More customers accuse a traveling auction of tricking them into spending a lot of money for jewelry and paintings worth very little

CBS News

6 days ago

A Rolex worth $55,000 going for $6,500. An authentic Andy Warhol Superman silkscreen print going for $10,000. These were pitches made to two customers at pop-up auctions near Cleveland, Ohio, and San Diego, California, recently that were too good to pass up.
Later, both customers found out the deals were also too good to be true.
One Sunday in early March, a suburban Cleveland couple was out running errands when they came across a sign about a "Law Enforcement Seizure Auction" being held somewhere nearby. The list of items going up for sale caught their attention.
"They had advertised a lot of watches, jewelry, a Blue McLaren — and we decided to call the number to see where the auction was," said the customer who didn't want to be identified publicly.
A short time later, they got a call back and learned the auction was going to be held at a Marriott in Warrensville Heights. So they went.
They saw the sports car parked outside.
Inside, they noticed paintings, jewelry, and the fancy refreshments.
"They were serving champagne and wine to the bidders," the customer said.
Then the excitement began to build,
"The bids were starting and people kept bidding up and higher and higher, and there was that usual sound of, 'Sold!'" the customer said. "It all seemed so real at the moment."
Earlier, they had spotted a watch to bid on. The customer described it as "a beautiful, diamond-studded Rolex."
The auctioneer told a sweet story about the watch and it's value before the bidding began.
"He basically mentioned the watch was bought by some Wall Street guy for his wife and it could be worth $55,000," the customer said.
And, when it came up for bid, the customer said: "The auctioneer started with a minimum bid of $3,000. Very quickly the bid went up to $6,000."
The Cleveland-area man added an additional $500 and won the bid at $6,500.
"I was very happy because I just bought my first Rolex for my wife," he said.
They received the appraisal report after the sale. It noted the value at $19,200
"We thought it was a steal," the customer said.
It was a similar story a month later across the country in a hotel near San Diego, California.
Vartan Messier and his wife had also never attended an auction before. So when they saw the signs advertising "All Certified" items that were "Assets Seizures" from the "U.S. Dept. of Legal Impound" being auctioned to the highest bidder, they bit.
Messier called the number and learned the auction was being held at the Del Mar Hilton.
When they arrived, Messier said, "We saw there were a lot of artwork by modern artists. Seems to be authentic as some of them had certificates of authenticity on the back of them. They had origination documents. There was jewelry and they provided appraisals for all the jewelry."
Messier spotted an Andy Warhol Superman silkscreen print that he saw online could sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
"I double checked whether or not it was an original, authenticated print," he said. "When they came to ask for my credit card, I asked for the providence document and the appraisal. They said, 'Everything's included.'"
Messier bid $8,000 and won. With taxes and fees, he paid a total of $10,005.
"I said, well, that's a pretty good deal I got," said Messier.
CBS News Chicago reported on these traveling auctions in January 2025 after hearing from a woman who also spent a lot of money on jewelry and artwork that turned out to be worth much less than she paid.
A deep dive into licensing documentation, business registries and court cases revealed a 30-year history of penalties, suspensions and expired licenses.
That company is tied to more than a dozen other business names, including several other auctions. One of them is U.S. Trustee Auctions.
That is the auction company that held the July 2024 auction in Northbrook that CBS News Chicago attended.
It's also the same name used by the auctions held this year in Del Mar, California, and Warrensville Heights, Ohio.
The men who attended the auctions in each of those places reported that the auctioneer from their auctions was the same as well. It was Anwar Khan.
Vartan Messier and the man from suburban Cleveland found the CBS News Chicago reports from earlier this year, but not until after they had already purchased the Warhol and the watch.
Messier reached out to a Los Angeles gallery that specializes in Warhol prints, and sent photos of his purchase and the authentication stamp on the back to a gallery representative.
"He said: 'This is not an authentic Warhol. The colors are all wrong, and the ways in which the positioning of part of the print is incorrect,'" Messier said.
Messier tried disputing his American Express charge, but was unable to do so quickly because the charge was still pending.
He discovered similar reprints selling on eBay for less than he paid — for example, $2,000. He believes his print is worth much less than that.
"Maybe $200," Messier said. "Whatever someone is willing to pay for an inauthentic Warhol."
In suburban Cleveland, the customer filed a police report claiming fraud. In the narrative of an officer's investigation, it's noted what a gallery owner who looked at the watch the man bought in person said: "[T]he watch has mismatched Rolex parts, but does not appear to all be original.… The certificate of authenticity was meaningless as it was not a real authenticator."
In addition, that jeweler used a gold tester and "confirmed there was no gold in the band," and 'the link attachment to the case crumbled" when he removed the band.
In other areas of concern the jeweler noted, the crystal glass did not appear to be real and was cemented on, and the mother of pearl belonged to a different watch series. The jeweler said the watch appeared to be old, made in the 1960s, but "has had multiple parts replaced, or repaired since."
The watch also notes two different model numbers, neither of which are the model number shown on the auction's appraisal document.
"What's damning to me is that they still continue to operate," said Messier.
That's because although the two men filed police reports and complaints with federal and consumer agencies, many people in their situations do not.
"For every 10 people who experience a scam, maybe only one or two might file a complaint with a government agency," said Chuck Bell, programs director for advocacy at Consumer Reports. "So that's one of the things that slows down accountability when people don't come forward and don't speak out,"
Bell said when more consumers speak up, laws can be changed or strengthened.
"We may not have the exact laws on the books that we need to protect people in the way they should be protected," he said.
With help from the Delaware Better Business Bureau, Messier eventually received a refund of the entire $10,005 from U.S. Trustee Auctions and returned the Warhol.
The Cleveland couple is still waiting and hoping for their refund.
A source familiar with Anwar Khan and his brother, Azam, said the auctions stopped briefly after the January reporting, picked back up in the spring, but are currently paused again.
The Khans' company, Neoclassic Auctions, was suing the customer in CBS News Chicago's January reports for defamation. The Khans wanted $2 million at first and for her to sign a non-disclosure agreement. But in late June, they refused a court order to answer her lawyer's questions in a video-recorded deposition, so their lawyer had to drop the lawsuit.