A Call in the Night.......

Well, a few things happened while I was away, the following is one of those things, and it's been bugging me, so I'm going to pass it along here.

I was going to an auction house in New York, which for me is a couple hour drive to get there, for an auction preview. They had a couple of pieces I was interest in, and I always want to inspect what I might want to buy, so it was off to the preview. Not a bad drive, very scenic in spots, but I digress. I got there, checked out the stuff and decided I would set up a phone bid on the pieces I was interested in since that was an option (the auction was on a week night that I couldn't get there). The woman who assisted me handed me a couple of forms to fill out, the usual stuff with what item, dealer number, etc., then passed me along to the next lady who would do the actual bidding setup, this lady took my phone numbers, wrote them in LARGE numbers on the auction item sheet I had filled out and confirmed them by reading them back to me. I asked if there was anything else I needed to do and was told I was all set.

Fast forward to auction night, I am waiting at home for the auction house to call, now this was a fairly large auction starting at 6 PM and my items were near the end of the auction, so I knew it was going to be a late night. I guesstimated that the piece would come up between 11 and Midnight, with 60-70 pieces per hour, well midnight came .... and went and still no call from the auction house. I decided to call them to find out how much longer till my pieces came up, and was told the auction was over. I was in shock (read annoyed), I asked why I wasn't contacted on my phone bid that I had left. The persom on the other end said thesaw no phone bid on the that piece, they did a little more hunting and found my sheet with the number, more checking and they asked me if I put my stickers on the pieces I wanted to  bid on. I asked, "What stickers?".
She said the stickers I "was given" with a number on them to flag the pieces I was interested in, the stickers tell the runners and auctioneer that there are phone/left bids on a piece. I was never given any stickers to flag the pieces, so my bids were skipped completely. I was made to feel that it was my fault that my bids were not acted on as it was my fault that I hadn't put the stickers on the pieces, stickers I had no clue were even necessary. I have left phone bids at many auctions and not once have I had to flag a piece with a sticker, if it was necessary the auction house itsself does that step for their own internal uses.

I think if there is a procedure that needs to be followed in order to get something set up, that information should be posted on the paperwork so that everyone knows what the steps are, especially if one has never been to the auction house before, like me. Also auction staff, and the second lady who assisted me was an owner of the house, should know what those steps are and confirm with the client that all steps were taken, not the other way around.  It is too easy for a step to be missed if its not in plain sight, as it was in this case.