Hill Auction Gallery — Attraction in Sunrise

I won two small jewelry items in their September sale. The first invoice from Emily left out one item that I won, after I contested, Emily put the second item into my invoice. It turned out that they had an error in the auction and gave the item to another person, which was sloppy on their part. And Emily became rude and difficult from that point and on esp. when I asked to use my own shipping label with insurance coverage instead of using their in-house shipping. She tried to talk over me and even hung up on me. She first agreed to charge $45 for handling in order to ship with my label and I have invoice to prove it. The ironic thing is that the auction catalogue clearly states "Hill Auction Gallery will offer in-house continental USA shipping for $25 plus insurance", meaning they will rip you off if you use your own label. After I wired over a 5-figure payment to their account, Emily changed her story and told me the $45 only covers the packing of the two small items (less than 1.5 inches in size) and they won’t help to ship the package. I ended up paying extra $20 for the third-party shipper to pick up the package and ship it for me, which was a very stressful experience. Emily even stopped me from speaking to the owner (Michael Hill) directly. Eventually, I conveyed my concern to Michael via a different staff member when Emily was out for errand. Michael called back and addressed the issue. A couple of months later I called the auction to place an absentee bid. But guess what happened? Emily answered the phone. When I asked to place the bid, Emily didn’t say it was late for registration instead, she asked if I bid before with the auction. After she checked the record and realized the “history” we had, she showed her true color again and put me on hold and never came back to the phone. Instead, she texted me to refuse my bids with an excuse that I was too late for the absentee bidding, which is unprofessional and rude. In fact, I called an hour before the auction started and there is no deadline specified in their terms and policy. With much frustration, I called the auction multiple times hoping to speaking to Michael. Of course, my call was never picked up. I also followed up with an email to Michael, but I received no response.

UPDATE 1: After the incident, Michael called and tried to symbolically resolve the issue. He admitted that Emily’s handling was inappropriate and would like to continue the business relationship. He also asked me to contact him directly via his personal cellphone or email for auction information going forward. All this effort turned out to be a ploy to let me change my initial google review (see update 2).

UPDATE 2: When I tried to register for their December auction (auction date Dec 15), my registration was never approved even after I tried to reach out to Michael directly on both Dec 14 and Dec 15. Apparently, he doesn’t want my business as he claimed.

Conclusion: I rarely give online reviews, and this is not intended to gain any leverage but to share my negative experience with Hill Auction. I have maintained a good relationship with all the auctions that I have done business with except this one. I will not do business again with...

Let me start off by saying that Hill Auction Gallery is outstanding. I have bought and sold with the major auction houses in New York and London, so I was more than pleasantly surprised when I moved to Florida to see the professionalism and high number of quality items they auction off at least once a month, if not more often.

Everyone who works there could not be nicer or more helpful. At the front desk, you will be greeted by Mia, who is a walking encyclopedia of all the items going up for auction. She is beyond sweet, patient, accommodating and wonderful. Michael Hill the owner, is a very cool, chill, nice guy and so connected in the Florida high net world, that the estates he gets consigned are world class.

Although the bar they have in consigning your items is relatively high, you should not however hesitate on anything you may want to get an appraisal on as the gentlemen in charge of giving you valuations will treat your assets in the same way that they would treat a $100,000 painting.

I cannot say enough good enough things about Hill Auction Gallery as I have personally spent a few thousand dollars there getting what I think were terrific deals on some Ralph Lauren lamps and oil paintings I acquired, so I put my money where my mouth is.

Try them out. You will not be...

I was asked by an older friend to serve as the executor of his estate. He recently passed away and I had to begin the process of emptying his apartment to sell it. There was a life-time of memories there, including art, jewelry, china, crystal, etc. Since he had no family who would take these items and he lived in a building that wouldn't allow an estate sale, I had to find another way to quickly dispose of everything while maximizing the return on his belongings.

I called Hill Auction Gallery. Shane and Shawn responded immediately. They were respectful of my friend's property, explained how they would handle everything, and gave me a price that included removing even the junk. Other firms I called were clear. They only wanted the best of the best, leaving me with no other option than to consider the majority of the household goods as junk and to call another firm and pay it to remove and trash things that still had a lot of life and beauty. On top of that, Shane and Shawn are NICE. They project competence, experience and caring.

I highly recommend Hill...