José Manuel C.

Catawiki has got a sketchy, unreliable, unresponsive support and a failing website that is often missing important functional parts that are necessary to contact the support and to view account features etc.

Theworldbanknoteshop.com does not reply to inquiries and did not tell me where they ship from. They are hiding their location country and thus I don't know whether I will have to pay Customs duties or not. Since I live in an EU country I prefer to buy from a dealer within the EU, but this dealer is hiding not only their identity such as their name, but also a country of their dispatch. That is unfair and suspicious behavior. Theworldbanknoteshop.com is also known to steal materials from other website, which has been reported by other users who were victims of TheWorldBanknoteShop.con.

Please take a look at the attached screenshot. Upon attempting to place an order TheWorldBanknoteShop demands to select the check box "I agree to the terms of service..." but when I tried to read their terms of service, the pages appears to not exist! How can one AGREE to something that does not exist!? This website owner is hiding their full name and location country for some reason. Beware of these crooks! I suspect they are located in Spain since even after selecting ENGLISH version of their website it frequently reverts to its Spanish version.

PROS: None

CONS:

1. You have to provide credit card information even before you can bid. Registration to bid requires a credit card. No mention of debit cards.

2. In addition to the 20% winner's charge there's also a Consignor's Fee of 10% (or 5%) for lots below $500. To add insult to injury there's also a 3% charge if you pay with a credit card, which is the only payment method (apart from cash payment such as cash in mail or bank wire transfer) accepted by this auctioneer. Expect to be charged up to 33% extra or MORE after you win since there's also VAT and Customs charges.

3. The registration functionality is really sloppy and register button leads to nowhere at first.

4. Starting bids are already too high while none of the starting bids start at $1 or €1 and are set at already full value or even higher than usual full value.

5. Site design is really unattractive and unintuitive.

Since I decided to not participate in Punctum auctions I did not inspect the rest of their interface functionality and user experience.

Thank you for your help in identifying my currency! Tom was very knowledgeable and helpful assisting me in my appraisal and purchase of a couple notes from their online shop.