I lived in Minnesota, and for many years conducted high quality auctions. I owned outright (with my wife) a very successful auction company and was a partner in other auction companies. I also contracted to local and national auction companies specializing in antique and classic vehicles. For over 20 years, my wife and I travelled nationwide setting up and conducting vehicle auctions (some of them multi-million dollar). My point in mentioning this is to show that considering the thousands of sales that I was a major player in, I am not only knowledgeable, but very capable in all aspects of the auction business.

Park West Gallery Calling

One evening in December 1998, I was trading information on auctions with various web sites on the internet when I received an e-mail from Jack Sweetman of Park West Gallery in Michigan. He asked if I would send him my telephone number so we could chat about an opportunity.

Before I continue this saga of my experience with Park West Gallery, I would like to clarify my personal situation at that particular time period. I had recently moved to Ramsey, Minnesota from Minneapolis. This move was prompted by a business associate of mine for whom I had conducted several auctions. He owned many investment properties and wanted me to live at one of his properties for a period of time to see if I preferred living in a less populated rural setting as opposed to in the near downtown metro area where I was living at the time. This property was on a main highway from the Mpls/St Paul metro area to anywhere in northern Minnesota. The property was several acres with several hundred feet of highway frontage, was completely fenced and even though it was on a busy highway, still had a peaceful country feeling. It had a wonderful old two-story farmhouse with a basement, a barn, a silo, etc. We loved it and persuaded him to sell it to us. He agreed and we gave him a large down payment. We left our old home and moved most of our valuable antiques and furniture to a storage company a few miles up the highway and started working on the property. We removed the barn and were landscaping and remodeling the interior when winter arrived. This is when I heard from Jack Sweetman.

Jack told me about this fabulous opportunity for a good auctioneer. He asked if I could come to Michigan to meet him and Albert Scaglione, the owner of the company if he paid my expenses and sent me an electronic airline ticket. I agreed and we talked about how lucrative this would be for the right person, etc. Because my wife and I had just used up a considerable chunk of our cash and most of the remainder of our retirement was in the value of the antiques and collectibles we had accumulated over the years, I thought this could be a reasonable and risk-free way to get back to more comfortable financial status.

I flew to Michigan and was picked up by a limo and brought to a hotel where I soon learned I was not alone in this plan. There were several other prospective "auctioneers" there waiting to join the "class". To my knowledge, none of them were actually trained auctioneers. The next day we all took turns meeting "Albert" and Jack Sweetman. Not much was discussed about the details of the job. It was more of a pep talk on how much money Albert had made and how we could all benefit from his genius and foresight. We were told we could make tons of money selling these "rare" works of fine art and live the luxurious life aboard a cruise ship. In private I was asked how much I would need to make if I was chosen for this once in a lifetime opportunity. I said I didn't know if my wife would be comfortable with me leaving for several weeks. They looked surprised and said she could go as my assistant and they would pay all her expenses because that would eliminate the need for them to hire me an assistant from the outside. She could live in my stateroom and we would all benefit. I figured my financial obligations would require me to average $5,000.00 a month so I told them I needed to make $60,000 annually. They smiled and said that was no problem at all. They then kind of looked around as if trying to see if anyone was listening and said that they would never suggest that anyone do this, but they had heard from some people that some auctioneers were opening up bank accounts in some off-shore banks in island countries so they didn't have to report all the money they were making. Your pay would be directly wired to your account no matter where it was. We (the class of auctioneers) heard this quite a few times during training. I never did open a foreign bank account.

I was given a brief tour of Park West Gallery and Jack asked me if I could stay in Michigan and get some training in really fine art. I asked a few questions about ships and schedules, finances, and what to expect. I was told I would train primarily at the Park West Gallery and stay in a house Park West owned and used for group training. He told me I was more qualified than any of the others because of my background and he would see that I was assigned to one of ships with high volume sales and high value art so I could generate higher commissions. He said if I performed well for a year or so I could possibly be given an assignment on one of Crystal Cruises luxury ships as an added bonus. He also stated that the company usually kept you on a ship for about three weeks and then flew you home for at least two weeks before re-assigning you.

All the "auctioneers" who made the grade were told they would work as sales consultants at the main gallery for two weeks and could cover their living expenses with the commissions they earned there. There was a large selection of very expensive art on display at the gallery and I foolishly assumed the art on the ships was comparable and there was a real chance of getting pretty good commissions. I now question the real value (as opposed to the value stated on their in-house appraisals) of any of it at home or at sea. While working the gallery, I noticed nobody ever sold a single piece as long as we were there.

