My experience with Catawiki In addition to many pros and benefits not mentioned here that Catawiki provides to a buyer and a bidder, the following are my observations, experiences, suggestions and comments where there is space for improvement. While some of these issues may be how Catawiki chooses to run their auctions, so not everything below are to be improved and are not necessarily cons. While Catawiki considers my review a negative review, I consider it a review and a constructive criticism, while in many cases such consumer reviews help companies improve their UI/UX and are otherwise costly if the company had to hire a consultant. After a recent "upgrade" in the autumn of 2022 it has become harder to get around the Catawiki interface. Now there is more secrecy and inconvenience for buyers (bidders) since the auction bidder and winner can no longer see the sellers name and address nor contact each other even after the buyer pays for their order. Why was this change made to HIDE sellers name and address? The descriptions of many of the lots are lacking grading (condition) for numismatic items and even when asked some sellers fail to provide grading (condition) information in an appropriate manner, not just write "it is in nice" condition. Catawiki experts say that they don't want IBNS grading in the item description if the item is not graded by an independent party (slabbed, encapsulated) such as for instance - PMG or PCGS. Thus Catawiki gives preference to independent graders (which often make mistakes in identifying and grading paper money and banknotes) rather than IBNS grading standards. The imposed 51 word limit in the item description for Sellers does not always allow to explain the condition of the item and to include detailed description in some cases when the item is not new. No wonder sellers write "it is nice" instead of describing the condition in very detail since the 51 word limit often prevents to fully describe the item. And if you are trying to begin selling on Catawiki, keep in mind, the seller sign up process may be long, slow and even dysfunctional in places. Catawiki requires the seller to provide their ID that shows both sides of the id such as drivers license or a passport, but then when they are provided a large image of the id both sides they reply they are unable to read it! Then they ask for a second document proving your residential status and street address and you are also asked to register for German LUCID number even if you're not living in Germany and even if you are a private seller just wanting to sell off some of your collection or a single car. Registering for German LUCID is extremely complicated process with confusing instructions. Catawiki finds something to deny you like the size of your ID photo which is 1000 pixels large and yet they are unable to read it!? Finally after providing like a 5th or 6th document, which was an el. Power bill, they finally approved the sale. One seller's money are not being released and I wrote to the support asking why they are holding to his money since I received the goods already a week ago. Catawiki just released his money after a week after the shipment was marked as DELIVERED. Another seller's money were on hold for about 2 weeks after they completed delivery of their under-delivered products. That's a long time for the seller to wait to have their money released. There seems to be too little discipline among some sellers and buyers at Catawiki. Some sellers take many days or weeks to ship out the sold items and some buyers are slow to pay for their won items and take weeks to do that. One buyer took entire 3 weeks to pay and they paid on the very last legally allowed day, thus causing some relisting problems to the seller. Yet most buyers and sellers seems to be just fine with dispatch. If a buyer (winning bidder) does not receive their shipment within 25 days after payment and does not submit a "CLAIM" to Catawiki, Catawiki pays the seller even if the goods are NOT delivered to the buyer yet. Then the buyer has to contact and deal with the seller instead of being protected by Catawiki all the way until the goods are delivered. Although Catawiki assures the seller that they will pay the seller only after the gods are delivered, but on the contrary a buyer seems to only be protected against non-delivery for the first 25 days! And how about those buyers who live in more remote destinations and if there is slow delivery of mail that takes months? There are also the following issues at Catawiki: 1. Catawiki software is adding 1:35 min of extra bidding time once the Auction clock reaches around 00:50 or even 00:30 till the end of each auction. Sometimes they add 1:35 min once and sometimes twice and even three or many more times. It's frustrating to see the bid you have placed and then you have to wait several more minutes again and again and you are late to participate in other auctions or elsewhere. I am no auction software expert, but this feature clearly serves Catawiki and the sellers to extract as much profit as possible, while they forget that without bidders there will be NO auctions at all. I personally do not like the Extended Bidding feature, especially when it is extended multiple times, because it looks a bit shady and I am often late to participate in other auctions. Bidders should be encouraged and not discouraged by repeat Extended Bidding functionality. 2. Many photos on Catawiki are way too small in order for the bidders to see the items in fine detail before they bid. One of the sellers I bid on is reusing the same photos for his next auctions and as a result I received some really bad quality material that was not reflected in the photos or in the description. Catawiki were notified and agreed that sellers should not reuse photos as that borders on fraud, but Catawiki did nothing about it and the seller keeps reusing the photos for his other auctions. 