CatawikiReviews 17

I had a terrible experience with Catawiki. I purchased a ring and paid the full price, including VAT. Due to shipping issues, the ring was returned to the seller in India. Yet, Catawiki paid the seller in full and kept my money, leaving me without the ring and without any refund. Their customer service was completely unhelpful and unresponsive. I strongly warn anyone against using Catawiki for international purchases.

Rating: I purchased what was advertised as an original Hermès handbag via Catawiki for €8,500 – plus €768 buyer protection fee and €12 shipping costs, totaling €9,280. The item delivered turned out to be an obvious counterfeit, as proven by a direct comparison of the logo with an authentic Hermès bag from our collection. The differences in typography, embossing, and material texture are unmistakable and easily identifiable by any expert. The bag was shipped uninsured, under the anonymized sender name "Mariella M.", in a cheap cardboard box for €12 – a method that blatantly contradicts professional standards for an item allegedly worth €10,000. In case of non-delivery or shipping issues, DHL would have been objectively unable to return the parcel to the sender, as no verifiable sender information was provided. This alone raises serious concerns about the legitimacy of the transaction and suggests deliberate deception. Despite multiple requests and a formal deadline set by our legal counsel, Attorney Bruszynski, for October 6,2025, no refund has been issued. Instead, I was stalled for four weeks with pretextual excuses, only to be confronted now with a deadline imposed by Catawiki. I do not accept arbitrary deadlines from a party that has failed to act in good faith. I hereby demand the immediate refund of the full purchase price (€8,500), the buyer protection fee (€768), and the shipping costs (€12) – totaling €9,280.
You are required to respond no later than October 8,2025, at 12:00 PM.
Failure to comply will result in legal action being filed without further notice. Warning to other buyers: Avoid high-value auctions on this platform – buyer protection here is a mere façade.

After winning a lot on Catawiki and immediately paying for the lot, I was waiting for an entire week and after I realized the lot hasn't been dispatched by the seller, I wrote to the seller, who replied in an obscuring manner that he's on a month-long vacation and that he kind of sold the lot to someone else. It is hard to understand what he really means as it is written in Spanish. I then wrote to Catawiki support and asked to clarify to me what is going on. Catawiki replied (see the screenshot # 1) that they DID COMMUNICATE with the seller and the seller offered an alternative solution. Then I wrote another couple messages to the seller asking to explain and to be more specific and the dispatch date of the lot. There was no more communication from the seller, so I wrote to Catawiki, who sent me conflicting replies. Then after a few "wait, the seller will ship it after his vacation" Catawiki finally admitted lying in their first message (see screenshot # 2) where they wrote they did NOT receive any reply from the seller, thus contradicting themselves. Catawiki held to my money for as long as they could and now they promise to refund it within 10 business days. I know they will, but the damage to their and their seller's reputation has been done on multiple occasions.

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.

Catawiki manipulates seller's price to make it as LOW as possible. They will NOT allow a seller to sell their item(s) for a reasonable price, but only for a LOW price, to guarantee a sale and a profit for Catawiki. And they take many weeks to approve an item or a lot submitted for auction by their so-called "experts" who quite often allow ridiculous listings with misspelled and wrong descriptions and items shown hiding behind other items etc. Then there are all the bugs, shortcomings and errors of their website as well as all kinds of tricks their sellers do such as early delivery marking as "Delivered" early in the shipping process so they can get their money quickly and then others ship an empty box, a "robbed" package or only part items enclosed, while others ship it to themselves and call it a day!

And a final nail in the coffin is the fact that Catawiki marks some orders as "DELIVERED" very early in the shipping process while they are far from being delivered. As we all know marking a shipment as DELIVERED while it has not been even delivered to the country of the recipient constitutes FRAUD.

From aukcion I bought a watch from German seller but the watch which was describet as new and unworn was faulty,do not work.I wrote to seller and Catawiki too, more times,NO ANSWER!

Avoid this site!

I got item with damaged sticker and that case decrease the value of the purchase. They claim it is what it is. They don't support me at all. Poor quality of service. Never use because you can get not what you paid for. Bad choice of action.

