Leu: Ineptitude or worse?

[Rand]

I have not bought from Leu this year, but I can see the overall trend towards automated invoicing directly within my account. After missing an invoice for a week before, I now always go through my account settings and often find an invoice and an easy way to pay (for example, using Biddr). I do not mind this. 

I recently had a problem with a big German auction that may have updated its systems over the years. A coin was sent to my old address despite the correct address on my web account. The coin was not lost, and they solved the issue well.

When it comes to bidding practices, I must admit that I'm not a fan of pre-bids. I enjoy the thrill of live bidding, with its sense of competition. I do not know how common cross-platform communication issues are but once, I was pretty sure I was bidding live against my pre-bids from a different platform (based on the platform handle). I won by one bid above my pre-bid.

[KenDorney]

There is always a lot of confusion over how some bids get entered.  Most likely this is a case where your bid simply was too late to be entered.  If you are really wanting a coin, dont use a proxy but bid from the actual dealers site if they have one.  Coin auctions are largely like the Olympics.  People can and do lose by milliseconds.  Other significant causes of losing lots is how much you bid.  Some sites allow you to enter any amount you wish, but they still have minimum bidding increments and this is why you lost the second coin.  Your bid of 10 Euro more was 40 too low according to the increments in their terms (of course this assumes Biddr allowed a bid lower than Leu's increment):  

https://leunumismatik.com/en/terms

Sure, there is shill bidding out there and in large numbers from certain 'dealers' (they are just crooks).  We can always speculate, but likely will never know for sure.  And there are other problems like software glitches.  Leu as well as other large houses have had issues where they had to pause the auction and restart after sometimes weeks.

 

[Hrefn]

Leu has reached out to me, prompted by certain Numis Forum members to whom I extend my gratitude.   They are investigating.  I will share their findings when they convey them to me.  

[Hrefn]

I promised to post the follow-up on the mysterious failure of bids made via Biddr on a Leu auction to be honored.  Leu has replied today.  The relevant excerpt:

”We started an in-depth investigation about the issues you raised to be in the position to answer your question. We found out that unfortunately and much to our regret, it turned out that your bids via bidder were transmitted too late to us to be honored. We apologize for this and already took the necessary steps to prevent this from happening again in the future. However, I can understand if this is a disappointing situation for you but hope for your kind understanding.”

I notice that Leu does not say the bids were transmitted after the auction had closed, just that they were too late to be honored.  It would appear to me that the problem was internal on Leu’s part, since Leu has instituted steps to fix the problem.  If it were Biddr’s failure, I don’t see how Leu could fix it.   In the end, it does not matter.  

The lesson for me is a reminder of the fallibility of human institutions.  I probably will still use services like Biddr for their ability to present potential targets from multiple auctions in a convenient fashion.  That is a valuable service.  But I will not consider any bid on the platform to be acknowledged by the auction house unless I get a email to that effect from the auction house itself.   

 I also maintain that Biddr should not accept further bids if they will not be recorded by the auction house within the time remaining till the auction begins.   If the chance of placing a bid on Biddr reaching and being recorded by the auction house is not about 99% or better, regardless of whether any delay in processing the bid is Biddr’s or the auction house’s, Biddr should close the bidding on their platform for that auction.  If Leu takes 3 hours, (or 3 days) to process prebids from Biddr, then Biddr should stop accepting bids 3 hours, (or 3 days) before the auction.  To do otherwise is to guarantee some customers will be disappointed, and feel misled.   

For electronic auctions in the digital age, the whole experience has been disappointing.  

[NathanB]

On 8/10/2024 at 8:10 AM, Hrefn said:

The poor communication is pretty inept, so that characterization is certainly true.  Especially since I have received two generic emails from Leu during this time, one of which was asking about selling my collection.  So some one is in the office.

That's not necessarily the case. Generic email campaigns can be set up to be automatically sent on a particular day in the future. If they are created through a third-party website like MailChimp, then the office computer wouldn't even need to be turned on.