3. There are numerous broken links leading to dead pages or dead ends on Catawiki. After being notified Catawiki did nothing to repair those links and pages. One of the broken page examples: On the Buyers Terms page the highlighted MY WON LOTS link at the bottom of that page leads to the URL: /buyer/orders but that page says PAGE NOT FOUND. Catawiki support blames my browser for their broken link. 4. Some of the tracking links on Catawiki are malformed and create unnecessary tensions between sellers and buyers and time is wasted because wrong information is provided by Catawiki. 5. While the Buyer (bidder) is expected and is required to pay within 3 days, the Seller is allowed much longer time (3 business days or longer) in order to ship the goods (some sellers take a week or 2 weeks or longer to dispatch the goods) and some sellers even manipulate tracking numbers in order to gain more time to ship the goods to the winning bidder (Buyer). 6. Some Catawiki sellers do not combine shipping charges on multiple won lots, as they are allowed to do that, adding up to some fantastically large amounts for shipping! Some charge way too much and make profit on shipping and some sellers do not want to refund the excessive part of their shipping charges. 7. Catawiki requires the buyer (winning bidder) to pay for the won lots within 3 days. Not 3 business days, but 3 consecutive days! The PROBLEM is that if there is a problem on a Friday evening, a buyer has until Monday to pay for the won items, while Catawiki Support replies to messages after 48 hours or after several days. By then the Buyer becomes delinquent with his payment, while still waiting for Catawiki support's reply since the seller can not be contacted before payment is submitted. It becomes a closed circle. Seller can only be contacted after payment is submitted by the buyer and buyer is unable to pay if a problem arises, while the support can not be contacted by chat within 24 hours or within minutes. 8. Seller can not be contacted (to request to combine shipping costs, to clarify condition or description of the items etc.) until the auction is over and the winning bidder submit their full payment. That's extremely inconvenient and unfair to the bidder. 9. Catawiki begins to send PAYMENT OVERDUE notices to winning buyers 24 hours after the auction ends! While the winning buyer must pay within 3 days of the auction ending, they have 3 whole days to pay, but Catawiki considers they can begin sending DAILY emails to the buyer starting with day one! Even on weekends! Catawiki sent me an OVERDUE email only about 15 hours after the auction ended! The email said that my payment is now 1 day overdue! That's ridiculous and borders on extortion. 10. BEWARE VAT (Sales Tax)! You will have to pay extra (often 25% more or less) VAT (or sales tax) in addition to shipping charge and 9% seller's fee. 11. You can not cancel your auction bid even if you made an innocent mistake. 12. Some winning bids (sales) have "PROVIDE FEEDBACK" button activated, while others don't, while they are all not received yet. What's going on here? 13. There's a possibility to receive an empty box (or envelope) or only part of your goods, so my advice is to always make a video of unboxing your package. Happened to me a couple times already. Catawiki support did not help me at all. They took 7 days to reply to my urgent case where an empty envelope with contents missing has arrived cut open with postal person as a witness! They instead IGNORED my submitted evidence and demanded unreasonable number of photos, ignoring that it was not a box but an envelope with just one small paper collectable inside of it that was missing. They demanded me to weight that envelope as if you can weigh a 1 gram item? Post office does NOT accept claims form recipients! And Catawiki ignored the document provided by our Postal Service with signatures and statements and a live witness from post office delivery staff! 14. A frequent event is when you submit a "claim" to Catawiki in order to keep on receiving their delivery support beyond the 25 days you get blocked form Catawiki for at least 5 minutes and Catawiki has not fixed this problem after s many times they were notified about this: "Access Denied You don't have permission to access "http://www.catawiki.com/en/fulfilment/buyer/orders" on this server." 15. Catawiki support now takes weeks to reply and many questions and inquiries as well as complaints are left unaddressed. For example, my inquiry regarding overcharged and overpaid EXCESSIVE shipping charges by Catawiki sellers remains unanswered by Catawiki even that in their rules they state that sellers can not overcharge for shipping and that all significant overcharges should be reported to Catawiki and they say they will make sure the sellers refund the excess amount, but lately - No reply from Catawiki, just plain ignorance and silence. For example the seller has charged €15 but spent just around €6 which incliudes also envelope and even some money for driving to the post office. Why would I be paying extra €10 for nothing? What I like about Catawiki is a low 9% bidder's fee and the support is quite responsive. UPDATE (JANUARY 2023): Now the support has become non-responsive at all! I also like that the money is paid to the seller only after the goods are delivered although now Catawiki take a week to pay the Seller after their shipment is marked as Delivered and some sellers complain to have never received their money. Yet I hope that in case of non-delivery the goods are fully insured and the seller is fully compensated for the loss. My research is still in the making since I am quite new at Catawiki and I will frequently update my review. Tip for consumers: Do not bid on the seller's listings who do not combine shipping charges for several winnings or you will end up paying a huge and very unreasonable shipping charge which can not always be refunded! Also do not bid on sellers who are outside of your country or you will be paying a huge VAT! There is no way to ask the seller for a larger photo, to tell more details, for the mail service or speed courier name or anything else, before you bid!