J'ai stoppé toute transaction avec Catawiki à partir du moment où j'ai remarqué qu'ils effaçaient ou édulcoraient mes évaluations négatives autour des fausses antiquités vendues par la boutique londonienne PAX ROMANA.
Catawiki bénéficie probablement de belles retombées financières suite à un patrenariat avec cette boutique de faussaires.
J'assume la stupidité dont j'ai fait preuve en me laissant harnaquer, heureusement pour un montant raisonnable!...

I have been in prolonged correspondence with Catawiki regarding paintings which I believe have been copied from original works and attributed to other artists to increase their apparent value. (Unfortunately I bought one myself). The experts at Catawiki insist that because a painting has been copied, this does not mean that the copy is a fake.
Anyway, here's Quiz No. 2.
Instructions:
1. Do a Google search for "Mrs. Adeline M. Noble by François Flameng". You will see a very good portrait of an elderly, but dignified lady decked out in all her finery.
2. Do another Google search for "Catawiki Portrait of Contessa Erica by A. A. Alciati" (Our old friend from the previous quiz). You will see a very similar portrait:
Same dress, same pearl pendant, same lace collar and sleeves, same folded hands holding the same book (is the sitters' finger marking the same page, I wonder?).
But there is ONE very important difference!
Spoiler alert!...

Yes! It's the silly doll's head stuck on Mrs. Noble's shoulders in the Catawiki painting!
Well done!
Seriously, we should ask ourselves a few questions.
Why would Mr. Alciati want to copy a portrait of another sitter by another artist and replace the face with another?
Did Mrs Noble lend her dress, jewelry and book to the Contessa Erica for her portrait?
(BTW "Contessa Erica" is an Italian comic book character.)
Is it not more likely that the Catawiki seller of the Contessa Erica portrait 'found Mrs Noble' in the public domain, had her copied by an in-house artist and added the signature of A. A. Alciati to increase the painting's apparent worth? (Alciati's paintings sell at auction for prices in the low thousands)
If the answer to this last question is yes, then the buyer has been duped.
As I was duped in exactly the same way.
I repeat that Catawiki experts will not accept that this scam exists. Even though I have sent them thirty nine similar examples. I hope you, the reader of this review, feel as confounded as I do.
New quiz soon!

I am talking about Antiques, in particular to Chinese Art. The main claim made by Katawiki is that they have a team of experts who revise all the items being listed. In other words, "buy with confidence" because all items have been approved by our experts.
Watching at some of the listings, that claim sound ridiculous at first glance, due to the many bad attributions. But after looking more accurately, it is much worse than ridiculous.
Look for example at ancient Chinese ceramics, in particular at the pottery figures of the Tang and Ming periods, for example. A great quantity of blatant fakes, most on sale by the British shop Pax Romana, a real shame. Horses statues of size and quality that, if genuine, would be the proudly exhibited in specialized Museums, sold at tons for ridiculous prices.
Of course, many apparently validated by a TL test; pity that they are released by a German Lab which is well known for being not reliable.
In conclusion, it is suggested to be cautious while buying on Catawiki, the same way when buying on eBay.

Horrible service. Won a beautiful mineral specimen. Paid the seller a lot of money. Item supposedly shipped September 7, the seller sends me a message a few weeks later saying item is lost in the mail and how would I like to handle this. I said refund me in full please. They say that they have issued refund supposedly and that it is up to the auction site to handle it from that point. I have waited an additional 2 weeks for the refund to show up and it hasn't. Catawiki or the seller closed the message box for the listing so I cannot even contact the seller anymore. I appear to be out a bunch of money and what I purchased is lost. This is my first experience with this website, I cannot afford to flush money down the toilet but that is exactly what happened here. I am extremely sad and frustrated.

My relationship with this company came to an end this year when I was blocked for asking a question of an auctioneer and following up a week later asking why I'd not been replied to.

THEY THEN BLOCKED ME AND HELD MONEY OWNED TO ME FOR ONE MONTH AS PUNISHMENT!

They didn't even tell me they were doing this and refused to reply to my emails during this time. I am only just being paid for auctions that ended TWO MONTHS AGO!

My advice, with over 20 years of experience buying and selling online, AVOID CATAWIKI. You are seen as a cash cow, nothing more. They make 21.5% commission from your sale. If you are outside the EU you also have to accept the extremely poor conversation rate they use when sending you YOUR MONEY. Money, but the way, which can also held for weeks on end after the auction ends.