A good service, except: - not transparent on the post hammer additional costs for EU lots (these are more than double UK lot extras. They couldn't even explain one line item added by their cour... See more
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Review summary
Created with AI, based on recent reviews
What people talk about most
Reviews shaping this summary
Its quick, reliable, trustworthy and easy. It is a little expensive though as you have to add on 12.5 % buyers fee and delivery and insurance if you want it which adds up to 20% of the hammer price.... See more
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5 Star Service. Normally, I definitely love a lot about Whisky Auctioneer. Unfortunately, the website underwent a unique and extensive website overhaul. I'm sure stuff is getting better now, but at th... See more
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Purchased a rare bottle for a friend’s birthday. The website did state multiple time that there would be extra cost. Shipping and duties, doubled the price of the bottle. Unfortunately I j... See more
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Company details
Written by the company
Whisky Auctioneer is the world leading platform for the buying and selling of whisky and spirits at auction. Our global auctions feature the most comprehensive selection of old, rare and collectible whiskies and spirits available online.
Contact info
PH1 3FN, Perth, United Kingdom
- info@whiskyauctioneer.com
- whiskyauctioneer.com
4.3
Excellent
363 reviews
Asks customers to review
This company invites their customers to review, whether positive or negative
Replied to 100% of negative reviews
Typically replies within 1 week
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Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thanks for taking the time to leave a review. We’re very pleased to hear you had such a positive experience with the team.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
The platform is easy to use
The platform is easy to use, and the shipping experience was fast and reliable.
7 August 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Roderick, thank you for sharing your experience. Great to hear everything went smoothly from purchase through to delivery.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
superfast shipping this time and…
superfast shipping this time and careful packaging always. love whisky auctioneer.
7 August 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thanks so much for your review! We’re delighted to hear your bottles arrived quickly and safely, and really appreciate your kind words.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Perfect
The support is very good, i had a lot of questions which were answered right away. I won a lot 4.8.2025 and today 7.8 was already delivered no problem, the bottle was in excellent shape. I am very happy with my purchase. I would give more stars if I could.
7 August 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thanks so much for your kind words! We’re delighted to hear you had such a smooth experience and that your bottle arrived quickly and in excellent condition. We really appreciate your support and hope you enjoy your purchase.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Not a good auctioneer
It’s a great to find different kinds of whiskeys and other spirits although not a great selection on other spirits mainly whiskey which is understandable but when it says the auction time finishes.
It doesn’t actually finish because if people continue to bid it just goes on forever, it’s ridiculous. It should be when the time is up that’s it.
Otherwise you end up losing the bids that you’ve already put through. I ended up losing 3 bids last night, so that’s 3 bottles that I should’ve got and didn’t i believe it’s so the auctioneer can get more commission and that’s the wrong way to do an auction.
Also, it doesn’t give you a description of the bottles condition that to me is very important.
I won’t be using this auctioneer again.
4 August 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Rob, thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We’re sorry you were disappointed with your recent experience.
While our main focus is whisky, you may also be interested in our sister sites rumauctioneer.com and wineauctioneer.com, which both run monthly auctions and offer a wider range of spirits.
Our website does explain that auctions close from 7pm UK time on the final day, but if a bid is placed after 7pm the auction is extended by two minutes and will close once there has been no further bidding. This format is designed to give everyone a fair chance in the final stages, and typically means auctions continue for several hours, most often finishing between 9pm and 11pm UK time.
For bottle condition, we provide detailed notes for any imperfections and, where appropriate, supporting photographs. If further clarification is ever needed, our client services team will be happy to help.
We truly value all of our customers and hope we’ll have the chance to welcome you back to a future auction.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
5 Star Service and a Big IT Hiccup
5 Star Service. Normally, I definitely love a lot about Whisky Auctioneer. Unfortunately, the website underwent a unique and extensive website overhaul. I'm sure stuff is getting better now, but at the time number of my bottles detached from my account and I struggled to get one re-listed for months! However, support was proactive in fixing everything, I got everything I wanted in the end, they paid for any shipping mistakes, and I'm happy now. One-time issues, but the website and service is even better now!
