Business Ethics opinions needed Please
 

Hello everyone, before I give the situation, I would like to make it perfectly clear that I am not involved except both parties are friends of mine.

A card is listed on a business's website for sale.
A buyer adds it to his cart, then purchases and promptly pays for it for $400

He then receives a message from the seller:

"I am afraid that the card you ordered on our online store last night are not currently available. They were not supposed to be listed on our online store as they are away for grading, we do not know when it will come back, and the grade could be anything from no grade to a high grade. I will however make the card available to you when I get it back from PSA. We will issue you a refund on Monday when we are back in the office."


The card came back a 2.5 and the seller charged the same buyer $700 now.


Your thoughts and opinions are appreciated.

Thanks
Dan Mckee

This makes it so tough. This is like the second time seeing this, just like the Otey blank backed southern league card that was won fair and square, but once the seller authenticates it, knows he will get more for it. It's tough in this case, but the card was falsely advertised.

That's lame...the seller should have removed the card(s) from their for sale page while they were away for grading.

I'd chalk it up to a lost card and not deal with that seller again...unless $700 is a perceived fair price...not much action one could take...in my opinion!

A contract is a contract. If the card was listed and sold for an original asking price then the deal should go through. To charge more after the fact is unethical! Otherwise refunds need to be issued ASAP and the deal is dead. If the person is willing to pay more after the fact, then that is his problem.

I guess my question is this, was there a scan of the card in a holder before the purchase was made.

Hey Dan,

There's been a couple times over the years I've gotten really good deals on ebay auctions, paid promptly, and then received a message from seller stating he "mistakenly" listed the card but realized he had previously sold it. (And yes, the same seller put the same card back up for auction a few weeks later!) I think this sort of thing is quite unethical, but I typically just take the refund and take my business elsewhere. Life's too short to get panties in a bind over these things :cool:

Best regards and happy collecting :)
Craig

No, the card was pictured raw when it was purchased.

Thanks

Seller sounds like a jerk. I'd never deal with him again and tell him where he could stick the card, slab and all.

From my reading of this conundrum I'd say that Dan is unethical.

Jeff you are all heart!

Funny! and all heart!

this is easy, of course it is unethical.

it's not like it was an honest typo, like he wanted to charge 400 and accidentally listed it for 4.00

a deal is a deal, this is a no brainer, it is up to the SELLER to have UPDATED listings.

he offered it for 400, the guy bought it, it should be four hundred and a lesson learned for the seller.

should the buyer be able to do the same thing? buy it raw for 400, it gets a low grade than the buyer expected, but not trimmed, now worth 300, he asks the seller to send him 100 because the card wasn't worth the 400 in his mind now. when you buy raw, you buy raw, with the caveat that it isn't altered or trimmed and it is accurately described, but after that, A DEAL IS A DEAL!

Did I say a DEAL IS A DEAL!

think of it from the buyers perspective, this sucks! he bought it in good faith and the seller should buck up and take his lumps and learn to take the card off the website immediately if he wants to send it in for grading.

If it were me and I had it up for sale for $400.00 I would've honored the sale.

I wouldn't expect him to lose money, he could ask for whatever it cost him to grade it on top of the $400.00, but I think going about it this way (honoring his original price on his website) would probably insure a pretty loyal future customer. Just my opinion.

Sincerely, Clayton

The card is the same card. The holder it is contained in is irrelevant.

IMO. I say a deal is a deal. If said card came back from grader as trimmed and only recieved an authentic grade and was now considered to be worth less than $400.00 would this seller offer it for less money now? I tend to doubt it.

If the card was really away being graded and the buyer agreed to back out of the $400 deal, I side with the seller. If the buyer agreed to nix the original sale, the buyer agreed to nix the original sale. I'm assuming there wasn't an agreement that the seller would return later and sell the card for $400.

The card was purchased by the buyer at $400. He wanted the card for $400. He wound up paying $700 and feels he was not treated properly but had to have the card. There was never a deal to cancel the original sale, the seller made that decision on his own.

Duly note the original question was ethics not "Would it be nice?" It would be nice if someone gave me a Ferrari, but that's not a matter of ethics.

This can happen when you "have" to have something. No way I do that deal but to each their own. Seller may have heard it was "Get a 10" month at PSA, pulled the card and then forgot to change his website.

