Have you ever backed out of a sale?

[Chris101]

I said no, but I don't think you are a terrible person. That's pretty harsh, and would probably take examples of your behavior in other areas as well to judge that. Do you pull cat's tails and tip less than 20%?

 

[JohnTF]

I have had my share of "buyer's remorse", if say I am going to buy it, I buy it. If I have a long relationship with the seller, and the conditions change, then it is a decision among friends.

I have my share of items sitting around which were "not as described", or just broken.

In cameras, I sold an old TLR I had purchased from a reputable source, turns out the buyer said it was a lemon, -- so I refunded the guy's money, and told him to keep the camera as a paper weight, or if he could get it working, fine, spend the money on film. Something like a $100 deal.

He flamed me by full name, a year later, on another forum, in a thread about this type of camera.

I try to feel it says more about him than me, but -- another notch in the cynical belt.

I rarely sell anything, except through my local camera shop, and if it comes back to them, it comes back to me.

I may start as I realize I have way too much stuff that deserves to be used, I have only put one roll through my avatar ;-), but then I would have to change my avatar.

It is bad when a friendship gets damaged, one of my best friends was supposed to buy my car, which had more money invested in recent repairs than the cost, and I agreed to take $100 a month-- he had the notarized title, and the car. I ended up trading it for a lens to my camera dealer, whose wife drove it for years. I kept the $100.

Hopefully these will all be little bumps, but somehow, you seem to be able to remember the bad deals.

I have heard that a lot of deals on ebay are not completed. I did have to back out on that vault above MM, buyer's remorse, and I only wanted to pay $4.4 million. ;-)

I did keep the "solar powered clothes dryer", it arrived in a small box-- was a rope and clothes pins.

Regards, John

 

[arseniii]

Wanted to sell M6 TTL .085 Black and backed it up because I took it out for a walk and GOD, I love this camera. It's my first Leica and I am so experienced and comfortable in using it that I just cannot part with it...

 

[Matthew Runkel]

Unless you are a lawyer and know something I don't know... that does not fit the definition of "damages". I can envision someone getting laughed out of small claims court for such an assertion.

I'm not sure where you are getting "the" definition you refer to.

The usual measure of contract damages is so-called "expectation damages". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expectation_damages These are cameras and lenses, more or less fungible items. If someone breached a promise to sell you a loaf of bread for a dollar, and you had to pay a $1.50 somewhere else, your damages are fifty cents. If you wanted to go to small claims court and insist on receiving $1.50, I think the judge might not laugh at you, but might want to know why you thought you should receive for free the loaf of bread you expected to pay a dollar for.

 

[thomasw_]

Quote:
Originally Posted by thomasw_
I have never backed out of a commitment to buy. What the OP did was just plain lame, unless he was in some sort of emergency financially.

In selling, I will not hold an item, it will ship to the first who pays me in full. The policy works, it is simple. I had one guy get all pissed off about it, though. Still I maintain as a seller that I have no commitment to anyone to hold or ship an item until I have been paid

I hate this, and would never in a million years buy from someone with that approach. No offense to you personally--if it works for you, more power to you. But personally I think people who send someone money without a firm agreement that they are, in fact, the one who will get the item are... taking a risk, to put it mildly.

You quoted me here but you make no point related to my post. Perhaps you meant to quote another poster? I think for both seller and buyer there is a huge difference between enthusiastic interest and making a commitment to buy; I think good commercial etiquette demands this distinction. But, as I unstand it, the question here is not about a buyer just showing enthusiastic interest and then backing off -- which is just the way things go; this question is about backing out on a deal to buy something after having given a written or verbal commitment -- which is much different.

Good cheer, Thomas

 

[Farside]

Many times I've wished I could cancel a purchase, but that's just my poor impulse control leading to buyer's remorse :bang:
A deal is a deal, a promise is a promise and if I have to shuffle the money around a bit, I'll do it and pay up.

 

[aizan]

do returns count? otherwise, no, i've never backed out of a sale. i don't think i'd mind if someone else backed out of a sale. it's their money, after all.

 

[HuubL]

I backed out of a deal on the Dutch "Marktplaats" only two days ago. Somebody had a Leica II (D) for sale. There was only one picture showing a gorgeous black body with nickel trim and a matching nickel elmar. There were already several bids on it when I bid 200 euros. I got an email from the seller in which he agreed on my offer. The email had a link back to the item on sale suddenly showing a lousy, dirty black painted FED or Zorki with "gold" trim and lens...

