Mears Auction Story - WOW

[shoremen44]

I bid on a jersey in the last Mears monthly auction, and when the auction was over I recieved a message that the Jersey thats was in the auction was sold before the auction started... usually I would questions this, but it was a common player and not worth much... I bid $55... Chris from Mears told me I would have a $55 credit for any other of their auctions... I thought that was very cool of them...

so...

I won 2 bats in the monthly Mears auction that just ended... again 2 pretty common players... totalling $110

I recieved the bats today... and the pic below is how they were shipped... WOW... they were packaged like I bought a Mantle rookie or something... they probably spent more on packaging than I bid

they were in a huge box with a ton of packaging... both were in these Mears velvet bags... inside of bat tubes... Awesome...

oh yeah... and did I mention... I HAVEN'T EVEN PAID FOR THEM YET!!!

nothing has made me want to write a check quicker in a long time



With all of the issues I see that everyone has and I have had with other places such as AMI and such... I just had to let everyone know what an incredible experience this was.

[yanks12025]

I should be getting my soon. The UPS website said it was supposed to come today but i watched the UPS truck drive away and never come back, i guessing it got delayed because of the bad weather we had.

[Mr.3000]

Great story! And nice to see a company takes pride in it's shipping and CS.

[Ozric]

I just received my two jerseys from the Mears auction yesterday and could not be happier. They were $110.00 each, exactly as described, and packed in a giant box with a ton of foam peanuts. I had no clue that they were going to ship them out that fast as I have not yet even paid for them as well. I'm really really pleased.

[metsmetsmets]

I bid on a jersey in the last Mears monthly auction, and when the auction was over I recieved a message that the Jersey thats was in the auction was sold before the auction started... usually I would questions this, but it was a common player and not worth much... I bid $55... Chris from Mears told me I would have a $55 credit for any other of their auctions... I thought that was very cool of them...

so...

I won 2 bats in the monthly Mears auction that just ended... again 2 pretty common players... totalling $110

I recieved the bats today... and the pic below is how they were shipped... WOW... they were packaged like I bought a Mantle rookie or something... they probably spent more on packaging than I bid

they were in a huge box with a ton of packaging... both were in these Mears velvet bags... inside of bat tubes... Awesome...

oh yeah... and did I mention... I HAVEN'T EVEN PAID FOR THEM YET!!!

nothing has made me want to write a check quicker in a long time



With all of the issues I see that everyone has and I have had with other places such as AMI and such... I just had to let everyone know what an incredible experience this was.

I don't think that this is such a great story. The fact that your winning $55.00 bid was disallowed doesn't sit well with me. I think it shows a lack of integrity and ethics to privately sell a jersey that was simultaneously being offered at auction. What's so great about an auction house that would do such a thing?

And this assumes that the jersey was sold in the first place. Maybe they reneged because your winning bid wasn't high enough, without ever selling the jersey, and gave you a phony story that, to me, isn't even satisfactory.

The way I see it, Mears breached their obligations.

[mears]

For our first inaugural MEARS monthly internet sale in December 2008, we mistakenly added three jerseys to the auction which were transferred from the MEARS For Sale site. During the course of 2008, MEARS made a bulk sale of our inventory, numbering at about 500 jerseys. Three jerseys from this sale were not removed from our inventory system. We currently have 10,000+ offered for sale, so missing three items is plausible.

In addition, the three referenced jerseys were sold in Hunts monthly internet sale during the course of 2008. I would be glad to provide any interested parties with the sales information and prices realized from Hunts. Since the jerseys sold in the monthly internet sale, you cannot access the information via there website. Therefore, the jerseys were already gone before we put the auction together. With the jerseys already being sold, there would be no financial reason for us to not sell the item.

And to be clear, we ended the auction early, just days after launching the auction. After the auction had already launched, we noticed the mistake. At that point we ended the auction early. This was simply a case of the need for an improvement of inventory control, not a sinister attempt at driving the price of a $50.00 jersey to $55.00. There were no winning bidders, just several high bidders. At the time, I was concerned that somebody much like the poster metsmetsmets would assume there were alterior motives behind the auction ending early. In order to elminate that factor, we offered cash vouchers to the bidders. At the time, it was my decision to give away the cash to the people affected, with the intention of eliminating any appearance of impropriety. If there was a better way to handle the situation, I could not think of one.

