Complaint Review: Westbury Auction Galleries - Los Angeles California

How nice that you can publish lies about me and cite my name but do not sign your name--full and last This is precisely the issue describes in my original complaint.--LACK OF TRANSPARENCY. As anyone can see, there have been multiple compliants about htis business--read on this site. The only resolved case had to have a gem dealer reclass the stones. And the second was a fake watch..What you have written about me is a malicious a lie. I am not married and what you have written again supports the lie. I can not wait to have you served and sue you for slander and your publishing here further supports my claim.

Shannon Bavaro, (Client) was very problematic, dishonest & uncooperative - Shannon Bavaro called and spoke to our customer service representative (Edwin) numbeous times, wanting to complete the payment for a won item (Cartier Panthere 18K Gold Wristwatch) using two credit cards. We advised client that the company does not accept such payment method as it is very risky & fradulant to process two credit card for a single item transaction - This policy is common in the jewlery auction industry and necessary due to the nature of the business. We suggested cllent to use PayPal to securely complete the payment. Shannon Bavaro's response was that we did not want her husband to find out about her purchase thus she wanted to use the two credit cards to complete the transaction. We then advised client that we could not accept her payment in such matter and that the transaction would be forwarded to the Auctioneers for a review/cancellation.

Client's criticism about company is dishonest & untrue. Auction Company was established in 2012 and currently hold a valid bond as required by Cal. Civ Code 1812.600 - Company has conducted over 400+ live auctions with 1000s of satisfied customers. 

We bid on a Cartier gold Panthere watch via LiveAuctioneer, a platform which allows any business to call itself a legitimate auciton house. The problem is not all businesses are actual auction houses. Westbury Auction Galleries is one of those that is not an actual auction house. They have a website and are on LA trying to protrya themselves as such but that's not the case. They are listed as open 9-5 but there that is not true. There is one person who calls you back on a computer phone number pretending to be working from a fullservice auction house. We called them no less than 6-7 times without over the course of several days and no one answered their phone or returned our call. Finally someone called on a computer number that you could not call back...No claiming of a Yelp page to legitimize their business......They are a business based on being on a third party platform....We wanted to split our transaction on two credit cards. The guy seemed totally confused, heavy accent and didnt understand any basic business practices. We work with numerous auction houses and this red flagged us--no legitimate business line, no business that is open as they state 9-5, no employees as the guy on the phone was pretending. He pretended to "speak to my manager" which was another guy with the same accent (no idea where tey are from) who made no sense at all. I asked who owned the business and he said I "didn't need to know". Well, I am not about to buy a $5k watch from a "fraudulent business".

I have no idea who these peole are nor why they do to such great lengths to pretend they are a legitimate business with a website that is just simple mock up with the computer nubmer---ALL SUSPICOUS. So when I repeated I needed to make sure this was a legitimate business and not fruad (ie: where does this merchandise come from???) he said "the transaction is cancelled. You have no obligation. He got off the phone quickly....He then went on LiveAucitneer to claim we were a deliquent account. Unfathomable. LiveAuctioneer is a platform that is based on scale, and so they take anyone claiming to be an auction hosue to sell. 90% are legitimate but the 10% that are not is very problematic. Be very careful of this business...We do not know how they are, why they claim to being a full serivce auction house not were their merchandise comes from. But what we do know is that they lie--often---and are vindictive and lie. In our case, we have spent nearly $100k on LA, and all transactions were completed without issue except for one that was a fraudulent business and two that were clerical errors.