Cole's Auction Service and Appraisal

It has been a year since I dealt with Cole's auction Services. But every time I think about how he conducted his business I get angry.I contacted Steve Cole because he was local and per his advertising had been performing auctions for a long time as a professional auctioneer. When we spoke to him he said that he used another auctioneer that had been recommended to us by other professionals. The day I signed the contract for the auction he didn't have a copy for me, instead he assured me that he would get it to me as soon as possible. As the executor of my parents estate I wanted everything done right. I texted him several times in the next few days but I didn't receive my copy. When we were reviewing the property he saw a 1926 Ford Model T, which was part of my inheritance from my late father, he said if we included the Model T he would reduce the advertising cost by half. After long consideration I decided to let the Model T be sold in the estate auction. Mr. Cole set times for him and his crew to meet with me and he was repeatedly late by an hour or more. This happened with no text or call. The day of the auction they came set up and conducted the auction. Many of the auction attendees I spoke with told me that they followed his auctions and that they were "bad" and some even stated that he was a "crook". At that point it was too late. After the auction was completed there were many boxes containing house wares, odds and ends, etc, that were left scattered across the lawn. Trash was tossed around and there were muddy holes in the yard where attendee vehicles had gotten stuck.When Mr. Cole and his staff left I did not receive my copy of the contract, a list of items sold or a final total of sales. There was a long delay in payment, it's my understanding that it's highly unusual to have to wait a month for payment but apparently that's his policy. I patiently waited for a month with my two siblings continuously hounding me about the payment. The month went by with no contact. I went to his store front and speaking with his employees politely asked that he contact me as soon as possible. After three additional weeks he finally contacted me and told me that the state had garnished all of his business accounts for non-payment of taxes. Mr. Cole told me that he had a lawyer who was helping him with this and that he needed me to be patient. Once again he went silent and wasn't returning my texts. After six weeks I informed him that I would soon need to get an attorney involved if payment was not forthcoming. Mr. Cole promptly responded saying that he would make payment but that it would require him to remove money from his retirement account or use the money from the sales of one of his upcoming scheduled auction. At this point, I honestly didn't care that he'd be robbing Peter to pay Paul, I just wanted what was owed to my family by his own contract. Finally, after being 2 full months afterwards I received a check that Mr. Cole claimed came from his retirement account. While I was at his office I requested a copy of the contract and a list of items sold and for what price. He said I should have gotten that at the end of the auction. When he looked at the contract he said "Oh I forgot we were supposed to split the advertising if you included the Model T". He said he would cut a new check and have it for me at the end of the week. He would have it delivered to my house. So I believed that I was going to receive a check for half the advertising price or $750.00. I wasn't home on that day but my wife was and she called me and said the new check was smaller, so I told her to refuse the check and keep the original. It wasn't 10 minutes later and Steve called me upset by the fact I hadn't accepted the check. He claimed that he had over paid me and I had no choice but to take the second check for $750.00 dollars less because he had canceled the first check. So later that afternoon I went to his office to pick up the second check, I took the check directly to his bank to cash it for fear that it might not be good or he might cancel it to to be spiteful. According to the invoice he had made a mistake by forgetting to include the cost of advertising on the original invoice. Clearly a mistake on his part, since according to his advertising he had been doing auctions weekly for 32 years. One would think he would have the system pretty much down by now but no he doesn't. Steve Cole apparently expects his clients to pay for his mistakes on invoicing. In conclusion, this experience was one of frustration, confusion and anger. Steve Cole seems to be seriously lacking in organizational skills, the ability to manage money and basic professional communication. It's difficult to tell if he is a completely incompetent business man or a fraud trying to take advantage of poor people trying to manage their loved ones estates. The best advice I can give for anyone considering doing business with Mr. Cole is don't do it. Life is TOO short and it isn't worth the aggravation.

