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July 2025 by Justin Penfold
Terrible service and very slow response to email and phone. Takes weeks to get your bid as they don't seem interested in responding.
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June 2024 by Verron
I wished I would have checked reviews BEFORE I met with the truck for them to pick up my 1856 Abraham Keller Bourbon from Kentucky.
The first auction was not a good turn out and my reserve was not met. They wanted to relist.... horrible communication between the Rep & I. Then they "forgot" to list it in the next auction. Big apologies and a promise for the next auction. Then "Whoopsie" somehow it didn't make the next auction either. I asked them to return it and get this.... They actually wanted to ship via UPS. Yes, a rare 1856 bottle of A. Keller Bourbon and they want to ship it via UPS. Laughable. I said ABSOLUTELY NOT. Now they suddenly don't know when a truck will be passing through Atlanta area.
Finally after them having the bottle for well over 6 months and lots of errors I ask to have a manager call me. Whoops.... she forgot to call. SURPRISE!!!!!!
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February 2024 by Michael K.
I responded to the Bonhams person who commented on my review. I was offered the opportunity to speak directly with a responsible person and provided a day and generous window for when to call me during the following week. I never heard from anyone! I reached out to Bonhams and indicated my disappointment and was responded to with excuses. It's now been several weeks and still nothing. This experience has been [almost] the worst customer service I have ever received. I did notify the individual who first contacted me to cancel my Bonhams account. No interest in doing business with them ever again. By the way, I have a significant wine collection (4,000+ bottles) which I will be selling in the next couple years and guess what, it I won't be considering Bonhams.
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December 2023 by Samuel T.
Unfriendly, incompetent: cannot identify art glass correctly nor French porcelain. Lazy; will not bother looking up items for identification or value. when it was just Skinners they were better now go elsewhere. I know I will.
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September 2023 by Bob
BIDDER BEWARE: "How to Bid" instructions are very misleading, albeit fraudulent. I am not sure you can interpret it any other way.Here are the instructions:"...On the lot page, choose the maximum price you'd like to bid from the dropdown menu, then click 'Place Bid'. Otherwise, press cancel.then... When the auction is in progress, the auctioneer will place bids on your behalf until you reach your maximum bid price or win the lot at a lower price. If you are outbid, you will be informed by email or push notification on the Bonhams app, with the option to increase your max bid. We recommend you follow the live auction in case you want to quickly increase your max bid."The only way I see to interpret this is when you place your Max Bid, the system will bid on your behalf until your max price is reached. If your Max Bid is not reached, you will win at the highest priced bid it took to outbid the next party.THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Your Max Bid is actually your current bid. The system does not bid on your behalf and you will not get it for a lower price. You are bidding against yourself if you put a high max bid.I paid more than double the price of the next highest bid because I was "willing" to pay more.I called and they said I was reading the instructions wrong. I filed a complaint with them to update the instructions since this is again borderline purposeful misrepresentation.
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August 2023 by Bobby W.
BIDDER BEWARE: "How to Bid" instructions are very misleading, albeit fraudulent. I am not sure you can interpret it any other way. Here are the instructions: "...On the lot page, choose the maximum price you'd like to bid from the dropdown menu, then click 'Place Bid'. Otherwise, press cancel. then ... When the auction is in progress, the auctioneer will place bids on your behalf until you reach your maximum bid price or win the lot at a lower price. If you are outbid, you will be informed by email or push notification on the Bonhams app, with the option to increase your max bid. We recommend you follow the live auction in case you want to quickly increase your max bid." The only way I see to interpret this is when you place your Max Bid, the system will bid on your behalf until your max price is reached. If your Max Bid is not reached, you will win at the highest priced bid it took to outbid the next party. THIS IS NOT THE CASE. Your Max Bid is actually your current bid. The system does not bid on your behalf and you will not get it for a lower price. You are bidding against yourself if you put a high max bid. I paid more than double the price of the next highest bid becuase I was "willing" to pay more. I called and they said I was reading the instructions wrong. I filed a complaint wiht them to update the instructions since this is again borderline purposeful misrepresentation.
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August 2023 by Jenee O.
I wish I would have read all the horrible reviews before consigning my jewelry with this auction house. The communication is absolutely horrendou. You will go days or weeks without a reply to your email and if you are lucky enough to get a reply it won't answer all of your questions. They said their estimates were conservative but half my items didn't sell and the other half sold within the low range. It seems as though they are not well informed of the market. Overall an extremely long, frustrating, and arduous process for little return. I never write reviews on anything but hopefully you will read this and choose another auction house
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April 2023 by Derek Wallace
Unfortunately, I can’t recommend doing business with Skinner. I’ve been a regular customer, and have experienced in my last few auctions that the items being bid on do not match the product delivered. In some cases the product quality has been misrepresented, and in other circumstances the product itself was entirely different from the lot that I bid on. Given this experience in several of my recent transactions, I can only imagine that this is happening with a number of their customers. In my experience, it isn’t worth spending the time and money bidding on items if you can’t trust the veracity of the listing. I would suggest doing business elsewhere.
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March 2023 by Danny Clark
Very difficult to deal with start to finish. It is almost like they have designed their system to see just how many possible road blocks they can put up for a buyer.
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March 2023 by Chris Warren
I have been a customer of both Skinner and Bonhams for many years and it pains me to write this review since in general I thought they were an honest and fair auction house. I have a serious complaint about a recent item that I bid on (lot 0327 in the November 8, 2022 auction they held in Los Angeles). I was the winning bidder on LiveAuctioneers (in GREEN stating I was "WINNING", for over 30 seconds) when they arbitrarily retracted my bid and sold this item to someone else. I DID NOT RETRACT MY BID.....THEY DID....and I watched it happen LIVE while I was participating in the auction. This is completely unfair and they have yet to provide me with any sort of explanation. I might have expected this from a lower end auction house, but for someone like Bonham's/Skinners this is SHAMEFUL and totally unacceptable. I have filed a complaint with LiveAuctioneers, but that is likely not going to go anywhere since they are just a mediator....so my only recourse is to publicly SHAME this auction house for such an inappropriate action. Buyers beware!!!!!
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March 2023 by Nicolas Waardenberg
Annoying when then don’t reply on anything after purchasing pieces
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March 2023 by Franziska
Ongoing issues with this company continue to get worse. Lack of professionalism, poor communication and others. Will not work with them any more after decades.
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March 2023 by John Danis
Canceled sale without making any effort to correct their error, will avoid Skinner in the future.
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January 2023 by Matt B.
Skinner is not a reputable auction house. Among the few worse would be Bonham's, who they sold out to. Avoid at all cost. RR Auction (Still locally owned), University Archives, Eldred's all better. Don't even consider this greedy, non-local, non-US, corporate firm.
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December 2022 by Andy T.
I used to adore this firm,,, that's until Bonhams bought them.. what a horrific experience I have had w the new management .. if you call Boston you get rerouted to uk to folks that put you on hold forever .. right hand doesn't have a left hand to speak of forget about whether the two hands communicate .
