Cottees Auctions Reviews 9

Bid with them if you want to pay for a fake piece.

Won an item via easylive, went to pick it up only to be told on arrival that it had been taken away by someone else!!
Having bought from a number of auction houses, I've never had my goods taken by someone else! Terrible ! A refund was given. But no apology for wasting my time and the distance covered to get there. Suggest you avoid.

Shambolic auction, auctioneer many times prioritised room over internet and hammer was brought down which indicates end of bids but then allowed the auction to continue. With 'easy live auctions' my party made several bids on different items and whilst we could see we were the highest bidder the hammer was brought down & another bid came up as the winner. I rang the auction house and was spoken to very curtly by a lady who said the timings on her system showed our bid was outbid by the internet which came in last. She failed to understand that the hammer isn't recorded on her system, neither was the auctioneers voice saying I have a bid of £15 (one example) and then as she brings the hammer down another of £18 sneaks in & neither did they decide to open it back up to allow my party the opportunity to bid again. The lady blamed us saying that the internet has a delay. We explained that we could see other internet bids clearly showing on our computers and actually it was the auctioneer who was behind not the internet, others were not granted their bids either. When the Auctioneers went offline for a few minutes we were able to remain online. Sadly there was not even an apology offered, just the pushing out of blame. In contrast to this when we had bids which again showed as the winning bid, they were then disallowed as the auctioneer was heard to say I saw it in the room first. No attempt again was made to reopen the bidding & there was no 'fair warning' given. I'm sure the receptionist, didn't mean to be as patronising as she was when she failed to allow any explanation of the purpose of the call. Clearly Cottees do not run auctions in the same was as the fairer auctioneers, with no final warnings for anyone, unless of course they have preferred bidders which would be extremely unprofessional. The lady did not wish to hear about our poor experience & looking at the other reviews on the internet i can see we are not alone in our thoughts. Most businesses like feedback and use it to improve, but this was clearly not the attitude of Cottees, as a result we decided to warn others by posting this. Having watched the whole auction, we saw many other internet bidders who also lost out. They were inconsistent in retracting bids and not at all fair. Whilst the items were of no great value anyway, we will not be using them again. If they cannot manage internet bidding properly they should not allow people like us to pay for the privilege of being ignored. Poor show Cottees, the police should investigate your conduct & look at a fairer auction house to auction off their items.

Poor experience with auctioneer being clearly biased towards those in the room. We bid on several items through easylive only to have the auctioneer ignore what would have been a winning bid. The auctioneer was totally out of sync with the internet bidding and towards the end of a four hour auction was clearly tired and not paying any attention to the bids being made. Have spent a serious amount of money in the past with these guys but never again - left a bad taste on what should have been an enjoyable experience.

Will not buy from again. Auctioneer should remember that Easy Live has audio. Hoped to buy an Art Deco ring. Bid £140, without any hesitation. Hammer went down at £130 and the auctioneer was heard to laugh and say to someone in the room, 'I put the hammer down as fast as I could.' Not good auction house practice for bidders and very unfair to the seller: I would have bid up to £200. (In addition to the above, the so-called 'ruby' ring I won arrived today and is in fact amethyst.)

They sold me an item which was damaged beyond repair, but the damage was not visible in the auction pictures and was not mentioned in the condition report. When I contacted them asking to return the item, they ignored all my emails. I would not recommend, unless you can inspect the items in person and satisfy yourself of the condition.

I saw a bunch of watches being auctioned, and at least 3 of them were fakes - as in, the seller had deliberately replaced the dials and other parts and were presenting them as recently serviced and great condition examples.

I contacted Cottees several times over a period more than a week before the auction, to draw their attention to the fact and they never even responded. They sold the fake watches and pocketed maybe £500 in commission from just those 3. I wouldn't touch them with a barge pole on this eidence.

Don’t waste your time with contacting them. We were after an auctioneer to collect valuable items from a house clearance. My first call was met by rude staff, their manager then visited, said they would confirm all details the following week. I chased, promised again the following week and 5 weeks later nothing. Definitely wouldn’t recommend.

Very good. I bought something that turned out to be an illegal weapon (a sword) as it was modern (a replica) and therefore a weapon not a collector's antique. I returned it and pointed out the facts to Cottees, who not only refunded me but also reimbursed me for my shipping costs both ways. So, a big thank you.