digger27
Bronze Member
- May 18, 2011
- 1,506
- 3,225
What I don't understand, is why the storage unit owner wouldn't look them over before selling.
Large facilities perhaps wouldn't have time, but for the price of a padlock, I would cherry pick before selling.
I was in the storage business for a few years and managed a a few properties and lived in an apartment with 400 of these things on site and was witness to many of these auctions and the behavior of the people at these auctions.
You could hit it big with coins, jewelry or something else if you are lucky, they call it 'Hitting a lick", but sometimes you might end up with a bunch of junk that you have to pay more money just to haul this stuff to the dump.
If you don't have any way to sell this stuff you now own that could also be a problem even if it is worth some money.
The reality show participants always seem to find some sort of expert to tell them what they actually have but this is not so easy to do without the resources of a tv network or a large group of tv producers to help.
Also, some of the things they find on those shows might have worth and that is the totals they show, (sometimes true, sometimes a fantasy), but if you can't find a buyer that stuff in reality is worth nothing.
Most buyers used to be owners of resale shops and bought these to stock their stores.
After the reality shows came on tv the numbers of bidders multiplied by many times and things are different now because of all these newbies not knowing what they are doing, all hoping for that big lucky score and causing fights fights and bad feelings with the regulars because the cost of the units have gone much higher now that they are in there bidding...sometimes bidding way higher than the unit is worth and then dropping out.
Why don't the owners cherry pick?
Because doing this is highly illegal.
I am not saying this doesn't happen, in the smaller individually owned properties they probably do, but in the storage business you are dealing with other peoples property and if all paperwork is not done exactly right, all notifications are sent in a timely manner and all auctions are not held on the up and up there is always the possibility the storage facility can be sued.
The larger chains will usually not take the chance and will fire any employee they find doing this.
Several times the original owners of the units attempt to buy back their own units by proxy cheaper than the bill they owe and if they do and if there is stuff missing there could be problems.
Here is a typical auction and an insight to what goes on at these things.
Launch player then go to 7:30 for the NPR story "Needle in a crapstack".
Contents Unknown | This American Life
Transcript here if you want to read it...
Transcript | This American Life
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