If you check our prices realized, you will see that we do not offer hidden reserves, and we do not shill bid. All items sold for whatever the bid was. That is our policy, and one that will continue throughout our time in the auction business. The three jerseys that were affected by this situation were low dollar common jerseys that were purchased by MEARS for examples in our database. We had no desire to protect these jersey. We have no desire to protect any item offered in a MEARS sale. If an item has a reserve, it will be reflected in the minumum bid. No hidden reserves, EVER.

We already had the value to the information, so the final sale price was of very little value to us.

One final word directed to metsmetsmets. If you have any future questions about MEARS or our auctions, call me direct at 414 828 9990. Your post took the situation in the worst possible case, and this just wasn't accurate or fair to me or our company.


Sincerely,


Troy R. Kinunen
MEARS

[aeneas01]

I don't think that this is such a great story. The fact that your winning $55.00 bid was disallowed doesn't sit well with me. I think it shows a lack of integrity and ethics to privately sell a jersey that was simultaneously being offered at auction. What's so great about an auction house that would do such a thing?

And this assumes that the jersey was sold in the first place. Maybe they reneged because your winning bid wasn't high enough, without ever selling the jersey, and gave you a phony story that, to me, isn't even satisfactory.

The way I see it, Mears breached their obligations.

i hear ya but i also think it's important to keep in mind that mears made a solid effort to right a bad sitch by issuing a credit in the amount of the bid - that's pretty impressive imo and something that i don't believe is common in the industry even though botched transactions can be. most importantly, mears took care of their customer in terms of making their customer happy under less than ideal circumstances.

hopefully mears will point to positive guu threads such as this in the future with the same vigor as they point to the negative guu threads.

...

[Mr.3000]

Thank you for responding Troy. I wouldn't have thought you needed to defend yourself or Mears. It's clear that a mistake occurred and you guy handled it perfectly and with integrity.

[dcgreg25]

It certainly sounds like MEARS went above and beyond what any other auction house would do faced with this situation. Considering the volume of items that they handle (and the fact that we are all human) mistakes happen and I think they went above and beyond with the vouchers that they gave the bidders. Most other auctions would simply state that the item was pulled or no longer available.

Shoremen, congrats on getting a great deal from a great group..

As far as MEARS, congrats on continuing to impress (at least me) with your class and customer service!

[Mr.3000]

Anyone have a link to the Mears For Sale site? I only come up with the auction site.


Thanks.

[dcgreg25]

http://www.mearsonline.com/forsale/

[TAFKADixie]

Anyone have a link to the Mears For Sale site? I only come up with the auction site.


Thanks.

http://www.mearsonline.com/forsale/

[b.heagy]

Sounds like top notch service to me. Setting a new standard. Items being shipped before payment? WOW. MEARS velvet bags for the bats? THATS VERY COOL. Handing out vouchers for a simple mistake? another plus. Way to go MEARS! Your future looks brighter. Keep up the good work.

[metsmetsmets]

This was simply a case of the need for an improvement of inventory control, not a sinister attempt at driving the price of a $50.00 jersey to $55.00. There were no winning bidders, just several high bidders. At the time, I was concerned that somebody much like the poster metsmetsmets would assume there were alterior motives behind the auction ending early....

One final word directed to metsmetsmets. If you have any future questions about MEARS or our auctions, call me direct at 414 828 9990. Your post took the situation in the worst possible case, and this just wasn't accurate or fair to me or our company.


Sincerely,


Troy R. Kinunen
MEARS

So it seems that you made an honest mistake. It's good to hear that and thanks for responding. Nobody's infallible, I suppose. Not even me.

However, my original post was was fair and reasonable, given the specific information that I was responding to.

[ndevlin]

One final word directed to metsmetsmets. If you have any future questions about MEARS or our auctions, call me direct at 414 828 9990. Your post took the situation in the worst possible case, and this just wasn't accurate or fair to me or our company.


