I had the misfortune to deal with an auctioneer that advertises in the Gaston Gazette as Carolina Dollar Discount and Auction located at 1310 E. Ozark Ave, Gastonia. The auctioneer is Eddie Ray Lambert, license #7910. I found him to be a person of poor character and business practices.
Occasionally, I try to make some extra money on weekends selling items at a flea market; the easiest way to make any semblance of profit is to buy a pallet load of return and overstock items at auction and sell them individually. Finding an auction with appropriate merchandise usually involves driving a long distance and spending several hundred dollars.
While visiting relatives, I met a man that auctioned off the type of items I was interested in. He said he held auctions every Friday and Saturday night and that he would be conducting one in two weeks, when I would be in Gastonia again.
Two weeks later, I hitched up the trailer and drove with a friend to his place of business. The auction house was unattended, the door locked, and a note provided a disconnected phone number.inquiries in the neighborhood revealed that he also had another business, one of those variety stores with everything priced at $1.00. I drove there and happened to arrive at the same time he did.
I followed him into the store and, catching up with him, asked if he was going to hold an auction that evening. He replied rather rudely that he was not going to hold one, as he had made an announcement at the previous week's auction. I told him that, being from out of town, I hadn't attended the previous week's auction and that the announcement should have been advertised in the newspaper just as the original auction had been. He replied that that was my problem. I asked if he was willing to sell any pallets of items outright as I had spend $70.00 on gas and would like to try to make it worth the cost of the trip; he got loud and belligerent; I wont print what he said. Rather than make a scene, my friend and I simply left, quite upset. I made every attempt to be reasonable, but was in return treated very badly in front of a number of customers in the store.
I have never had any problems with any other auctioneers in North Carolina, and hope that the experience with Mr. Lambert is an isolated incident.
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