Found Speaker After 6 Yrs,Bought & Lost In Minutes


If you want an opportunity to feel better about any frustrations finding or buying audio gear, just read on.

As the title says, I have been watching Audiogon almost nightly for the past six years for an original model, Legacy Marquis center channel speaker needed to complete my all Legacy home theater. The later models have different drivers that do not sonically match my other speakers, so finding an original model was critical. Only one other Marquis has appeared in all that time, and it was in a very light, non-matching finish, and was very dinged up. Earlier, I finally find one here, in perfect condition, and even in the matching rosewood finish needed to match my other Legacy speakers. I immediately click on "buy now" and have been celebrating after finally finding what I wanted so badly for so long. See Audiogon notification below.

Audiogon

You just agreed to purchase “Legacy Audio Marquis Dual 15 inch Woofers Legendary Mar...” from ****** for $925.00. Congratulations!

Before you can send payment, the seller must enter shipping details for this order. You will receive an email when they do.

__
NOTE: Failure to complete orders placed on Audiogon may result in negative feedback. Please be prompt and thoughtful when working with fellow community members.

And now, just hours later, I receive a follow up from the seller apologizing that he reached an agreement to sell the speaker to someone else no more than five minutes earlier, and had not even had time to close the listing before I selected the purchase option.

Six years of looking, I actually send an offer thats received as a purchase, and I find out I'm five minutes late. Is it possible to have worse timing?

Not to mention having to continue on with an inadequate center channel in my otherwise completed home theater, with no prospect of when or if I will ever see one of these available again. I dont have another six years to wait. :(
nightfall
I'd hold off on blaming the seller, or especially leaving negative feedback. I had my ads from three years ago, all closed, re-listed recently without any action on my part. I was even charged a listing fee and a percentage of the selling price after buyers committed to buy. A-gon told me it was a glitch in the system and they are looking into it. So it's possible that the seller in this case bore no blame for what happened, unfortunate as it was.
Agreed. Buy it now should be exactly like EBay. Or even better is if the person had to make the payment at the exact time that they hit buy it now like a check out at any other store. Or at least a non refundable deposit.
I had same experience. Guy said "I 'think' someone got them before you". I'll keep my thought on that seller to myself; however, unimpressed I am.
I had the same thing happen to me lately. Audiogon should stop this from happening.
Just out of curiousity, have you spoken to Legacy? Maybe they have a few of the old drivers sitting around for repairs or just gathering dust at the back of a warehouse shelf. You never know. Maybe they can put together a one-off for you that will match your mains. They get rid of some NOS that's sitting around gathering dust, and you get your matched center. It's worth an email if you haven't done so yet.
Sounds like the seller broke the rules. If he had accepted another offer in the Audiogon system, the ad would have disappeared immediately. I know this from recent experience. If the ad was still up, then he had not reached a binding agreement to sell yet...maybe a verbal, back channel agreement, but not a binding one. If his ad was up and you clicked the "Buy It Now" option, he was bound by Audiogon rules to sell to you. So something he is telling you doesn't sound legit to me. You have the right to leave him negative feedback if you want. It may seem petty, but he should not have posted an ad with the "Buy It Now" option if he wasn't going to honor it.
The system is flawed no doubt. There's one simple solution. Sell your old speakers and get some with a matching center option! Or have a center made using the same drivers or buy a pair of the Same speakers you have and use one as the center and sell the other.....regardless....... Good luck:)
To me the system is flawed if the other buyer did the same thing and clicked on buy now. There should be a sale pending notification.
That's bad luck. I've had it happen to me, but as the seller. More than once. I now list items I have one, or few of, as "offers only" I have to explain my price is firm when they contact me, but its better than having to tell someone I just sold the last one.