Jewelry auctioneer demands apology
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Lana
Haight |
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The
StarPhoenix |
Saturday, October 27, 2007
An
Ontario-based auctioneer who held a high-end jewelry sale in Saskatoon is
demanding the provincial government apologize and pay him thousands of dollars
after his company received bad publicity prompted by a government alert.
"Basically
the suggestion to the buyer was to be careful, that some kind of fraudulent
activity was going on," said auctioneer Jim Mirkalami,
who works for Heritage Auctioneers Alberta Ltd.
On
Oct. 21 at the Saskatoon Inn, Mirkalami set out to
auction more than 200 pieces of "high value jewelry confiscated for
non-payment." He says it cost him $12,000 to run the sale in Saskatoon and
he wants compensation from the province and from a radio reporter who attended
the auction.
"There
was a lot of interest in diamonds, but we didn't sell as much as we sell in
other places," said Mirkalami.
On
Oct. 19, two days before the sale, the consumer protection branch of
Saskatchewan Justice issued a buyer-beware alert.
The
branch's deputy registrar, Larry Wilson, called The StarPhoenix
to say consumers should be warned that Heritage Auctioneers Alberta Ltd. did
not have a licence to hold the auction, nor had it
posted a bond. He also said he told the company it would be contravening the
province's auction regulations if it proceeded with the sale. Wilson said
consumers would not be protected if they were dissatisfied with their purchases.
But
on Friday, Mirkalami said he had complied with
Saskatchewan law. He provided documents to The StarPhoenix
supporting his position.
An
application for an auction licence, with a
handwritten licence number, is stamped as received by
Saskatchewan Justice on Oct. 11. Mirkalami paid
Saskatchewan Justice a $625 licence fee using a Visa
card on Oct. 16, according to a credit card receipt. And Heritage Auctioneers
Alberta Ltd. posted a $25,000 bond with a company in Edmonton on Sept. 24,
naming the Saskatchewan government as the "obligee."
About
40 people attended the auction and few of the 220 items actually sold, says Mirkalami.
"It
was a low turnout. I'm used to seeing 100-plus (people) in Saskatoon," he
said, adding he has more than 15 years' experience as an auctioneer and has
held many jewelry auctions in Saskatoon, under the company name of Bloomsbury
and Butterfield.
Mirkalami, a certified appraiser, says any item
appraised by him is guaranteed by the company.
On
Friday, the registrar of Saskatchewan Justice's consumer protection branch, Al
Dwyer, said the provincial election campaign prohibited him from commenting on Mirkalami's concerns, other than to say the case was being
investigated.
"The
public service, for the most part, cannot be dealing with the media and only on
exceptional circumstances can that happen," said Dwyer, who defended the
deputy registrar's decision to call The StarPhoenix a
week earlier, also during the election campaign.
"That
was a regulatory matter and we needed to get the message out to the
public," he said. "That happened to be, from our perspective, an
exceptional circumstance."
Source: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/news/story.html?id=f5137754-7d3e-49d3-bc9e-1fc8c74bf4f7