I am a seller who used Coles Auction Service for personal property, antiques, coins, and my home (several of these listed as specialties for the business). There are many red flags I've encountered so far: very difficult to get a hold of Steve, late for several appointments, changed his plan for the set-up of the auction, I never received a copy of the signed contract, pushed for a no reserve auction, bid and won items at auction without disclosure to me or the other buyers, did not advertise as stated verbally or as written on his website, did not provide the services listed on his website. Several items that were to be auctioned were never put up for bid and many items flat out did not sell due to lack of advertising and/or low bidder pool. One particular item that did not sell (thankfully we put at least a low reserve on it), Cole wanted me to break down, box up, and drive an hour to his office to drop off so he could sell it online. There was no porta john (which he orally stated he would provide as well as is written as a service on his website) so all the people used the bathrooms in my home and made a mess which I cleaned up after Steve left. Cole's Auction Service used my electricity, water, sewer, and trash without prior consent from me. The auction was 2 days ago and I have not received any money or a ledger of items sold. When we were considering hiring Cole we made clear our expectations for return on the auction to which he stated in his professional opinion would be attainable. We reasonably estimated, based on resale prices and antique value, to obtain between 12 and 15 thousand dollars from the sale of our household property; the preliminary final amount made at auction is 7 thousand 1 hundred dollars, a ten percent buyer's premium plus 3 thousand 5 hundred of which is to go to Steve which equals 4 thousand 2 hundred 10 dollars. That leaves us with 3 thousand 6 hundred dollars; a gross misrepresentation of attainability and/or breach of contract. Currently, I'm attempting to rescind our contract and make amicable arrangements as to not involve the court system, the NAA, the MAA, and/or the Michigan Attorney General. Are you next? I hope not. Update 7/14/18: After Cole avoided our calls, voicemails, and emails for a week, he finally agreed to meet with us to discuss the auction and to give us a copy of the sought after contract and ledger. When we arrived at his store, he refused to invite us to sit down and proceeded to badger and yell at us as we attempted to calmly point out and confront Steve about the contradictions between the services we contracted thru him to perform and the actual services we received. Steve said that he was going to withhold our payment until 30.5 days after the auction for my husband being a "smartass," to which I made sure to clarify that: he was both retaliating against customers as well as using derogatory name-calling to try to quell the discussion of his performance. When we called him out about bidding on and winning items at our auction without prior disclosure about his plan to do so, he explained that he was trying to "help" us by bidding the item up (shill bidding)- which is highly unethical, illegal, as well as unlikely as the television he won was sitting on the floor at our feet by the counter in his store a week after buying it! The clear intention this presents is that he bid on and won an item which no one else was interested in so he could resell it for a profit in his store. He insisted that he did a great job and would not alter the contract in any way. Update 8/12/18: Payment was finally received ($3517) however, the invoice contained three notes which claim we breached the contract and would be owing Cole fees. There is no merit to these accusations and Cole has made no attempt to contact us addressing such issues in the 34 days since the auction. Furthermore, if he truly believed such breaches of contract were taking place, he had a contractual obligation to address them immediately and cancel the auction. We absolutely find this to be a form of harassment and a poor attempt at retaliation for filing official complaints against his unlawful and unprofessional conduct. If you are considering using Cole's for auctioneer services for your property, please carefully consider my honest review before proceeding. Please also note: my husband and I are college educated veterans who agreed to do business with Cole's not out of desperation or need of money, but as a careful plan to buy our next home.

I am a seller who used Coles Auction Service for personal property, antiques, coins, and my home (several of these listed as specialties for the business). There are many red flags I've encountered so far: very difficult to get a hold of Steve, late for several appointments, changed his plan for the set-up of the auction, I never received a copy of the signed contract, pushed for a no reserve auction, bid and won items at auction without disclosure to me or the other buyers, did not advertise as stated verbally or as written on his website, did not provide the services listed on his website. Several items that were to be auctioned were never put up for bid and many items flat out did not sell due to lack of advertising and/or low bidder pool. One particular item that did not sell (thankfully we put at least a low reserve on it), Cole wanted me to break down, box up, and drive an hour to his office to drop off so he could sell it online. There was no porta john (which he orally stated he would provide as well as is written as a service on his website) so all the people used the bathrooms in my home and made a mess which I cleaned up after Steve left. Cole's Auction Service used my electricity, water, sewer, and trash without prior consent from me. The auction was 2 days ago and I have not received any money or a ledger of items sold. When we were considering hiring Cole we made clear our expectations for return on the auction to which he stated in his professional opinion would be attainable. We reasonably estimated, based on resale prices and antique value, to obtain between 12 and 15 thousand dollars from the sale of our household property; the preliminary final amount made at auction is 7 thousand 1 hundred dollars, a ten percent buyer's premium plus 3 thousand 5 hundred of which is to go to Steve which equals 4 thousand 2 hundred 10 dollars. That leaves us with 3 thousand 6 hundred dollars; a gross misrepresentation of attainability and/or breach of contract. Currently, I'm attempting to rescind our contract and make amicable arrangements as to not involve the court system, the NAA, the MAA, and/or the Michigan Attorney General. Are you next? I hope not. Update 7/14/18: After Cole avoided our calls, voicemails, and emails for a week, he finally agreed to meet with us to discuss the auction and to give us a copy of the sought after contract and ledger. When we arrived at his store, he refused to invite us to sit down and proceeded to badger and yell at us as we attempted to calmly point out and confront Steve about the contradictions between the services we contracted thru him to perform and the actual services we received. Steve said that he was going to withhold our payment until 30.5 days after the auction for my husband being a "smartass," to which I made sure to clarify that: he was both retaliating against customers as well as using derogatory name-calling to try to quell the discussion of his performance. When we called him out about bidding on and winning items at our auction without prior disclosure about his plan to do so, he explained that he was trying to "help" us by bidding the item up (shill bidding)- which is highly unethical, illegal, as well as unlikely as the television he won was sitting on the floor at our feet by the counter in his store a week after buying it! The clear intention this presents is that he bid on and won an item which no one else was interested in so he could resell it for a profit in his store. He insisted that he did a great job and would not alter the contract in any way. Update (8/4/2018): Formal complaints have been submitted to the Michigan Attorney General (available via public record) and the National Auctioneer Association. We have not received any money from the auction. Some wording has been changed on the company website: "immediate" payment has been changed to "quickly" on the Faqs question and answer section. Written requests to Steve Cole for copies of his "aggressive" advertising have received no responses. If you are considering using Cole's for auctioneer services for your property, please carefully consider my honest review before proceeding. Please also note: my husband and I are college educated veterans who agreed to do business with Cole's not out of desperation or need of money, but as a careful plan to buy our next home.