 

[thomasw_]

HuubL your situation is different, as you were backing away from a deception. Not so the OP. On any deal to buy a thing, the thing must be the real thing, not something just representing it. Otherwise the deal is based on a false representation -- any rational person would agree that this condition voids the deal.

 

[cdk]

Once. I was going to buy some land, had put down a deposit, and then the selling agent or their seller tried to fix me up with a corrupt surveyor and make it part of the agreement. I tried to get them to change that, but they wouldn't.

It was a learning experiment, and now I know RE better, so it won't get to that point again. I hope.

The conversation I had with their chosen surveyor was right out of David Mamet. Wish I had a transcription. Was driving through a sandstorm when I had it, and the exterior matched the interior. :^)

 

[filmtwit]

I normally don't but I just sold a canonette ($10) on egay and found that the shutter isn't working properly after seliing it. I've disclosed the information to the buyer and offered the buyer a full refund. At this point and am waiting to hear back from them.

 

[Steve M.]

Yep, I have, What's worse in my mind is I have sometimes gone through w/ things even though I knew it wasn't what I wanted. Buy or sell a house sometime if you want to see some incredibly flaky behavior. It used to infuriate me, but it's just the result of people being stressed out about a huge purchase, and having to deal w/ realtors (aggggh!) and title companies (double aggggh) that are less than helpful. That old story about buyers being liars is only half true. Sellers and their intermediaries can drive you crazy. Not every deal goes like this of course, but a lot do. If you find a good realtor don't go anywhere else. They really stand out from the crowd.

In fact, one of the things I am most happy about is backing out of a handshake deal to sell someone a mobile home we once had. The prospective buyer was an infernal pest and kept coming over to endlessly check things, they hadn't given us any holding money, and I finally got it out of them that they were waiting on a home sale to close to get the funds to buy. I told them we had decided to go w/ another buyer (you know, the imaginary one) and would be working w/ someone else and thank you very much. Of course, I had the wife make that call, but still...... Ok, I had a good idea but I'm still a coward.

People change their minds sometimes about purchases. For thousands of reasons. Just how it is. People back out of promises every day if things change. It's called divorce.

 

[dogberryjr]

I cancelled a sale when a buyer wanted me to ship to an address different from his Paypal verified address. He gave a great explanation, but I explained I'd have no protection from Paypal if something went wrong. He pissed all over me in emails thereafter, but whatever.

 

[Ranchu]

I only post 'PM sent' when I accept the sellers price and will buy the thing, I think that's appropriate. I backed out of selling a motorcycle years and years ago, the situation was a total cluster**** and no actual price had been agreed, but I felt so bad anyway I'm not going to have that happen again. This is how we learn. I find that I'm only really comfortable when I feel I've acted with integrity, so that's what I do.

 

[jsrockit]

I've backed out of a sale for sure... unless the money has exchanged hands, I don't see the harm in it. In the internet world, do not assume that something is sold until you have the cash, and never hold something for someone and miss a sale.

 

[Carterofmars]

Don't take this the wrong way, but people that post "PM Sent" should be keel hauled.

It does nothing but send the message to hundreds of ad viewers that the item is probably gone and they shouldn't waste their time contacting the seller. And if the PM contains nothing more than a bullshirt offer for less, then the seller has to post a " Item is still available" which further inconveniences the seller. A lot of us don't have the time to hover over our keyboards 20 hours a day once we post an ad. If you want to make an offer, that's fine, but don't post "PM Sent" unless you sent a message to the seller saying "I'll take it at asking price." .

I agree. You should only post "PM sent" when your saying "I'll Take it". For that matter, you should just post "I'll Take it". That will eliminate all confusion.

 

[Disaster_Area]

Yes... I'm done with eBay... I've tried to sell about a half dozen items over the last few months and not a single one has gone smoothly. Buyers backing out after auction end... asking for cheaper (non-tracked) shipping even though I state I only shipped tracked to paypal address... two counts of wanting a refund after the fact for minor defects I clearly laid out in the terms with pictures. And maybe I'm just slow but I've STILL not found a way for me to set a Buy It Now and restrict it to only North American buyers as they group ALL the Americas together...

I'll keep buying from eBay but I'm not putting anything else I don't mind treating like a write off up for sale...