WinebidReviews of winebid.com

Purchased a $650 bottle of '89 Lafite that arrived with a clearly protruding cork; this was never disclosed; contacted them 3 times to seek exchange or credit and absolutely no response; may go to court for Deceptive Trade Practices; have been a collector for 40 years

Sellers: I use auctions for wine purchases almost exclusively but selling my wine on consignment with an auction house is new to me. There are about eight auction sites that I use. I approached WineBid about consigning an initial sale of 4 cases of ‘pedigree’ wines. After going through the contract that was sent to me to sign I thought that it would be important and necessary to look at the contracts offered by other auction houses. The contract was so bad from WineBid that only an idiot would sign such an agreement. Sorry to those that have entered into the agreement - the preceeding sentence was only meant to emphasis how wholly “company oriented” the WineBid contract is and how terribly stacked against the seller. I will not break down the points of the contract in this communication however, I will say that the contract is unfavorable for the seller and is beneath the industry standards. I must comment on the low rated reviews; The low reviews are mostly coming from people that did not read the contract and entered into a very lopsided agreement with WineBid. I say this because there were repeated complaints about the 30 Day wait period to receive proceeds from the sale(s). {BTW - The 30 day wait period is very fair and necessary}. The 30 day wait period is some very basic information provided in the “WineBid Sellers Agreement”. It is not a secret - in fact, nothing is a secret. All the information in the “WineBid Sellers Agreement” is clear. This is why I DID NOT engage with WineBid as a seller. The contract can become a nightmare for a seller. Obviously I did not read ALL of the reviews but one of the reviews described the need for an attorney to wade through the aftermath of a poor experience with WineBid. Please understand that I am not blowing my own horn when I say that after reading the 'Agreement’ I was able to see how such a scenario could become a real possibility. I deemed the ‘Agreement” to be so bad that I find it impossible to be able to trust WineBid as a consignment source. I mean that just as I have stated; WineBid is not to be trusted as a source for sellers. READ THE CONTRACT - if you are unable to understand the terms of the contract have a trusted and qualified source review the contract with you. FYI - I will remain a buyer with WineBid. I like the (buyer’s) format that is WineBid and I have never had any shipping issues with WineBid (I am on the East Coast). The only undrinkable wine I have received is wine that I purchased knowing it was suspect at point of purchase and I was willing to take a chance. It makes for good pasta sauce :). The provenance has been good on the buying side. Recommendation: 1) Buy from WineBid when you run across wine that you love and it is a bargain or otherwise hard to find. 2) Steer clear as a seller until they modify their “WineBid Seller’s Agreement” and become more seller oriented and less greedy. Right now they are preying upon the sellers that do not READ THE CONTRACT. They will be forced to modify the agreement if they cannot attract sellers and retain sales force.

Warning to everyone!!! Don’t do business with Winebid. Use anybody else. They are currently holding my money hostage and have shut down my online account. I can’t get access and the company won’t reply to my emails to resolve. Frozen out and I now will need to get a lawyer involved which is just going to cost me money and time. Trust me you don’t want to sell your wine here.

Yikes!!! If I could give no stars I would. Decided to do a trial with this company with two high end bottles - one didn’t sell and the other sold with only one bid at a ridiculous low reserve that they set. They then took an 18% commission on the bad sale and then charged me a 10% fee to return the bottle that didn’t sell. I also just learned they don’t pay you your proceeds for a month. Yes 30 days…that’s so wrong we all know why old scam to make money on your money. Isn’t that illegal? I lost big agreeing to go with Winebid. Wish I never saw there advertising online. At least I can warn others. Also, Horrible customer service. Worst auction house ever. Go anywhere else.

Several of my last few orders either never arrived or required several phone calls. Fedex does the shipping and they will either say that we tried to deliver but no one was home (always untrue) or we delivered it. When I called winebid to complain they told me it was my responsibility to pick up the wine from fedex myself.They offered no assistance and basically said that they believed fedex, not me. From what i can tell, this has happened to several customers. They used to be reputable. Not any more. I wont use them again and I would not recommend anyone else do. There are more reliable ways to get your wine.

Bought a case of wine from them few years ago without any problems so tried them again. Extremely disappointed by customer service -treated me like an idiot, offered no explanation or support for troubleshooting delays to delivery and rudely cut the phone off saying that I was arguing unnecessarily

Bid and bought a Justin Isosceles Reserve from them. They charged me for it but never sent the wine. When asked no response was given. I paid for the wine but never received it. I would never buy wine from this site. Besides you are actually getting gouged. There are much better sites to buy wine from, including older wines.

Purchased a 2004 Leoville Las cases on their site they sent me a completely different bottle of wine and now tell me they never had the correct bottle that was pictured on their website and they offered me the ability to keep the one they sent me for full price or they will send me a shipping label and hold my funds until I return the other one. The customer service rep made me feel like it was my fault somehow and they don’t need to take any responsibility for their screw ups. Never again.