people for their kind personal comments and also the clear reasoned posts. We will contact the original poster directly but the reasons for the confusion have all been touched on here. We received all his bids which included those below reserve (a notification sent) but SAN is only one of the routes we receive bids, we also use Delcampe, our own site, fax, phones etc - the problem (also mentioned here) is that the SAN system is not at its best being used this way as it can lead the bidder to believe he/she is winning whereas it is merely confirming that the bid has been delivered to us, so I have some sympathy for Gizzmo4222 although it would have been nice to receive an email about it so we could explain. Like all auctions it doesn't help us to ignore bids and Gizzmo's bids are as valuable as anyone else's! Nothing strange going on, just the usual wrestling with technology which we all endure from time to time.

Welcome.
I agree that good communications will help resolve misunderstandings; are the technological challenges you mention above outlined on your website?
Don

Hi Don. I was making a general observation about how difficult we can all find using these online solutions that attempt complex tasks. Over the years we've had a handful (out of many hundreds) of people bidding on SAN who have believed that they are winning a lot in real time but as those bidders are looking at SAN there is no point in us putting a warning on our own website that people won't by definition (because they are on SAN) visit and read anyway.

Welcome Vince , long time since Manning Auctions ,good to see you posting . I am still working on that W.W. collection ,it seems to grow each year .

Thanks for the One Pound Cyprus issue ,never forgot that .

Hi NSK. We hold 4 of those Cheshire Stamp Auctions public sales each year, the last was on the 13th June and we sold 466 of the 522 lots in the room and more after the sale leaving us with only 30 unsold lots. The next sale is on 12th September. That makes 56 different printed catalogues each year.I need a rest...