2 July 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Kevin,
Thank you so much for taking time to leave this review. We understand the issues you experienced and frustrations that come with this, however we're really glad to hear that those issues have now been resolved and your happy with the outcome. I'll be sure to pass this back to our client services team.
Megan
Thieves!!!
This company are awful, sending false spam emails out about charges and fees I supposedly have to pay on stored bottles that I don’t even have! What makes it worse is they’ve tried to charge my card for this, I’ve immediately removed my saved details. This company CANNOT be trusted with your information.
15 July 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Jason,
We've reached out to request your contact details so we can identify your account and look into this as a priority, but unfortunately haven’t heard back yet.
We’ve reviewed all recent contact logs and haven’t found any enquiries matching the details in your message. We’d really appreciate the opportunity to investigate this properly for you. Just to clarify, any customers with bottles in storage would have been emailed in advance about any upcoming fees, and we certainly wouldn’t attempt to charge for items that don't exist on your account.
Please do get in touch with our Client Services team directly at info@whiskyauctioneer.com. We’d really like to get this resolved swiftly for you.
Thanks,
Megan
Not a good experience 😕
I've been using a few whisky auction sites and Whisky Auctioneer has been the worst experience. The listing glazed over detail for a fundamental defect. Payment was made within 24hrs of auction ending, but errors with WA administration resulted in days of delay. Not even an apology and I felt my £2k plus order was of irrelevance to them. I won't be using WA again in a hurry.
19 May 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Kevin, thank you for your review.
We’re sorry to hear that your experience didn’t meet expectations. We always aim to make condition details as clear as possible within the listing through our condition reports and supplementary images. In this instance, the lot included a condition report highlighting damage to the velvet bottle covering, and this was also visible within the listing images. We shared these again during our follow-up, and you acknowledged at the time that this detail had unfortunately been missed.
We appreciate you taking the time to contact us directly and hope the information provided helped clarify the matter. If there's anything further we can assist with, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Won’t be doing business with Whisky Auctioneer again
The new website is STILL broken after more than a month to get it sorted. Seriously, as the saying goes, ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it!’ I’m
not the only one complaining about it on TrustPilot so you can be sure that this is a broader issue than Whisky Auctioneer would realise. Surely you have developers or someone who test things in a lower environment before releasing this flaming pile live for public use.
The current auction isn’t even loading for me - shows X number of results when I use the search function but doesn’t display the results (not an internet service provider issue as I’ve tried under multiple wifis and cellular). Also, last auction on the new site, certain bottles e.g Glendronach 18, would show year of bottling on a handful of lots, and not on others. This is different to the old website where all pre label / chill filtration GD18 bottles would have the year shown in the listing so I didn’t have to click into the lot and waste my time scrawling through the info and zooming in on the photo of the back of the bottle hoping to confirm what year of bottling.
Other issues: Shipping calculators STILL don’t work so it’s almost impossible to tell how much it’s going to cost me to ship my bottles other than by doing a dummy run on the site to have the bottles shipped and getting close to the end of the process/transaction. Was easier when they just had a transparent list for X bottles to X location. Oh and surprise surprise, Whisky Auctioneer has increased their shipping costs substantially without communicating this to clients. On top of this, I had a random email from them advising that the storage of my bottles was expiring and that I would be charged storage but didn’t advise which for bottles. When I questioned this I was told to disregard the email but still, test these things before sending them out! You’ll now find on their website that after 90 days storage they charge %1 per 30 days per bottle (at a minimum of £5!). Clearly a money-making exercise or at least force people to ship things sooner rather than late. They say they use DHL exclusively for all international shipping (excluding. USA) but my last order to Australia came through via FedEx - unless that’s changed recently?
