ArtsyReviews of artsy.net

Was trying to buy a Joseph Zbukvic original watercolour - they offered me a digital photo. Avoid.

The worse company than you can associate to, I will not trust artsy on on any way, like a gallery or like a customers

I advise to NEVER use Artsy as gallery or customer... You will pay way too much shipping costs as customer via Artsy, if you order direcly from a gallery you get way better prices or even for free!! Also, if you are a gallery, you have to pay every month for your account, but also need to pay a percentage to Artsy when you have a sale. That's what I call getting the best of both worlds ;)

Inqualificabili. Sbagliano nel calcolo dei totali, rispondono operatori diversi in modo confuso alla stessa mail. Servizio clienti ridicolo. Il tutto peggiorato dalla BREXIT, che rende costoso sdoganare un oggetto di valore modesto. Non comprate da UK. Follia pura.

Artsy listed the wrong price on the shipping, which pushed the art into cross-border limbo. Of course, nobody takes responsibility as Artsy blames the vendor and the vendor blames Artsy. It has been over a month and the art piece is still in customs with no sign of being released because there is zero customer service. It's like Uber, except if something goes wrong you're out a few thousand bucks a nobody takes responsibility. Jan 6 update: Note below that Artsy says “it was delivered” but in fact it was delivered to the wrong address. By the time it had arrived (one month late) the delivery address was no longer valid. I of course tried to change the address with DHL but no luck. Artsy will take no responsibility for this, nor will DHL. This all could have been avoided with a real art dealer.

Nightmare verification service - bureaucratic and unhelpful, written exclusively for American galleries demanding far too much time and hassle to complete

TERRIBLE customer service The company practices downright predatory, exploitative behavior in its relationship with the artists and galleries on its platform If you want to support art and artists PLEASE deal directly with creators and the galleries that represent them - not the tech bottom feeder that is Artsy

I cannot, with clear conscience, recommend this site to anyone. I found an artwork that I liked at a surprisingly low price tag, and I hit "buy now", and paid. Subsequently, the item was re-listed by the gallery, at a significantly higher price. My purchase was ignored, no attempt to communicate was made. Two working days on, I requested clarification both from the gallery and the owners of the site. Customer service was quick to respond, to pre-suppose "human error", and promised to get in touch with the gallery. No response as of yet. The gallery responded to my inquiry a day later, saying it was a mistake, largely unapologetically. I don't know which planet any of these companies live on, but in most jurisdictions I know, a sale is final and binding, once the check-out process has been completed. I was not made aware of any TnCs on artsy.net that would claim anything to the contrary. In other words: they allow a gallery, if they so wish, randomly to claim a higher price, invoking "human error". This is not ethical, and legally questionable, to say the least. I am also extremely disappointed that there's not even the attempt to offer anything beyond one of these default lukewarm apo-lie-gies, as if anyone was actually sorry – offering compensation of the losses that I have thus incurred. In fairness, the gallery offered me the same piece at a discount, which, however, was still well above EUR 6000 (!!) more than what they initially claimed upon publication of their advert. So... if you enjoy a place where people make things up as they go along, where they fail to check their information for accuracy prior to publication, where you cannot trust the information you're given or, in fact, the reality of a completed transaction, and where – if lucky – people are responsive, but absolutely not proactive, then artsy.net is the place for you. Otherwise, stay away. I certainly will not use their services ever again. Update 4 Dec: Still nothing but deafening silence from artsy re their tncs re “human error” and random price changes. Update 6 Dec (to respond to the response, below): 1. The artwork was not that of an "emerging artist". The artist is long dead, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon. So that's completely irrelevant. – 2. Neither the gallery nor artsy "reached out". They eventually responded to my enquiries. In fact, artsy didn't even bother to respond to my follow-up question, nor did they come back to me as was promised in the one and only email I ever received from your customer support. So don't pretend you're proactive or helpful in any way, shape, or form. – 3. Payment was taken, and still no refund has been received, nor has the blocked amount been released to-date. The money is not currently available in my account. At this point I must assume that you will follow that pathetically poor, though common practice of merely letting the block on my account lapse, which may take weeks. So thanks for nothing. – 4. I did not use "make an offer", I used "buy now" / "purchase". The only right you ought to have in that case, according to your own TnCs, is to verify if the object still exists, not whether the gallery was competent enough to enter the right (or desired) price perchance. Otherwise this would be a meaningless distinction, deliberately designed to fool customers. I note that, even though I requested so, you still have not actually sent me a link to those "Conditions of Sale", and specifically, to the passage that you think applies to this case. – 5. Following this deliberately misleading and counterfactual response, I'm even less inclined than before to use artsy ever again. Update 11 Dec: money still not back into my account, email confirms dodgy practice of merely letting the block on my card expire: what email does not do, of course, is provide evidence from TnCs for the alleged right to cancel completed transactions. Well, what do I expect from this business at this point. Shop at Artsy’s at your own peril.