Karl B.
I want to warn individuals for selling…
I want to warn individuals for selling cars at Mecum. In my case, my father passed and I had seven cars in a collection to sell. Everything with Mecum as far as writing up an editorial about my father, convincing me to run them through as a collection, and photography and transportation all went very well. Where things got bad and then even worse was when it came to the money and title. All my pink slips with the required documents they requested were in Mecum's hands roughly four weeks before the auction. So I assumed everything was fine. The auction comes, each car sells, but 2 1/2 weeks after the auction I started to wonder when I would get paid. I was told by the rep that I would be paid within four weeks. When I inquired with the title department of Mecum, they didn't know who I was or where my cars were in the system. Finally after 10 minutes she comes back and says she found 3 out of the 7. There was an issue with all the titles so they said they could not pay me until they got the pink slips in my name rather than my father's. So this will delay my payments for the cars for several additional weeks. I was the worst is I found out that what Mecum does is when you see the auction price, once they hit the hammer and they're sold, they add their 10% buyers' fee which means you are not getting what shows on the screen. If you have a 10% reserve, they add a back door fee of 10% on top of that for the buyer buying your car so they are essentially getting 20% off the selling price. They never told me about the additional 10% that comes off my price. I had reserves on 4 of my cars but had I known they were going to take 20% I would never have dropped the reserves. You feel like you got ripped off righteously, so buyer and seller beware. Horrible experience and they don't tell you about the hidden fees. In my case, they waived the entry fees, the transportation fees, but now I know why they would do that because at the end, they made about 18% on some of the cars. I can't believe how sick I feel and how ripped off I feel.
Response from Mecum AuctionsApr 2, 2024
Karl- Your consignment agent has reached out to you in an effort to resolve the title issues and payment timing. Please contact him to expedite this process. Regarding the auction fees, we work to be as transparent as possible here. Your net is the hammer price less 10% (if selling with a reserve) or less 6% (if selling no reserve). This was clearly defined in your consignment agreement. Although not relevant to your side of the deal, you are correct that we also charge a buyer premium. Regardless, we very much appreciate your business and we regret that expectations were not met. Please contact us if you would like to discuss any of this further. Mecum Auctions