Complaint Review: Pioneer Auction Gallery - Portland Oregon

On August 18, 2016 I participated in an online auction held by Pioneer Auction Gallery. I was attempting to purchase a Confederate States belt buckle and an alleged Confederate Bowie Knife. The pictures provided were nice, but not sufficient to authenticate the origin and date of their making to ensure they were from the Civil War.

Pioneer sent me an electronic communication / invoice stating that I had won those items, plus to lesser ones. I immediately paid for those won items via my PayPal account and received a receipt for that payment.

Several weeks later, having not received the items, I emailed Pioneer to ascertain when the items would be shipped. I received an email back stating that Pioneer had shipped the items. I inquired as to where the items were shipped. Pioneer stated that they were shipped to an address is San Antonio and were being returned to Pioneer. I advised Pioneer that I had moved almost a year ago and I provided them with my current address and requested that as soon as they received the items back, that they re-ship them to me at my current address.

A short time later, due to another inquiry, Pioneer stated that they had received the items back, but they would not ship the items to me as they did not have a confirmed address for me at PayPal. There has been several exchanges since and my patience is gone. The woman who is emailing me has repeatedly stated that they cannot confirm my address and will not ship the items. I have filed a complaint with PayPal and LiveAuctioneers concerning the non-receipt of purchased items.

I have never ran in to such a situation before and after years of utilizing PayPal and PayPal having noted on my page in their system that my address is confirmed, I have been unable to get Pioneer to ship the items. Then Pioneer files a complaint with LiveAuctioneers. I wrote to LiveAuctioneers and Pioneer and inquired as to how they could file a complaint when it was there auction, they sold the items to me, they received full payment for the items, and they have been paid for the shipping of those items. I have even told them to charge my credit card for the re-ship to my current address.

As it stands, Pioneer has the items that I won in their auction along with the money that I paid Pioneer for those items and the shipping and Pioneer continues to refuse to ship me my property.

This company has had a growing list of complaints over the past few years and it will cost me more than the items are worth, if they are truly real, to sue them to gain custody of what I own. The level of stupidity at Pioneer is amazing. There is no risk to Pioneer to ship the items to my address as they have been and would be paid in advance of that shipping, so their insistence on having a "confirmed" address is total nonsense.