I was supposed to work the gallery for two weeks and then go on a trial cruise for one week on a Carnival ship out of Miami Florida. This was to observe our interaction with the public and our compatibility with life on board a ship. We all flew down to Florida (Park West paid airfare, we all paid everything else) and stayed in a hotel. We were then told by Carnival that we had to take physicals at a certified clinic to pass an "able bodied seaman's" test before going aboard the Carnival ship. I paid for my exam and for those of two others who were broke. On the ship, we roomed in a crew room ( about 8' by 12' ) and had to give the ship's accounting department a cash deposit to cover any expenses we might incur (they do not use cash for on-ship expenses). I had to cover the other two broke people also. The Park West "trainer" was named Bill (Smith) and I understand he is now one of the head people on the staff in Michigan. With a big smile, he asked if we had opened our off-shore accounts yet. He said he could retire with the money he already had in his at that time. The one-week cruise was interesting. We were taught how to sell high dollar framing, how to run the bid to ridiculously high levels and then tell the audience that the piece was really worth that much, but because the gallery had several of these pieces (usually embellished editions) that for him to reach his quota he would waive company policy and if he could sell so many of them, he would "let them go for considerably less than what was bid." He would then call out some phony bidders' numbers to make it appear that others were jumping on the bargain bandwagon. Many times, real people would raise their cards thinking they were taking advantage of the situation. Although most of the pieces that were announced "sold" by the auctioneer were not really sold, Bill probably did quite well because he used the students like us as shills and workers. We set up sales, organized storerooms, moved stock, etc. From Florida we went back to Michigan.

After weeks of paying not only my expenses, but those of two other trainees who were broke, I was ready to hang it up when Jack Sweetman came in and said he didn't believe it but there was a serious health problem with the auctioneer on the Crystal Harmony. Because it was the most prestigious ship in the world, he and Albert had decided they could not entrust their most valuable art collection and their most sophisticated patrons to anyone with any less expertise and experience than me. He said the ship would sail from Acapulco right after New Year's (just a few days away) and I needed to be on it with my wife. All I heard from that point on was how blessed I was and how lucky we were. I was in Southfield, Michigan, my wife was in Minnesota. We both needed passports, immunizations, visas, a little time to pack and make some arrangements. The travel agency next to Park West made feeble attempts at arrangements for me to fly to Acapulco, and my wife was told to get her ticket and meet me there. They would transfer money into her account to pay for her. She was not happy about this and got on the phone and internet and got me a ticket to fly home and both of us tickets from home to Acapulco, all for half the price of my one ticket to Acapulco. Jack told me to go for it and he would try to get the travel agency to let me out of my ticket and would reimburse my wife. I found out later that Park West owns the travel agency. I took care of the other matters (expediting passports at extra cost etc.) and we were on our way to Acapulco (on our own dime).

When we arrived in Acapulco we stayed overnight ( our own money ) and took a cab to the ship. Now it gets interesting.

On Board the Crystal Harmony

Upon arriving at the Crystal Harmony, we met the current auctioneer. As it turned out, the auctioneer with the health problems was her husband and his illness was that he was sick of the runaround he had been subjected to by Park West. Because of threats by Park West he talked his wife into staying until we arrived. She showed us around and explained a few procedures to us and made arrangements to do a complete inventory of stock. We did this in duplicate and each kept a copy. This indoctrination took less than half a day and she left. We were on our own.

Our stateroom was ocean-view on deck 5 and was very nice and convenient. We did not know until this time that not included in the expenses Park West covered were the gratuities which were mandatory and added automatically to our onboard account. This turned out to average over $200 per week. We figured with the amount of money we would be making, we could handle that for three weeks. The first communication I had with Park West was around the first week of February. My wife and I had been kind of kidding about whether they even knew if we were on the ship and functioning. There was a message on our room phone that Jack Sweetman was coming to spend a few days with us to evaluate our work and guide us. When he arrived, he told us he was really only there to go to Carnival in Rio at company expense and there weren't better accommodations than Crystal. He examined our auction stock, displays, promotional pamphlets and told me our stock was in the best condition he had seen on any ship for a long time. Because almost all artwork on the ships is shrink-wrapped in plastic and put in glassless frames, the pieces were hard to maintain because of the abuse from being moved regularly from storage to and from auction sites, displays etc., keeping the plastic and frames looking presentable was a major chore and I was used to doing this from my years of art related auctions. I even owned my own shrink-wrap system at home. Jack came to a few of my auctions and was very complimentary on my work as well as that of my wife.