The answer is if the buyer agreed to vacate the original sale, he agreed to vacate the original sale. If he wanted to make a stink about the situation and the $400 he just paid, he could have done it at the time.

And if there was agreement he'd get the card for $400 when it returned from PSA, then, yes, he'd have a legitimate complaint and I'd side with him.

But in the beginning and in the said, I don't know what agreements were involved and what specifically was said between the two, so I'm working with limited details.

And I'm also assuming that if it came back from PSA a trimmed reprint, the potential buyer would have refused to pay $400 for it. So I assume it's not a situation where he was willing to pay the $400 no matter what the PSA verdict.

Buyer purchased the card from the website for $400.

Was sent the email in my original post

Buyer was not happy and didn't agree to anything

His money was refunded

card came back

seller offered it again to buyer for $700

Buyer ate crow and paid the extra but feels very mistreated and seller lost a very good customer for the future.

I don't see where there is any room for agreements in between.

Unless the buyer is on acid, agreed to drop the $400 and pay whatever extra and then decide to get mad about it and feel ripped off.

one of the main reasons unscrupulous dealers keep doing what they are doing is because People " have to have that card". Just say NO to being ripped off on basebal cards for once. It won't hurt; matter of fact it feels pretty good. A bseball card is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Otherwise it is worthless other than the value of the paper it is printed on. Someone was willing to pay an extra $300 over the $400 he already spent and feels like he was treated badly , but yet he "had to have the card"....BooHoo

If he bought the card for 700 after the first sale was cancelled then that would be the buyers problem. Nobody forced him to buy the card.

Was the seller from Long Island?

It is unethical to make a deal with someone for a certain price, then unilaterally decide to change the rules after the fact in the seller's favor.

The buyer would then decide if he is willing to agree to this unethical treatment. Based Dan on what you write, he did agree to pay more, whatever the reason.

Dan,

Was the card originally priced at $400 because it was suspected of being altered or ungradeable? Or was the price increase solely due to the commoditization of the card? (i.e., it is now "slabbed")

Dan, I would like to know who the seller is so I can stay away from them. To me this is very bad business practice and if they will do it once then they have no problem doing it to anyone else in the future. If you dont want to post it here then you can PM me or not.

My guess is the seller had the card out a while raw, didn't sell it, sent it off to be graded, and forgot to take it down. Careless, yeah, and should the seller go through with it, probably, but I don't think it rises to the level of unethical as it's probably an honest mistake if i am right.

Would agree that this is the most likely scenario.

Seller committed. Seller made the mistake. He should eat it. Why should the buyer who did not make the mistake and was willing to buy at the original asking price without even asking for a discount take the hit?

Let's keep in mind that the seller was going to make money at $400. Upon receiving a higher grade they wanted more, but they would not have lost money by doing the right thing and selling at their original asking price.

I would never deal with that seller again if they did that to me.
JimB

Mistakes happen. The buyer isn't out of pocket anything if he walked away so he wasn't harmed. I think the seller should go through with it as a matter of good practice, but I am not prepared to call him unethical.

/

Agreed.

Seriously!

The buyer could've told the seller to pound sand when he was offered the card at $700. Sometimes depending on how long we have been looking for a difficult card our judgement may be unduly influenced and we might pay up. I'd like to think all of us have been in that situation. The buyer paid and now has a bad taste in his mouth. I also feel the seller should've completed the transaction for the original $400. After all, the card is still the same. He lost a customer and maybe several more depending on who the buyer shares his experience with.

Yeah, he'll lose a customer until he has something I need. :eek:

I think it was a setup to guarantee a buyer at the $700 price tag IMO.

I believe the seller should have gone through with the sale for $400. The buyer should offer to reimburse for grading fee.

I don't know if I would call it unethical.

If the card came back from PSA as a 1 (and for the sake of an argument) is now worth $300, is it unethical for the buyer to back out? No.

I sell on eBay and I certainly make mistakes every now and again. I can see where the seller is coming from.

Jason

The seller made an offer to sell a specific item at a given price, and the buyer accepted the offer before it was withdrawn. Thus, technically speaking, we have a binding contract, but alas, the breach of contract is one not worth pursuing due to the limited amount at stake. THIS IS WHERE HONOR ON THE PART OF THE SELLER SHOULD HAVE COME INTO PLAY, HOWEVER, IMHO. SELLER FAILED MISERABLY!

