Is Agora Auctions Still In Business

Sorry about your experience, Dave. All I can say in response to your question is, I hope they are not. Below are excerpts from across forums, each quote pertaining to Agora.


"Sorry to hear that Agora ended up being your first auction house experience. I participated and won coins in about ten Agora auctions between 2014-2017, and unfortunately, my experience with them echoes.others'. Ultimately, the repeated delays and bewilderingly blase attitude towards customer service/communication just ended up being too frustrating for me. As a result, they're one of just two auction houses that I no longer patronize."

"...took over a month with no responses to my emails and I eventually filed a Paypal claim."

"I wouldn't order (from them) again."

"Sadly, my experience as well. I have two coins paid for a never received. Alfred said great things publicly on this board but privately via email no response.I thought I was the only one that had issues with them, I see now I am not."

"I still have not received any shipping information regarding the coins purchased in July. I have sent Alfred and Matt multiple emails/week without a single response. I have also called Alfred weekly, however, I have never been able to get him to answer.Any advice from anyone here that has dealt with a similar situation? Any help is much appreciated."

"Same situation here. I haven't found a solution either."

"I had almost the exact same issue as you.with Agora a while ago and likewise, I will not be doing business with them again. Though I had gotten some real beauties from them previously, it only takes one negative incident to make me doubt credit and ethics. But now it appears to be more than a lone negative experience."

"Alfred at Agora isn't very organized. I still have a bad taste in my mouth after I won this coin at Agora's December 20, 2016 sale.I paid him immediately after I received an electronic invoice. When no shipping notification came, I sent him three e-mails asking about it, and he ignored every one of them."

"I boasted about my Father's Day gifts, and in a rare moment, I showed an image of a coin I won from Agora but had not received. Well, today, after a few conversations with Alfred at Agora, low and behold the coin I won should not have been in the auction as it had sold in a previous auction.Needless to say, I will not tempt fate again!... according to Albert at Agora, it sold and was gone, but never taken out of the inventory. Sloppy if that is the case, but I can think of other reason that just may be devious. I bid a high price on this coin, so now I'm more concerned with getting my refund."

"...the question is whether the rest of us want a certain coin badly enough to try those with a bad reputation for service or look for coins elsewhere."

"I have learned my lesson and will stay away from them going forward."

"I'm still waiting for this one...Waiting for a refund as well."

"I recently won several coins and paid the invoice immediately. It's been almost 3 weeks and I haven't gotten any updates about shipping. I emailed them last week and still no response."

"...they never reply to inquiries submitted on their online form."

"...I'm in the same situation with Agora Auctions."

"I, too, have also had some problems."

"Their customer service is just horrible. I will not use them again."

"I emailed Mr. De La Fe twice and didn't get any answer yet. Has any of you had issues with this auction house ? I'm a bit puzzled as I just want to give someone money they seemingly don't care about..."

"I am not at all surprised by the difficulties a variety of posters here have had with Agora. You may read about my bad experience in this thread in which () tells about his bad experience with them."

"Don't know what's up with agora, they won't answer my emails it's been over a month now and no shipping status."

A post directed to Albert DeLaFe of Agora, from an unhappy customer: "What I don't understand.is having not a single word or any answer to emails until I scream publicly about the issue. Procrastination and/or carelessness to this stage get on my nerves, and I bet you're reaching a world championship level at them."

"I began by sending a polite email asking for shipping information. This email was passed to Alfredo who never responded. After a couple more days, I sent another polite email this time directly to Alfredo. No response. After a couple more days, I called directly to Alfredo who answered the call. He was unaware of any problems, was out of the office for a couple of days for his daughter's graduation, but would most definitely get back with me on Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon I called once again. No answer. Monday, I called and spoke with Alfredo who informed me of the situation. He said he would tell his partner to refund immediately. I called his partner today, since I had no correspondence, to only be told that a refund would not be processed until most likely next Monday. Does this runaround and delay sound responsible? It certainly has not been handled 'as quickly as possible' which I would expect of a reputable auction dealer."

"Certainly sloppy is better than dishonest but we do not need to make excuses for business practices that make it hard to tell the difference. I hear about a seller being a one man operation as if that is a good reason not to keep records or hire a secretary."

"I've had some issues with Agora in the past (the usual chasing for response and updates)."

"I'm so tired of hearing 'we had a computer problem', or so-and-so has been on vacation. Whatever happened to honor and trustworthiness and honesty? Whatever happened to responsibility?"

"I even called Alfred and he told me to shoot him an email which I did within an hour. That was August 5! Have followed up several times as I'm trying to buy an unsold lot. Here I am a customer trying desperately to give them money and I can't get through. Being a business owner myself it's hard to wrap my head around this."

From Ken Dorney: "I am sorry anyone has had to deal with any situation like this (and it may not surprise anyone that I am no longer running auctions on that platform). It's just a sad situation."

Someone in response to a post by Alfred: "for better or for worse your reputation is being tried on this list and is coming up a bit short. Physical pain and mental anguish are two sides of the same coin. If the coin in question was in your possession as you say, and was sold at auction to a client who had paid early, how do you account for the fact that it was not sent to him in the first place? Is or was there something about your system for keeping track of such things that does not give priority to those who pay promptly? Whether or not you choose to respond to that, PLEASE tell us as potential buyers if there is anything we can say or do to help prevent such a thing from happening again. Please? Transparency is preferable to discovery."

"A month now, and although I've paid immediately after Mr De La Fe had contacted me, I have no news from him since, not a single word saying they have sent the parcel or anything relevant...three months later, Still nothing !! No answers to emails, not a word (I don't even dream of an apologetic message anymore). My feeling now is that I've been stolen 400 bucks.I don't understand such contempt towards customers."

"I can't deny that Agora's bad reputation has kept me from ever bidding with them."

"Agora Auctions seems to be clueless, about how to run a business."

"I honestly do not think they are dishonest, just disorganized."

"I really do not understand how they can maintain their business."

As I'm sure you already know, if you put the purchase on your credit card, you can always deny payment of the items not received.

Oh man, but it looks like they are still in business so there is hope. I'm sure you'll be fine. Keep us posted.

Yep I'm trying @ks.

More patience and consideration than he deserves. It's been what? Four months now?! You're such a kind man, Dave.

I am very happy to report that I now have all of the items that I won back in April. Whew!

I'm not part of the Amazon gimmie-my-order-in-24-hours-or-else generation, but 5+ months seems a bit excessive to me.

What matters is that you got everything, though. :)

Well I've sat out the past couple of their auctions and will continue to do this for at least a while. I think that @kush's words upthread were exactly correct:




I've been shifting a bit to the auctions of SARC and Elsen over the past couple years and guess that I'll continue that trend.