The "Auctions"

The mechanics of the auction were as follows:

The electronic system consisted of two laptop computers, a printer, and a connection between the two computers. My computer was set on a lectern in front of the audience and my wife had her computer and the printer on her desk next to the audience. She registered the bidders and entered their personal info. My computer had a special program which listed not only every piece of art I had, but many pieces which were back at the gallery. Included in my program was a description of the piece, the artist, the medium, the size, a picture of the piece, an appraisal, and a lot of info to make the auctioneer look like a real expert on everything to do with that particular artist and genre. By pressing a key on the computer, I could pull up a very detailed graph of the financial scheme for the piece. This included the percentages I supposedly would make if I sold it. This percentage varied and usually increased as the price range went higher. My program also showed me how many of each were still at the gallery. Every once in a while (usually several weeks), we would have a small delivery waiting for us at a port, mostly supplies like tape, shrink-wrap, frames, and a computer disk to update the selling program.

When my assistant would bring a piece up to be auctioned, I would key in the number and bring that file up on my screen. I could then speak like an expert on it and start auctioning it. We were taught to have a list of phony bid numbers so we could fake selling a lot of no interest art and make it appear there was genuine interest in it. When I announced the winning bidder by number, my wife would enter the info (bid number, price, etc.) in her computer. At the end of the sale, she could print out an itemized invoice for the bidder. All sales were charged to the patron's ship account. The ship's accountant depended on our sales reports to enter these sales to the passenger bills.

We had a lot of "sacrifice" art which we could use to shock and stimulate the audience. It was usually terribly over-appraised junk abstract art. I would go through the spiel about its value and importance and ask for a bid and when the first person raised a card say "SOLD."

Marooned by Park West

When Carnival at Rio was over, Jack left and we rarely if ever heard from anyone at Park West again. This went on for several months. Keep in mind that the Crystal ships were basically "world cruise venues" and rarely came to the USA. Because the cost of making a telephone call to the USA from the ship was over $12.00 a minute from the time you dialed until you hung up, between trying to get to the proper person at Park West, the voice menu, and hold time, a call could cost the auctioneer hundreds of dollars. When we came to a port, most of the crew tried to use the few scattered pay phones (which did not work most of the time anyway) to call their families. The lines at those phones which worked were hours long and not usually available when the gallery was open, so most of our communication with Park West was by messages left on our cabin phone. We were supposed to try to do most of our paperwork contact with Park West by UPS, FED EX and DHL. Artworks were supposed to be sent to Park West in Michigan for framing if they were not unique pieces. Most works were in stock in Michigan so we did not send a lot out except for the paperwork and records of transactions from each cruise. When we did, it was a real chore because in these remote South American ports, the delivery companies were not near the cruise ship piers. We had no transportation, so getting to the authorized shippers was time consuming and expensive. The only thing Park West covered in shipping was the actual shipping charge. We paid the packaging fee, material cost, cab fare to the shippers, etc.

After dealing with our clients for months on end, I realized that the Crystal passengers were rather in a class of their own. The stereotype Crystal cruiser would be affluent, savvy, appreciative of extremely high standards in anything they are associated with and prone to cruise on Crystal regularly. In a very short period of time we would see former customers over and over again. Most of them knew my wife and me and we knew them and their families. They did not like the auction venue, but did like some of the better art (not as an investment but for decoration). I started putting on art exhibits and shows in public rooms and private showings in staterooms at the customer's convenience.

Because the ship's accounting office was right across the hall from our stateroom, we got to know the purser quite well. When Jack Sweetman was on his visit, he told me my numbers were not nearly as good as previous auctioneers therefore not qualifying me for any incentive bonuses. I mentioned this to the purser. She looked at the numbers I was given by Park West as to the sales totals for former auctioneers on comparative cruises. She asked me where they got those figures because she was the ship's accountant and never ever saw totals even close to those given to me by Park West. She told me my totals for almost every cruise were much higher than any previous auctioneer.