I’ll be having the bottles I’ve currently got in storage shipped soon and that it for me for whisky auctioneer. Was an excellent site and the other thing that used to deter me were the slightly higher buying fees and sellers fees. Now with a broken website and even more fees, why bother coming back? Plenty of other competitions around.
30 June 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Roy, thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback. We're really sorry to hear about your experience. I've requested further information via Trustpilot so that a member of our senior management team can reach out to you directly and assist you offline.
We appreciate the detailed feedback you’ve provided and are prioritising improvements to the site that align with our customers' needs, including search, filtering and key areas within the auction experience. We're genuinely thankful for your comments, and I want to assure you that customer feedback plays a crucial role in how we continue to refine the site over the coming months. Delivering a reliable and enjoyable customer experience remains our top priority.
The site is currently offline as our IT team are busy working on some important updates, and it should be back online very soon.
Thanks
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Bought 6 bottles 2 in uk and 4 in…
Bought 6 bottles 2 in uk and 4 in Netherlands . Roughly just under £8000 for these bottle . Within the Uk delivered no problem at all. 4 bottles from the Netherlands were to be delivered Friday 20th of June 2025. 4 hours before delivery ,Got a text from DHL saying I had duty of £808 to pay . Called them up and had a good conversation with one of there so called customer service and if I did not want to pay the duty I could resell them .
On there web site is so vague about buying in EU country is unreal . Please be aware and don’t buy EU . They should high light on there page that there is a 20 percent tariff on the EU bottles . This auction site is much too large and is only concerned about making money . So many auction sites that give you the best service. Prestige auction whisky hammer . Your bottles arrive within 24 to 36 hours . Even the owner of the auction site brings your bottles to your home if they are expensive .
Night and day . I still haven’t had my 4 bottles delivered . They say ten days it’s a complete con they are doing .
Please avoid this auction site .
20 June 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Thomas, thank you for taking the time to leave your review. We’re sorry to hear about your recent experience. We've reached out to you via Trustpilot to get more information re. your account with us so we can speak to you directly.
We do include information on our website about the potential for duties or import charges when shipping across regions, such as on our shipping page and within the auction listing tooltips. That said, we recognise there is always room to improve how clearly this is communicated and we're currently reviewing this.
Thank you again for your feedback and for raising these points with us.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thanks, Steven! We’re really pleased to hear you found the team responsive and friendly. That means a lot.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
New website is unfit for purpose
This site used to be useful. I have both sold and bought through it many times. BUT the new site is wholly unfit for purpose with bugs galore. I would caution anyone against using this company until they get them all fixed. One issue is that it is no longer clear which lots are UK and which will incur an import fee.
And everyone should beware being overcharged as delivery rates are wrongly calculated.
12 June 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Braunston, thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback on the new site.
Feedback like this is especially important to us as we continue to refine and improve the platform. We’re currently reviewing all customer input received so far and using it to help prioritise ongoing improvements.
We’ve already reintroduced UK and EU icons on lots, which can now be used alongside the information on our shipping page to help determine any applicable fees or import charges. We’ve also reached out to you via Trustpilot to request some further information so that a member of our client service team can look into your specific concerns around delivery charges.
We do hope we’ll see you back again in a future auction.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
BEWARE!
BEWARE!
£40 bottle of whisky, £40 delivery, then out of nowhere 4 days later another £40 import/duty tax bill from the courier to import from EU to UK.
I don’t think this company does enough to highlight the potential increase to final auction price. Luckily, i did think this may have been an issue hence why I only bid £40.
Would have cried at a 200% increase on final bid of a bottle at £2k
9 June 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Zack, thank you for your review. We always appreciate feedback.
We’re sorry if it felt unclear that additional import costs could apply when buying across regions. We do have this information available on our website, and we’ve recently reintroduced UK and EU icons on all lots to help indicate where bottles are located. This can be used alongside the details on our shipping and fees pages to help estimate potential final costs.
