Turn on your doom scroll radar to a level that detects items that has a high sale value. If the buzzer had gone off, you would’ve been much more active In acquiring the item. Pretty much know when you can sit on an item and watch the price go down and at other times the minute an item pops you’re making a phone call making your way down there as fast as you can. Still amazed that a used subwoofer got that much action in the classified but oh well.
seller etiquette
I have been reading here for a decade, first recent post under my newly found login.
I have contacted a seller about a subwoofer for a fair price. I asked if local pickup was an option. I got a response that it was. I wrote him that I would drive up, from 2 hours away, in 3 days. I told him I don't want to disturb him by plugging it in, I would just pay and pick it up, as I'd trust his word that it works. I was ok paying full price.
I then yesterday afternoon got an email that I needed to pay asap or he'd sell it to someone else as he got another offer. I didn't read the email until this morning when it had already been sold.
Is this normal? Fair? How could I have avoided it? Should have offered to pay in advance? Should he had been waiting for my response and payment for a little longer?
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@gkelly it's been listed for 75 days, 5 views a day. So I did not think it was a hot item. I wasn't not active or very active, I was reasonably confident I was going to buy it. I had the money, and a place and time in 3 days. As to why I didn't read the email between 5PM and 6AM the next day: it was Saturday PM. I am fine with not reading email on a Saturday evening. I didn't think the seller would back out and sell to someone else. But it happened. The moral of the story: I should not assume anything. The end. |
From what I’ve read, I agree with the OP. Particularly learning about the timing of all this, Saturday evening through 6 AM Sunday morning? All that said, it would have been Better for the buyer and seller to have exchanged phone numbers. Of course, that cannot happen on this website. Which is a whole other disappointment! |
I really understand your disappointment and feel some sympathy for you, but I look at both sides for “fairness”. In the Seller’s interest;
As the buyer, you tried to encumber the seller to hold the item for you “for free” expecting the seller to ignore sooner “for sure” offers for your possible “future payment”. What guarantee does the seller have that the future buyer won’t back out? NONE. If that happens, then the seller is screwed not accepting the first come offers. |
I’ll share a story with me as the seller. Last year I had a pair of Verity Audio Parsifal Ovations for sale. They had generated a fair amount of interest. A guy local to me made me an offer and I accepted. He was to come the following weekend to pick them up. In the meantime I had another offer to ship them, I declined that second offer because I gave the first guy my word, and of course I would rather not have to ship. He asked me on the phone if I could hook them up so I did. I assumed he wanted to make sure all the drivers worked and there were no issues. So I just haphazardly placed them directly next to another pair of speakers, far from ideal but I figured it would suffice. So when he arrives he takes my ipad and selects several songs from Qobuz and listens intently. Then he stands up and says "boy I’m glad I got to hear these. They are very closed in and constricted". Then he says thank you and leaves. This happened all in less than ten minutes. I had no idea he wanted to "audition" the speakers before purchase. He never mentioned that the sale was contingent on what he heard. Had I known that I would have taken greater care to set them up. And anyone who has ever heard the Parsifal Ovations knows that is NOT how they sound. And they didn’t sound that way in my treated room. So of course I reach out the the second buyer and he has moved on. So that’s just a little story about what buyers will do sometimes. |
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