I regularly sent messages to Park West complaining that the quality and type of art in my stock on the ship was not well suited to the type and class of people who sailed regularly on Crystal. Finally, one day I had a message from Jack Sweetman saying Park West was going to change my entire inventory and upgrade to much more expensive and more desirable pieces. This was to happen when the ship made one of its rare stops in the USA. I was to arrange all the works of art and be prepared to exchange them on one specific morning. The truck arrived at the pier and unloaded box after box of wrapped frames and sculptures, etc. The driver and I were to load all my old stock into several large wooden bunkers and seal them. He said not to worry about damaging my art because it would be reframed anyway. Soon after starting the loading of the bunkers, he said I had a much bigger load than he planned and he would need to get one more bunker. He said he had an extra one not too far away because he was exchanging another collection on a different ship and did not need one. He came back with this bunker. The first set of bunkers had the name of my ship stenciled on the sides and the other one had the name of the other ship on it. I questioned him about this and he said it was nothing to worry about because all the artworks had bar codes on them.

We sailed off and my wife and I started to unwrap the new treasures and put them in my storage rooms. All of our inventory sheets had appraisals on them. The new collection was far less in value than the old one according to the lists. I knew immediately that it was going to be extremely difficult to sell any of it to the Crystal clients. I was right. After six months of frustration I received an actual phone call in my room from Jack Sweetman. He asked how it was going and I told him the collection was inferior and difficult to sell. He asked me what the last cruise grossed and I told him. He paused and said Albert would be appalled and not stand for those kinds of figures. He said to pack our bags and the next time the ship came to the USA we would be replaced and that if I did not cooperate and make a smooth transition with the new team that I would live to regret it. I did everything by the book and went through all the changeovers and inventories with the new man and his girlfriend and left the ship. We were stranded in California with overdrawn credit cards and no transportation.

Financial Ruin

I have purposely left out most of the financial facts because it is painful for me to think I was so naive as to let this happen to me and my family. I will end with the money part of it.

When I left Michigan, I had spent a considerable amount of my own cash to get through obtaining the job. Before I left Minnesota I went to Christie's auction house and consigned one of my highly collectible watches to be sold at their fine watch auction in New York later in the year. We had bank accounts at a bank in Minnesota, and other than our mortgage and storage facility for our valuables, did not have many pressing bills. If we called the bank from out of the country, we could not use the 800 number. If we called land line, we would get voice menu. We had overdraft protection on the checking account so if we did overdraw it, it would just come out of savings. We waited to send checks for the storage and mortgage companies for two months and would check the balance of the savings by voice menu. I became upset because Park West was supposed to be depositing my pay into the savings account and the balance never varied meaning there had been no deposits. I told my wife to just send the checks and the overdraft protection would take care of it. I was upset, but not concerned, because we had a goodly sum in savings and the bills would be paid. When I was contacted by Park West accounting, the excuses ran the full gamut from a mistyped routing number to a problem with my paperwork, etc.

After several months, we got a desperate (and expensive) ship-to-shore message from my wife's mother in Oklahoma. She said she had been contacted by law enforcement in Minnesota and that we were being charged with writing bogus checks on an account that had been closed. All our checks for our important bills had been returned marked account closed. The storage company waited one month and sold all our belongings at auction. The mortgage holder on our property foreclosed and because we did not file an appeal, we lost the property (our son who was living there was evicted) and all the equity. We could not get any information from the bank over the phone so we contacted my mother-in-law and had her contact the bank. They told her we had to either come in person or legally give my mother-in-law power of attorney to handle our affairs. We had to wait for the next port of call, locate an attorney in Brazil who spoke English, show just cause as to why we needed to do this, and spend a lot of money in fees and legalities to accomplish it. We then had to express this to my mother-in-law.

About this time, my watch sold at Christies and they called her. They sent the check for several thousand dollars to my mother-in-law and she put it in her account so she could send us some money to live on. By this time we had lost absolutely everything we had and could not even get home to fight it. The bank said it closed our account because they were awaiting payments from Park West and when they never came, it raised a security flag so they closed the savings account to "protect both their and our assets." When the checks came in, the savings account was no longer able to cover the checks because it was closed. It took us months to get the money from our account and we were never able to recoup any of our assets.

We never returned to Minnesota because I was so bitter for what Park West had done to us. We had met a young lady who had a similar experience happen to her with Park West. They stranded her in Australia, penniless and bitter. She spent her last $35.00 to buy a pistol and intended to kill Jack Sweetman or Albert if she could get home. Fortunately her family talked her out of it and she went to work for Crystal Cruises.

I was afraid if I pursued my feelings, I would have succeeded.