Lelands - poor customer service or not???

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Posted By: Rich Wetherbee

I would like to preface this by stating that I have been involved in this hobby/business for 30 years, and although many of you may not know me, I have been involved mostly in sports memorabilia opposed to cards. I will also apologize for the length of this diatribe now, along with apologizing to Dan McKee, as this appears to be a trivial matter compared with what Dan has gone through in the past. Also, please disregard that this issue concerns media guides and not cards; the real issue is the conduct of the auction house.

I recently participated in Lelands latest auction that concluded on the Friday before Thanksgiving Week. Among the items in this auction was a vast collection of media guides, programs, etc from one sports writer. Lelands broke out this collection into roughly 10 lots, all of which I had an interest. To give one an idea, EACH LOT consisted of anywhere between 6 and 20 FILE BOXES of programs, guides, correspondence, etc.

Since this collection was housed in Lelands Cape Cod, Massachusetts location (a 2-hour+ ride for me), I arranged to preview the items in person. I drove down on the Wednesday before the auction and spent nearly 3 hours previewing the 10 or so lots, taking pages of notes. I will say that the staff on the Cape were very accommodating and friendly.

I ended up winning one lot (the 500+ NFL media guides) out of the group, and ended up winning the lot on my last bid. I called the following Monday to arrange pick up and they allowed me to pay and pick up that day. When I arrived, they had all 9 file boxes at the door ready for me to take them. I paid, packed the boxes and drove 1 mile down the road to the DeAngelos to grab lunch. Before I went in, I decided to check a few boxes to make sure the key guides were there (now you know where this is going).

In the first box I opened, I immediately knew something was wrong as the guides were bouncing around in the box. I clearly remembered that each box was packed so tightly with guides I had to take a stack of 15 guides out just to look at the rest. I had my notes with me and quickly found a small stack of 6 key guides missing. I drove back to Lelands and showed Craig (a Lelands employee) my list and the missing guides. He claimed, We will make this right and suggested I take them home, list the ones missing and email the list to him.

I drove home and after review, found that at least 33 guides were missing (when I previewed the lot, I only listed the 1960s guides as the 1970s and up guides were too insignificant to list) from my list. I summarized that the value of these guide were conservatively $890.00 wholesale (or in other words, more than 25% of my final hammer price). I emailed this list to Craig and followed up with him the week after Thanksgiving.

When I called the following week and asked for Craig, Craig answered but immediately claimed that Angela (another Lelands employee) wanted to speak to me about this situation. She claimed that it was impossible that anyone could have stolen the guides as 3 principals of the company and a very reputable, long-time customer, whom Angela named by name, were the only ones who went upstairs (where the guides were) since I had previewed them. Regarding the customer, I have known him for over 25 years and have never had an issue with the many dealings I have had with him. So now I have that sucker-punched feeling for not only being the victim of stolen guides, but also having my integrity completely questioned.

Angela said that she had talked to Josh (owner of Lelands) and that I could return the guides for a refund. I had concerns for a couple of reasons. First, I would need to take a day off from work to bring them back to the Cape and secondly I had some concerns that I may not get a full refund. Angela insisted that I would be refunded completely but I had had issues with Lelands 10 years ago concerning a consignment check that was so poorly handled, it kept me from participating in Lelands auctions for about 9 years (feel free to email me if you want the detailed story). Thus, I was uncomfortable returning the guides.

I offered that Lelands provide a $400.00 allowance, much less than my loss, but it would end the situation and I could feel that I did not get completely screwed. I also requested that they review the surveillance cameras, which they claimed were upstairs and fully functional. Angela mentioned that she would look into it, but I know the video was never accessed. Lelands declined my offer and reiterated that I could return the guides.

In the days that followed, I did a little investigation on eBay and found some circumstantial evidence that blew a few holes in the impossibility of the guides going missing. I provided a detailed email pointing out the specific auctions in question and sent them to Angela in an email. Please note that the evidence I found was circumstantial, but certainly worthy to question (feel free to email me for details). I followed with another email days later in which Angela responded and claimed that she misunderstood that Lelands was going to do anything (in her defense, she thought I was going to continue my investigation). She again offered a full refund only, claiming that this was a very reasonable solution to this situation, but I needed to return them now as 30 days have nearly passed.

What do the great and wise minds of Net54 think? Am I being unreasonable by not just returning the guides? Has Lelands done enough from their standpoint? Should I just bite the bullet and let this go? I know if this were my company, I would have done a full blown investigation into what happened. Feel free to email me at qcards2@aol.com.

Rich Wetherbee