User "zipper": buyers and sellers beware

[Ghost]

No biggie, but for the record, just a heads up that a board member appears to have reneged on a deal. I offered a set of 4 new-in-the-box six-inch pull up cleats, complete with a link to the product online, for full info and specs. User "zipper" agreed to buy them for $140. He did not ask to get measurements or otherwise investigate them to see if they were suitable, just said outright we had a deal. His words, in public and in PM, were:


Cleats...I''ll buy them. I've sent you a PM
thanks
Brian


I'll buy them from you.
If you have a paypal account, I can forward the funds.
Thanks
Brian Gould

After which he decided to open up a dialogue and attempted to negotiate the price down, because he was going to have to patch some holes in the glass based on the footprint of his old cleats. I called him out on this and he went radio silent for several days.

Now, there is a CHANCE something has befallen him such that he can't respond. If so, and if he comes through on the deal, I will happily apologize. But given his EXTREMELY chiseling dialogue to renegotiate a price after he agreed to a deal, my guess is he isn't trustworthy when it counts. Which is sad. He seemed a decent enough guy otherwise, and I do think he probably made a mistake about what would fit without a gel coat touch-up. I suppose that could have been a lie, but I don't think so.

But regardless, he jumped up and said he would buy the cleats for a known price, and then reneged on that. He never said he was interested but needed to do some measuring, but rather jumped up to claim them and block any other prospective buyers.

So, let it be known what he did, as a useful data point if anyone else considers doing business with him.

And of course, let it also be known that the set of 4 cleats is again available for purchase to the public.

[gcarter]

It's a shame. I've bought quite a large number of items that are sitting on a pallet in my shop that I'll never be able to use because they didn't fit, or my plans changed.
Folks ought to carry through w/what they agreed to do!
Things that went wrong are not the fault of the seller!

[BUIZILLA]

why is HIS cosmetic issue your problem?

[hardcrab]

why is HIS cosmetic issue your problem?

I don't think that's the point ................


jumped up to claim them and block any other prospective buyers.

[Ghost]

Thanks guys. It really kinda saddened and disappointed me. Re-taught me a useful lesson for relatively little, though. Somebody actually agrees to a deal, ask for the money (or at least nonrefundable earnest money) immediately. Friend of mine lost in court because of being too nice selling a boat and didn't cash the down payment check right away. The lying buyer (and he was a MAJOR liar) got away with weaseling out in court. Which was interesting because some lawyers said canceling a check on somebody was itself essentially prima facie evidence of breach of contract. Should have been a slam dunk on that alone, but always get a bill of sale signed immediately. Or at least write "non refundable deposit for boat sale at price x" on the memo and have him initial that, if you have nothing else to write on for a bill of sale.

In the case of the cleats, a couple things were clear to me once I got un distracted by work and my own boat project. First one was wait, we shouldn't be talking about anything other than shipping and payment. Then, when the new negotiations proposals rolled in, I should have immediately just posted that the cleats were back on the market. To your point Jim, his cosmetic problem should have nothing to do with what I was willing to take (unless that was BEFORE we'd settled on a deal. It could enter into a price beforehand, in determining market value if they were hard to move.)

But a deal's a deal. I guarantee that after we'd agreed on the deal, he'd have been outraged if someone else had offered me more money and I'd have taken the higher bid, or asked him if he wanted to counter above it. The irony is that I have the cleats now because I bought them and I changed plans a good ways later. I could have raised a stink and tried to return them a year after buying and I bet the vendor would have let me, despite policy. But I didn't as it was the wrong thing to do, just as you note George. I have hundreds to thousands in parts like that sitting in my basement. Figure it's right to sell them myself.

[Conquistador_del_mar]

Thanks guys. It really kinda saddened and disappointed me. Re-taught me a useful lesson for relatively little, though. Somebody actually agrees to a deal, ask for the money (or at least nonrefundable earnest money) immediately. Friend of mine lost in court because of being too nice selling a boat and didn't cash the down payment check right away. The lying buyer (and he was a MAJOR liar) got away with weaseling out in court. Which was interesting because some lawyers said canceling a check on somebody was itself essentially prima facie evidence of breach of contract. Should have been a slam dunk on that alone, but always get a bill of sale signed immediately. Or at least write "non refundable deposit for boat sale at price x" on the memo and have him initial that, if you have nothing else to write on for a bill of sale.

In the case of the cleats, a couple things were clear to me once I got un distracted by work and my own boat project. First one was wait, we shouldn't be talking about anything other than shipping and payment. Then, when the new negotiations proposals rolled in, I should have immediately just posted that the cleats were back on the market. To your point Jim, his cosmetic problem should have nothing to do with what I was willing to take (unless that was BEFORE we'd settled on a deal. It could enter into a price beforehand, in determining market value if they were hard to move.)

But a deal's a deal. I guarantee that after we'd agreed on the deal, he'd have been outraged if someone else had offered me more money and I'd have taken the higher bid, or asked him if he wanted to counter above it. The irony is that I have the cleats now because I bought them and I changed plans a good ways later. I could have raised a stink and tried to return them a year after buying and I bet the vendor would have let me, despite policy. But I didn't as it was the wrong thing to do, just as you note George. I have hundreds to thousands in parts like that sitting in my basement. Figure it's right to sell them myself.

Interesting about the deposit check fiasco. I got burned by a buyer in Houston in the late 70s and have used a bill of sale form generated by my lawyer ever since. Sorry to hear about your hassle on such a simple sale, but there seem to be more people brought up without understanding or caring about straight business dealings.

[roadtrip se]

Main reason, I stopped brokering boats. No doubt, it's a shark tank out there in the business, but the buyers make it that way, too.