Sincerely,


Troy R. Kinunen
MEARS

Aint that the truth. I personally didnt see a problem with it in the first place! It was a mistake, they fixed it by giving it a $55 credit to a future auction. I'd say thats pretty darn good service.

I'd also like to add that every time I email Mears about an item/s, Troy or someone from the Mears team emails me very quickly! Troy is very nice and sincere in his emails and even provides me LOA's for items. Good service all around!

[metsmetsmets]

Aint that the truth. I personally didnt see a problem with it in the first place! It was a mistake, they fixed it by giving it a $55 credit to a future auction. I'd say thats pretty darn good service.

I'd also like to add that every time I email Mears about an item/s, Troy or someone from the Mears team emails me very quickly! Troy is very nice and sincere in his emails and even provides me LOA's for items. Good service all around!

I sense a little friction here about my original post. My post was perfectly reasonable given the information I was working with. I don't see how a voucher would fix things if, for example, I specifically wanted the jersey I had won. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have the jersey instead of extra packing peanuts.

I've read Mears explanation, which was posted after my post (not before), and their mistake appears to have been made in good faith.

[ndevlin]

Nope, no friction. I was stating in general the situation at hand, and I had no problem with the way it was handled.

[yanks12025]

I hope the 1978/79 Chris Chambliss yankee bat they have on their for sale section makes it into one of their future auctions.

[sylbry]

I got my bat today too. Paid $55 for it and it came in the black bag, inside a bat tube, inside a box which also contained bubble wrap to keep the tube from sliding inside the box.

Kudos to MEARS. I was floored by the effort and I will absolutely buy from them again.

[shoremen44]

Mistakes happen... and like I said in my original post, here is a group that to me has gone above and beyond in making up for it...

I doubt there are many places that would do what they have done...

I will DEFINATELY being doing business with them again

thanks Troy...

[Mr.3000]

Thank you for the links guys.


From what I've seen here I will definitely do business with Mears.

[yanks12025]

I got a quick question for someone here, its about my package from mears. I just want to make sure there's not a problem with it. It was supposed to be delivered on the 29th but the weather was bad, so it got pushed back but it still said it was on time. Now when i check the tracking it's just stuck "In transit", it has not moved since thursday morning and there is no delivery day now. Could my package be lost or is this normal for UPS. Sorry for worring i just hate when these things happen after reading all of your storys about UPS and them stealing things.

[Mr.3000]

I got a quick question for someone here, its about my package from mears. I just want to make sure there's not a problem with it. It was supposed to be delivered on the 29th but the weather was bad, so it got pushed back but it still said it was on time. Now when i check the tracking it's just stuck "In transit", it has not moved since thursday morning and there is no delivery day now. Could my package be lost or is this normal for UPS. Sorry for worring i just hate when these things happen after reading all of your storys about UPS and them stealing things.


Call your local hub, give them the tracking number and find out where your item is.

[dpm]

my first MEARS Auction & nothing but top notch all the way.

looking forward to the next one.

[yanks12025]

UPS is good. I just checked my tracking number and its all the way out in Las vegas. How can you screw things up like this, it was only 2 hours from me and now its on the otherside of the country.

[reed1216]

I received my 1987 Luis Sharpe St. Luis Cardinals jersey and I am thrilled!! Although not torn up, it does show pretty good use, as well as a few small repairs and hit marks. Although Sharpe isn't considered a star player, he was a three time pro bowler at Left Tackle. He was also the Cardinals player rep, which is interesting, considering he is in prison, serving a six year sentence for drug convictions. He was released from prison on other drug charges, a few months prior to his most recent arrets. Below in a link of a local article that chronicals Sharpe's downfall...
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1996-06-06/news/waiting-to-inhale/1

Anyway, MEARS handled their auction as well as could be expected. Fast shipping, great customer service and getting an item that exceeds expections is important to collectors. While I don't have tons to spend right now, when I do purchase, I will probably be inclined to buy from GUU and MEARS over the other auction houses.