On October 29th 2015 I attended a storage auction at Storage, Etc. at Los Feliz Pl. in Los Angeles, near the Costco there.
I researched the auction online, and wrote the unit numbers down. There were four of them. When I called the day of the auction to confirm, they told me there were 10 units up for auction! I asked why they weren't listed, and they simply replied "they're in the paper, sir". When I arrived at the auction, I spoke to another bidder who told me they had advised him that there were eight units up; then the units went up to ten when I asked, which is very suspicious. I arrived early and saw no tenants coming in to pay their bill. (I understand they can pay over the phone, but I heard no conversations of people taking payments over the phone, either). When I asked the auctioneer how many units were up for sale, he said three. So it went from ten to three in two hours. That is very suspicious to me. I asked if he could tell us the units up for sale, but he told me they "don't usually do that". I thought we had the legal right to that information.
Here's the kicker: when the auction started, we find out that None of the storage units listed online as up for sale are being auctioned, but three news ones that were never listed suddenly are. These were very bad units with boxes torn open, broken furniture, etc. I think the storage facility deliberately misled the bidders, that the storage units listed were never up for auction, or if they were, when the tenants paid, the storage company threw these three units at us that no-one wanted from a prior auction. Or even worse, they said the units were paid for at the last minute, when they weren't, and the company claimed them. I think at the very best this is bait and switch, and at worst it is fraud. Beware of Storage Etc., or the same thing could happen to you.
Storage Etc. Reviews
On October 29th 2015 I attended a storage auction at Storage, Etc. at Los Feliz Pl. in Los Angeles, near the Costco there.
I researched the auction online, and wrote the unit numbers down. There were four of them. When I called the day of the auction to confirm, they told me there were 10 units up for auction! I asked why they weren't listed, and they simply replied "they're in the paper, sir". When I arrived at the auction, I spoke to another bidder who told me they had advised him that there were eight units up; then the units went up to ten when I asked, which is very suspicious. I arrived early and saw no tenants coming in to pay their bill. (I understand they can pay over the phone, but I heard no conversations of people taking payments over the phone, either). When I asked the auctioneer how many units were up for sale, he said three. So it went from ten to three in two hours. That is very suspicious to me. I asked if he could tell us the units up for sale, but he told me they "don't usually do that". I thought we had the legal right to that information.
Here's the kicker: when the auction started, we find out that None of the storage units listed online as up for sale are being auctioned, but three news ones that were never listed suddenly are. These were very bad units with boxes torn open, broken furniture, etc. I think the storage facility deliberately misled the bidders, that the storage units listed were never up for auction, or if they were, when the tenants paid, the storage company threw these three units at us that no-one wanted from a prior auction. Or even worse, they said the units were paid for at the last minute, when they weren't, and the company claimed them. I think at the very best this is bait and switch, and at worst it is fraud. Beware of Storage Etc., or the same thing could happen to you.