In the past couple months I have participated in quite a few auctions. I have bought things and sold things, and definitely have lost out on MANY things.

In the past couple weeks I have both won items and sold items, and in both cases, am left asking a couple questions.

Now, I am not going to name names, mainly because I feel that it is any business’ right to charge whatever it wishes, but I also have the right as a customer to stop doing business with anybody I choose. (It hasn't come to that yet, but it might some day soon)

For my first question, I will indirectly ask the auction house who charged me a $60 processing fee to sell my items, why they feel the need to charge me this fee?

I understand that there are many costs into producing an auction, but why wouldn’t the company just incorporate all fees in the sellers’ fee?

As if the 15 and 20 percent it took from the final sale price wasn’t bad enough, the company also charged me this extra chunk of change.

Not a big deal, but seemed kind of petty to me.

On the buyer side I also have a question to a different auction house. I bought a nice signed book about a month ago. If I were to ship an item like this it cost me about five bucks. I understand that the workers at the auction have to pick the item out of inventory and that costs money, but I was charged $15 for shipping and an additional $10 service charge. I just about dropped out of my chair.

Anyway, all this isn’t that big of a deal. In fact, all this didn’t stop me from bidding in Mastro’s sale that ended last night. I even was fortunate enough to win the pictured Babe Ruth Called Shot ticket stub.

Happy hunting folks. Have a great weekend!