Posted 01/12/2011 2:32 pm
Most of the major auction houses discourage or restrict the use of credit cards. It wasn't that long alo that none of them would accept them. I would say the concern is card fraud or the possibility of charge backs after the coins have been shipped. The credit check is also standard practice. If the auction house is going to accept your bids they want to make sure you are likely to honor them. Because if you don't they have wasted their time and they could have sold the coin to the underbidder who WOULD have paid. If you are not already a client and you're trying to get approved and it is close to the auction date you can usually get around the credit check by making a deposit with the house equal to 25% of your bid total.
If you read the terms of sale for any of the major auction houses you will find that they are all pretty much the same, and there are other terms in there that are a lot more worrisome than those two. Such as slabbed coins not being returnable for any reason, and you will note that almost every coin in the auctions nowadays are slabbed.
If you read the terms of sale for any of the major auction houses you will find that they are all pretty much the same, and there are other terms in there that are a lot more worrisome than those two. Such as slabbed coins not being returnable for any reason, and you will note that almost every coin in the auctions nowadays are slabbed.
