Whomever in the county/state has oversight of auctioneers' licenses might like to know the sequence of events too.

Stuff happens, it was sold prior, sounds like it was incorrectly listed as available based on items presented by the seller, who, failed to notify the auction house it was already sold and to remove it from the list.

Not telling the truth of what happened is problematic, makes you wonder what else they don't tell you about items.

Chock it up to a learning experience and move on, theres nothing to gain financially, you can't get the item, no money exchanged, and no attorney will take a case you'd have to go to small claims court and plead a case about lost income that day, of which you'll spend several days dealing with that, losing more money.

A bit of an update.

Owner of the auction company called me. I'm not the only buyer dealing with this.

The person who hired the auction company co-owns the building with others. He hires the auctioneer who meets him there roughly 30 days ago to inventory and photograph everything for the auction which is held online.

Auction company never returns to the building until morning of pick up. Auctioneer is out of town on other business.

Other people arriving to pick up their items are finding out it's not there, and again a lot of this stuff is large, heavy industrial equipment which would not easily grow legs. Auctioneer contacts building owner who contracted with him, and is on site. This is the source of the incorrect and changing stories being relayed to buyers.

Seems as if another co-owner of the building had been visiting the site within that 30 day period and selling whatever he could for cash. I'm not so sure he had any legal authority to do so, and was likely "stealing".

Auctioneer has done this for decades, never had any issues of similar extent, is aware of the damage to his reputation and the loss of money. Said the person who contracted him and who was on site had been screaming, yelling, and cussing at his staff and others who were asking where their items were.

Sounds to me as if the business partners involved in the building are having a dispute, stealing from one another, and trying to get as much as they can before it all falls apart.

Auctioneer provided me with the contact information for the person who contracted them, suggesting that I should go after him for any losses.

This sounds like a no win situation. Your definitely not going to get any reimbursement for lost expenses. Even if you would sue a business which is/going bankrupt you would be at the bottom of the list for repayments. You could never prove if the business partners are stealing as you have no right to see a business contract if there even is one. Who even knows if this partner even has the right sell the items at auction.

I would think this is similar to a parent dying and one of the siblings hires a company to have an estate sale without gaining consent from the others. What proof of ownership does an auction or estate sale company require before selling off the property?

I would think that the Auction houses contract prevents them from selling any equipment, inventory, etc that has been listed with them, since it causes many problems from lost income on the item to damage to the reputation.

If anyone should be going after the consignor its the auction house.