LADENBURG Automobilia Auctions not paying consignors?

I collector friend of mine consigned a few lots to the Ladenburg Ferrari Only auction which concluded Sept.4
He has yet to be paid now some 13 weeks after the conclusion of the auction. Is this typical for them or is it a sign of something nefarious? He has several emails from the owner who tells him that he is being paid by the buyer(s) the following week. He has been telling him this for almost 2 months now. Are these guys crooked or what's the deal?

 

First I'll say, from my years of experience with them as both a buyer and seller I do not believe anything nefarious is going on. They are not crooked, just not as well organized as they really should be, especially the office personnel. So it is unfortunately typical for them. In the past I had experienced a fairly big problem with buying some items from them, but... I will say that the owner went beyond and above, out of his way to make things right for me, which was great and good business! And that is why I have continued to work with them. Much better than my experiences with RM, Mecum, and a few others who do not care about about fixing problems or taking good care of their consignors when anything goes wrong - which it often does with them.

I was in the exact same situation as your friend. I consigned many photos for their auction that concluded September 4, and I finally just got paid last Friday... 13 weeks past the close of the auction, which should heave been no more than 10 according to their terms for payment which are not industry standard for auctions - the waiting time is clearly stated in their terms for paying consignors: 10 weeks after close of auction. I have had a lot of correspondence with them as well as a few phone calls. I know this is the same for some other consignors too. The problem as explained to me on the phone by the owner is that a number of their customers who bid & buy in almost every auction ask to keep shipping costs down... So for example, what those bidders do is ask to have items they win in say a June auction held until after the next auction which could be say maybe an August auction, and then they finally pay Ladenburg for all items from both auctions, plus ONE shipping charge at one time. Hence consignors are always waiting for these delayed payments to be made, etc.

Also, as the old saying goes: "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." I had to put in a lot of effort to get them to finally pay, emails and phone calls. I think your friend may have to keep after them a bit longer. Shouldn't be this way, but it is.

Lastly... In my very recent conversation (a few days ago) with the owner, we discussed the strong possibility of their changing their payment terms and long waiting period, and not holding/waiting for buyers payments later as explained above. So items won in each auction would need to paid after the completion of each auction to speed up paying consignors. I am hoping they do this since I have a quantity of items consigned to sell with them.

I hope all this info helps.

 

Thanks very much Marshall, I feel responsible as I suggested the auction to him. I will pass this along.

 

You're very welcome. I know that feeling of responsibility... no good deed goes unpunished!

 

Very normal.

 

Marshall I passed along this message to my friend who contacted Ladenburg. They admitted being late and promised to make payment sometime in the upcoming week. What gall!

 

Yes indeed. They just take on too much, and do not have enough employees to properly handle everything. Hope your friend gets paid soon.

 

A consignor whose stuff was successfully sold in August 2022 is still waiting for payment.
The person is well known to me since decades and super serious, and btw, he's a lawyer.

Marcel Massini

 

YIKES! Thanks Marcel.

 

Uh, oh. Did Angelika Gumpert leave Automobilia Ladenburg?

For years, it has seemed like they have had too many sales, with too many lots, and too few people handling it all. Somehow, this lady seemed to keep all the balls juggling in the air, but it sounds like that might have begun to slip...

 

No she is still there.

 

Very sorry to say but my experience with the female you mentioned is a different one.

Marcel Massini

 

In dealing with them, I have always been a buyer with fairly basic concerns. Certainly, if you are a seller trying to get paid or have an issue where the solution is not so straightforward, the situation might well be different.

 

I am a regular buyer, never a seller or consigner.

Marcel Massini

 

I guess I should consider myself lucky.

 

Most all of my experiences with 'her' have not been good. She's still there, and still not good with communication.

 

Several of the comments(and thanks to all) are of cold comfort to my friend. This doesn't sound good.

 

I suspect that may change rather quickly once they see (or someone directs them to) this thread. As of right now, 392 people, plenty of which are undoubtedly their customers, have seen this thread. If it doesn't end well, it certainly won't have a positive effect with regards to one's confidence in the safety and security of future transactions.

 

Hmmm...I was curious about them as they do offer interesting truly rare items but will not deal with them until reports improve. Even if buyers have it easier there is clearly a bottleneck and poor communication.

 

I have purchased photos/negatives from them before.
Cant remember the exact numbers but the listing stated "36 negatives". Once purchased and delivered there were only 29 present.
After enquiring about this discrepancy I received the reply;

"Dear Mr Mitchell,
we wrote to you that it was a typo. We cannot refund any amount. Our offer was that we would send you 7 replacement negatives, if you do not want that, please send the item back and we will refund the amount."

Fair enough,they offered a full refund if I was not happy but I did wonder,where are they going to magic up 7 replacement negatives from to send me? Bearing in mind that my interests are fairly specific.

 

German customs officials might want to investigate their business practices.

 

On top of that, on 7 November 2022 I sent a Ferrari book from Zurich, Switzerland, to a friend near Heidelberg, Germany (total distance 347 kilometers/217 miles) as a gift. Private party to another private party. Registered and first class/top priority, by DHL. With full 5 page (!!) customs declaration and proforma invoice and all the usual dox, all signed personally by me and in 4 copies each. The package was safely packed and the weight was less than 1 kg, size approx. 40 x 40 cms..
It took exactly 30 days (THIRTY!!) to arrive at destination and must have sat in some German (?) customs office for probably 29 days or so. And this is pre-xmas traffic.
It is absolutely inacceptable what such officials do or actually don't do. And I haven't even mentioned the price I paid for sending the package. At least the book was still IN the package when that arrived in Germany.

Marcel Massini

 

Hi
Sorry to hear about the trouble your friend has.
I bought some items at this auction.
I don't know if they are your friends.
I had a look at my bill and I had a look at the Ladenburg website where you can find the contract yuur friend must have signed.

Your friend should be paid 10 weeks after Ladenburg received the payment from the buyer.

So working with some dates:
Auction ended 4th of September
I received my bill on the 6th of September
Payment due immediately.
Payment made 6th of September
As bank transfers within Germany work within hours they received the money the same day.

So using the above dates your friend should have been paid around the 15th of November. 10 weeks after receiving payment.

Sorry to let you know that the German customs office couldn't care less about that.
None of their business.

Hope this helps
Kind regards
Manfred

Sent from my SM-G973F using FerrariChat.com mobile app

 

Thank you Manfred.

 

My recent experience with Marcel Seidel Ladenburg as a seller hasn't been nice. At one auction, they forgot to pay me and I had kindly ask for payment. At the last auction, money wasn't coming easily as well. I had to ask again.

At the May auction this year, two items of mine weren't sold, one of them "Ferrari 80". When the "75 Years of Ferrari" auction came up, I kindly suggested that they put the lot in this aution at a reduced limit again. I received a very arrogant und unpleasant answer which said that the lot was too small and they wouldn't do it because they had so high costs with every lot. I was asked to consign further items until the total limit price would be above 1,000 euros! Mind you: I had just paid several hundred euros of seller's fee to them for my other items!

They didn't explain what their additional expenses would be, because actually: they had taken photos of Ferrari 80 already, and they had written an item description already.

The other unsold item is a very nice Porsche brochure, but as it seems, now it will be stored at Ladenburg for an undefined long period.