I was appalled to hear Con artist auctioneer Daniel Lyles was back at sea. I worked under this southern slang scum bag for a few weeks before I told my fleet manager how he was lying, cheating and stealing thousands of dollars from unsuspecting clients.

Daniels best scam is selling Rembrandt restrikes as investments. What he would do was ask guests at the first auction who owns a Rembrandt Raising of Lazarus. The guests who raised their cards would be noted and later they would be sure to win a rigged raffle and set up a private appointment. At the private appointment he would congratulate the guest on their wonderful Rembrandt investment and offer to resell the work for 3 times what they had paid for it. At this point the guests were ecstatic to hear how much the Rembrandt went up and they were ready for the con to begin. Daniel would have me set up the remaining 7 Rembrandts behind the guest and then he would investment sell them the rest of the works. This additional 7 works cost over $17000 and he would tell them to give him 5 years and he could sell them for three times that amount or more and they could send little Mike to a private college! This con worked 99% of the time and he became known as the best Rembrandt salesman in the company.

Daniel also was known as the creator of the rigged $500 bid credit. The $500 bid credit drawing is rigged 99% of the time now on all ships. The auctioneer has his staff write the bid numbers on the raffle tickets instead of using the 6 digit serial number imprinted on both raffle tickets so he can easily select the guest he wants to win. The auctioneer then selects a guest asking about a master work or expensive CP ["complete package" - Collector's Portfolio - matted & framed lot in auction] lot.

The newest technique taught in training is to have many $100 bid credit drawings valid for any CP. They suggest approximately 75% of the attendees win this credit and it's not even really a credit. The auctioneer simply tacks on an additional $100 to the price of that work when quoting the guest. This is said to be a very successful technique as of late.

There have also been a lot of rumors flying around that Carnival will be switching to another art company in the very near future. Park West has got back some of the Holland America ships back because Holland America ships were not profitable enough for Global Fine Arts.*

• FAR® Investigative Reports › Cruise Line Art Auctions
• Art Crime › Auctions