Bidder Reviews for Akiba Galleries (1,583)

Overall smooth transaction; their partner shippers did an excellent job on my fragile purchase.

I purchased two Waterford sconces from Akiba, which were represented to be in "excellent" condition. Prior to their being shipped, I contacted both Akiba as well as their shipping company and asked them to be sure that all parts were included, particularly all prisms and the proprietary Waterford mounting plates that are always a part included with the sconces and are needed to connect them to the electrical box. There is no way to mount them without these and they are not available for purchase. I was assured by Akiba as well as UPS that they were being shipped. Upon receipt of delivery of the sconces, the sconces were missing three hanging prisms, both of the 5 "mounting plates were missing, the wiring was in very poor, shredded condition and there was chipping. No reputable auctioneer or layman would represent these as excellent. In fact, they are in poor condition. A fair, honest and responsible auctioneer would inform the bidder of serious imperfections, missing pieces or damage. In total, I have spent close to $1000.00 for sconces that cannot be mounted, are chipped and have poor, shredded wiring. I contacted both Akiba and the UPS store, and Akiba has not even given me the courtesy of a response. My activities with LiveAuctioneers are readily available to you. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars on your website and have never made a complaint, recognizing that the merchandise is antique and/or used. However, falsely representing the condition of any lot and its completeness demonstrates a lack of integrity and is grossly unfair. I simply requested that I be provided with the missing prisms and the mounting plates and I would be satisfied. I did not even receive the courtesy of a response from Akiba. This situation has caused me to be insecure with Live Auctioneers, concerned that this may happen again. I am very reluctant to continuing bidding on the site. There has to be some accountability. If there is any way you can assist me regarding this sit

My vision is not the best, so I may have missed the bit of damage on the piece of porcelain I purchased, but there was yet another piece that was broken, and when I unwrapped the piece, the broken part fell out onto my rug. I was disappointed, but really could not complain too much.

I have purchased many items from them and have always been happy. Great place I can trust and they aren't hiding anything like some auction houses do. Thanks

They were quite helpful with shipping my won items. The packing was great. Everything arrived safe and sound. Thank you guys.

I continally email them and no one got back to me. I wasn't sure what I won and if I paid for them. I received an email saying that I owed them money for an auction which I thought that I paid for (not knowing what items they were) but no one responded to my email.

Auction house did shipping "in house" and was extremely reasonable with cost-which makes me really want to buy from them again-high shipping costs with third party shippers are always a problem-so this experience was refreshing.

One of the best small/medium size businesses on LA. Very ethical owner.

Well done-thanks

Very friendly and easy transaction.

The figurine which I purchased was well packaged, but the shipping was considerably more (about four times more) than I was originally quoted by Akiba Antiques. Also, I did watch the auction live and noticed that, although bidding started at $500, my "Live Auctioneers" high bid of $1, 700 was immediately bid by the brokerage service. This caused the competitor bidding to increase quite rapidly and I eventually had to enter a live bid of $2, 200 to win the item. I had hoped that the broker would increase the bidding incrementally and not immediately enter my $1, 700 maximum.