May all your collecting days be better than that one,

Larry

Great point. From raw to a PSA 2.5, from $400.00 (which is obviously what the seller decided he'd originally be happy with) to $700.00 (because the buyer showed he really wanted the card by paying for it?).

"$400.00 + grading cost, the card is all yours, thanks for purchasing from me and if you ever need anything in the future feel free to contact me anytime !!!!" :)

Sincerely, Clayton

yep, seller failed miserably. they had a deal. seller needs to grow up.

I agree with the above. Doesnt seem like an ethical situation to me. The seller was honest with the buyer about the whereabouts of the card and promptly refunded the money. When the card returned from PSA, he offered him the card at fair market value (FMV because the buyer paid it). The seller did not price gouge or extort the buyer. He simply offered a product to him first. A product, that isn't necessary to survive (Well, at least to 99.9% of the population).

You can say that a PSA holder doesnt matter all day long, but it does matter. It matters as long as people are willing to pay an increased premium for a card sitting in a holder.

at the most
 

I feel the most he should have asked for was the grading fees and maybe a couple bucks shipping, even then I personally would not, but to each his own. I would still buy from the person but I would certainly be more selective.

I want to add a few facts I either left out or stated incorrectly:

There was never a picture of the card on the site when it was first purchased.

It was labeled: "away for grading" on the site.

The seller sent me these, the buyer has not confirmed it yet.

I do not want to share the names as I do not think one mistake here should sway any of you from dealing with the seller.

I have dealt with the seller for years and though not every deal was perfect from either side, we both always managed to fix the situation to make the other one happy.

I mainly started this thread so that the seller would see that he made a bad judgement and maybe correct it. Though some of you agree it is on the buyer for having to have the card and I see that as well.

Like Leon said: The seller lost a customer until he has another card I have to have! Our hobby can be an addiction. I have fell victom to this in the past myself.

Again both are friends of mine and though I side with the buyer on this instance, I still will deal with the seller as in the past.

Now if he would have done this to me...

Well you can bet this thread would not have been anonymous!

Dan

That bit of information makes the seller look even worse. If he went to the trouble to put "out for grading" next to the card, why didn't he take the price down or even better take the card down. Then just put it back up when he got it back. Doesn't look like an honest mistake at all, more like a fishing expedition.

Some folks here make some decent points in support of the seller, but I have to side with the buyer as well. If you put a card up for sale on your website, and the person pays, you owe it to them to send them the card.

Once they have paid, they are the rightful owner of the card. It is wrong to do an involuntary return simply because the card came back from the grading company with a favorable grade.

It was disclosed on the site that the card was away for grading. If it had been returned as a PSA 1, and only been worth, say, $250, would the seller have cut the price? It's hard to imagine. You can't have it both ways - you sell a card, someone pays for it, they own it.

Imagine if you were hungry and went to the supermarket to buy a loaf of bread for $4. As soon as you pay for it, you are about to open the bag when the owner comes running up to you, and forces you to pay $7 because the price of wheat went up. You pay the $7 because you are hungry and need the bread, but isn't that exploitation?

I wouldn't want to deal with a business that puts one price on the website, and then as soon as you buy the product, they say that in order for them to send it to you, you must pay 75% more. Imagine if all the bb card dealers were like that - I don't think we'd have a lot of happy collectors out there.

Or imagine if you bought an item from an auction house and sent them a check for $1000, that being the final sale price of the item, and then once the auction house received the check they told you that you must send them another $750 to complete the transaction? Who would want to participate in an auction like that?

I'm not going to speak to ethical or unethical but rather give what I would have done as the seller in the situation...

If the card was listed raw and not in their possession at the time that is their mistake not the buyers. I would have let him know the situation. The buyer needs to understand that the cards value will change when it is graded but that still doesn't excuse the mistake of the seller. I would give him first crack on the card when it came back and give a reasonable discount... So if he was originally going to pay $400, and graded it came back and is valued at $700 I would offer it to them for probably $500-$550 (depending on grading fees and incurred cost).

Who on earth would price a card before he knew what grade it was going to receive??

Yeah, just like folks will boycott an auction until that happens.:)

Yea I agree now that I read it again, he probably shouldn't have said that.

Bait and switch...

If the buyer has a printed receipt from his original purchase, he may be able to force a refund of the difference through their credit card company.

Joshua