That said, we appreciate you raising this and will take your feedback into consideration as we continue reviewing how we communicate key information on the site and in our customer updates.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
It's impossible for a company like…
It's impossible for a company like yours to do not know how many items have your customer in storage....
Furthermore you want to charge you customer extra for longer storage but you can't really tell him where are his storage bottles located....
I am very sorry for you because you was my 1st top whisky auction but now you became one of the worst....
Do not dare to charge my extra for longer storage, because I'm trying to ship my bottles for very long time now and I can't because you send me a list that is totally wrong....
21 May 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Georgios, thank you for your review.
We're very sorry to hear about your recent experience. We appreciate your long-standing support and are sorry that the service you received did not meet expectations on this occasion. A member of our senior management team is reviewing your case in full and will reach out to you directly to ensure this is properly resolved.
Thank you again for your feedback, and we sincerely apologise for the confusion caused.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Bid system needs to change
Although a large selection of whisky, the issue is that the bidding goes on far too long, and people start bidding last minute which goes on and on, meaning you lose your bid you thought you had for the last several days. Other auction sites will literally stop bidding at 7pm, perhaps 10-20 minutes beyond that. But this site keeps bidding open way past the 7pm deadline which just seems unfair. Stop the bids at 7pm like you state in the website, and then you won't have the silly bid wars going on for hours on end.
8 June 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thank you, Michael, for your honest feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.
Our auctions close from 7:00 PM (UK time), but if a bid is placed after that on any lot, the entire auction is extended by two minutes. It ends once no bids are placed for two minutes – usually between 9:00 and 11:00 PM. This format ensures everyone has a fair chance to place final bids on bottles that matter to them.
Megan – Whisky Auctioneer
Great experience
12 May 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thanks so much for your review! We’re delighted to hear you had a great experience.
Megan – Whisky Auctioneer
Current website not working properly on…
Current website not working properly on both Rum Auctioneer and Whisky Auctioneer. Bids are being undercut and being won by lower bids. Serious IT flaws in new system - bottles showing as UK listings are then switching to EU and back etc, disappearing from watchlists. Needs sorting as the previous website was very reliable
JDS
1 June 2025
Unprompted review
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi, thank you for your review and for sharing your feedback.
We recently launched new websites for all three of our platforms – Whisky Auctioneer, Rum Auctioneer and Wine Auctioneer – and customer feedback is really important to us as we continue to refine and improve performance. We're actively monitoring all sites, addressing bugs and rolling out updates on a regular basis. We're pleased to say improvements are being made week on week.
I’ve reached out to you via Trustpilot to request further details so that a member of our client service team can get in touch and better understand your experience.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Quick checkout and excellent delivery
Quick checkout and excellent delivery, fees and charges are good value too
6 May 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thank you, John! We’re glad you found the checkout and delivery process smooth – we really appreciate your kind words.
Megan – Whisky Auctioneer
What have you done to your website?
I've just tried to navigate your new auction website. What have you done? Before, it was so easy to find the whiskies I was interested in. The filters are confusing and what is that floating zero about? What happened to the dashboard? It's a shame that's gone. Now, it's not a pleasurable experience at all.
I don't think I'll be back in a hurry.
2 June 2025
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Hi Joe, thank you for your feedback.
We’re sorry to hear the updated site hasn’t delivered the experience you were hoping for. We recently introduced a new design and platform for our auctions, and we know changes like this can take some getting used to. That said, customer feedback plays a key role in how we continue to develop and improve the site.
We’re actively working on enhancements based on the areas that matter most to our users, and are rolling out updates regularly to improve performance and usability. We hope you’ll see some positive changes if you choose to return in future.
Megan - Whisky Auctioneer
Reply from Whisky Auctioneer
Thanks for the great feedback! We’re thrilled to hear you found it easy to use and were happy with the bottles up for grabs and delivery speed.
Megan – Whisky Auctioneer
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