Forum Ethics - Was I wrong? - Page 2

Chris is one of of my favorite SFers because he has a habit of hitting the nail on the head.

Consider this issue nailed.

I think you were in the right, in general. But a better apporach for a seller is to take Letmebefell's advise, check whether the buyer has been active while you are waiting for the response. If so, it is only nature to assume the buyer has moved on. And if not, you can send the buyer a message telling him the item is no longer available since you have not heard back from him/her after xx (24 is probably sufficient) hours That way, the buyer will not send you a payment assuming the deal is still present.

The buyer could have handled the matter more civilly, but I think you might have acted a bit hastily. We have just had a long exchange about Best Offers on ebay, where a 2-day rule applies. While this is not ebay, you actually gave the buyer less than 24 hours (from after 3 pm on Wednesday to 1 pm Thursday) to respond to your acceptance of his $300 offer. That strikes me as short.

To be sure, I don't see a lot of harm to the buyer, so perhaps its "no harm, no foul," but I would think waiting a bit longer would have been in order, particularly since you didn't request a faster response time in your acceptance of the $300 offer. I suspect if he had made an unconditional offer of $300 on Wednesday at 3 pm, you had accepted Thursday at 1 pm, and he then said "too late, I just bought a suit elsewhere," you'd be slightly miffed.

I don't think you were wrong. In a very similar situation, I didn't hear from a member who'd offered to buy my goods on Thursday but failed to pay. I didn't hear from him, so, on a Friday night, I told him to pay up before noon Saturday. I then sold the item Saturday afternoon. Early Saturday night, I heard from the first offeror, who still wanted to buy the item but understood why it had been sold. I probably went overboard on the manners aspect of it.

Steven

No contract until acceptance is sent. You retained the full right to revoke.

Not only were you not wrong, but my guess is that the buyer knew he had waited too long and therefore didn't want to ask whether it was still available before paypaling you the money. The idea of an "exploding offer" is unnecessary and would create more problems than it would merit, since it would create a two-tiers of offers when now there is only one, leading to further confusion. I've been buying and selling in a variety of fora for many years now, and everybody knows that an offer or price is not binding until accepted (and many times even after it is accepted, buyers and sellers back out).

^^That doesn't really help here. You were completely within your rights to sell the suit to someone else during that timeframe, or to do with it whatever you pleased, I think. Assumedly you were offering him the discount just to get the sale over and done with... if he then delays, you're no longer obtaining a benefit from that discount, so I say find your money elsewhere.

You were not wrong. Both buyer and seller have a responsibility in the transaction. Each one must be diligent to check messages and ensure there is a quick consummation of the deal especially if you are doing electronic transactions each party has to be able to respond literally at the push of a button. Unfotunately, we do not have the luxury of time anymore when we are connected to buyers around the globe via the internet.

I only wish I had pulled the trigger and made an offer myself.

nothing wrong here, but why not cancel the ebay auction if it hasn't sold yet? you could simply substitute something else for sale if you want to blow the ebay fees.

in any event, it looks like you put up a notice that it was on ebay prior to his payment, so i would treat it as revoked.

This kind of scenario can potentially happen. I don't think you did anything wrong, but would echo everyone else who's mentioned the importance of good, clear communication and here's what I generally do to try avoid getting into this situation in the first place:

- I don't give out my paypal address until a final price is agreed.
- After the price is agreed, if I don't receive payment in a couple of days, I check the last logged on activity on that user.
- If they have been on, I send another PM asking how they're doing. If nothing after another day, and they've been logged on in the meantime, and I want to sell elsewhere, I'll PM them to tell them that's what I'm doing and that since they haven't replied I'm assuming they're no longer interested.

I'd agree with taxgenius - 90% of the time on here, you get paid (or given an estimated time of payment) within a few hours of agreeing a price and 99% of the time within a day. I can only think of a couple of times I've had to play PM/email tag with someone and actually both times they were completed succesfully in the end. It's impressive how solid & reliable this forum actually is, when you consider the occasional randomness of the internet.

Still, despite all that, sometimes misunderstandings can still occur.

Nothing wrong at all. I have paid for items I bought here pronto with the exception of sending a MO to shoe which never showed up and since then I have only used paypal.

i remember that. was that you? i had two sf persons here from canada who sent mail to me and never showed up. freaking canadian postal system

I'm an occasional buyer here on B&S and the way I have conducted myself may be frustrating to some sellers. "Must have" items pop up when my paypal balance is nil so I'll need to transfer funds to make the purchase. I have always been upfront when I make my enquiries and told the seller that the funds will clear about such and such a date and that payment could only occur when this has happened.
One seller started getting antsy after three days - even though I'd told him I couldn't pay for about seven days. Chorse and Edmorel have been a pleasure to deal with, patient and polite. I'm currently waiting for funds to clear so I can pay Holdfast.

Do alot of sales fall through?

Back to the topic at hand, from my point of you I think you were a little hasty.

You did nothing wrong. He's most likely disappointed because he though the suit was his.

This is just my opinion, made with 20/20 hindsight, but if you sent him an email telling him that you had not heard from him and had put the suit on ebay, he would have known not to send you a payment.

However, I'm sure if you thought he was actually going to pay you Friday morning, you would have never put the suit on eBay.

Isn't hindsight grand?

In sales the deal isn't closed until the PO is in hand...you did nothing wrong.

Even in my limited selling here, I've had more than one buyer say they would take it only to vanish the next day.

-spence