Business Ethics opinions needed Please

[ls7plus]

The seller made an offer to sell a specific item at a given price, and the buyer accepted the offer before it was withdrawn.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

[travrosty]

Originally Posted by ls7plus

The seller made an offer to sell a specific item at a given price, and the buyer accepted the offer before it was withdrawn.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

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

[glynparson]

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.

[danmckee]

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

[Mikehealer]

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.

[cyseymour]

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?

[Sean1125]

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).

[Peter_Spaeth]

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

[tiger8mush]

Originally Posted by danmckee

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

So the buyer was going to purchase the card unseen? It could've looked like it had been chewed up by a dog, swallowed, and removed from excrement and the buyer would've been happy for only $400?