can someone explain this to me:

"We don’t make a point of disclosing them because we didn’t buy them to sell for profit, we pay the consignors whether their items are paid for or not (as long as the item sells for reasonable market value) and just re-run the items that don’t get paid for"

as i understand this then; someone consigns an item to vintage, the item technically receives a bid above the reserve and eventually the auction closes. if the buyer does not actually end up sending payment to vintage, vintage will still pay the consigner?

if an item is not paid for, vintage still pays the consigner and keeps the item. the item is then re-run, but the original consigner has already received payment? is this is the case, then it seems the vintage has bought the item from the consigner and becomes the new owner. if they are the owner and they re-run the item, then they're offering items in their auction that they own.
Wow. If this is how it works, people could really play games with them. Someone consigns an item, two of his buddies from the office, who don't particularly care about memorabilia, register as bidders, and outbid each other to the moon. The winner doesn't pay and is blacklisted (and he doesn't care,) and the consignor gets huge bucks for his item.

Kind of hard to believe an auction house would leave itself open to this type of scam.....