Unsound, nothing that I am saying is meant to condone the behavior of the seller in Cuonghuutran's case. It is obviously an inconvenience to others for a seller post an ad that may cause certain actions to be taken by respondents, only to needlessly disappoint them. I still disagree however, that a seller accepting their best offer - even one above their asking price - carries with it any stink of impropriety. Rather, the seller in the above case violated two of the points I make above: A) The seller didn't thoroughly enough research the item they were selling in order to arrive at the proper asking price, but even more importantly for our purposes, B) The seller failed to be discreet about what they were doing to correct their first mistake. He shouldn't have so transparently tried to weasel out of his first ad by marking it "Sold" and placing a second one at a higher price as if nothing unusual had happened, and he shouldn't have offered the item to Cuonghuutran at a higher price than it was advertised for.
What the seller did NOT do - which keeps him free, to my mind, from accusations of immorality - was to tell Cuonghuutran that they had a deal at the advertised price and then renege on it. Cuonghuutran makes it clear that the seller never accepted his offer, instead telling him that he would "make a decision later", as Cuonghuutran puts it. It is entirely the seller's perogative to consider all the offers he receives if he so chooses, and then pick from among them based on whatever criteria he prefers to employ. Where he went wrong was in telling Cuonghuutran that Cuonghuutran could instead pay him $X.00 amount (above his asking price), and of course in the two ads business, which was just bone-headed. If he wanted to cancel his first ad and re-list the item at a higher price (instead of just accepting his highest offer on the first ad), he should have recontacted all his respondents, apologized to them, and explained that now realized that he priced his item too low, was going to withdraw his first listing (NOT mark it "Sold" like an idiot), and intended to re-list the item at a higher price. Then, any potential buyers who wanted to could make new offers on the new ad, and the seller could choose from among those offers. The point is, the seller should have done one thing or the other (either taken his highest offer quietly, or declared his mistake and re-listed), but not stupidly tried to do both. Had the seller done one of those things, instead of what he actually did do, we would probably not be having this discussion right now.
But leaving aside for a moment the two mistakes the seller made (not doing enough research, not being discreet in dealing with the fallout he created), what the seller essentially did was this: He placed an ad; he got many responses; one or more of his responses offered to pay the asking price; one or more of his responses offered to pay more than his asking price; he accepted his highest offer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this in theory, as long as a seller is both straightfoward and discreet about it. I challenge anybody to state for me a cogent, compelling argument as to why, for instance, if a seller receives 4 equally qualified offers of $400.00 on an item he listed at $400.00, plus one equally qualified offer of $450.00 from a particularly motivated and savvy buyer, the seller should not discreetly give preference to the $450.00 offer. I would. What I WOULDN'T do is recontact the other potential buyers and announce that the going price was now $450.00, and ask if they cared to up the ante - I would just let them know the item was sold.
The example of the restaurant reservations scam is pretty funny; I hadn't heard of this behavior before, but then I'm fairly cloistered and naive. What it is not, however, is an applicable analogy to the issue at hand. In the reservations scam, the con artist knows at the outset that he is wasting the time and effort - and potentially losing business for - a number of the establishments he pretends to offer his business to, because that is part and parcel of his plan to look like a bigshot. In the case of a seller on Audiogon, there is no possible incentive to deliberately list an item at too low a price, and then tell potential customers who respond that they'll actually need to pay more to have a chance. The seller would just be inciting acrimony, and that can't be good for business. Almost any case of pricing an item too low and then deciding to backtrack can automatically be assumed to be the result of an honest mistake. This fact doesn't mean such a careless seller should be held blameless for any inconveniences they may cause, but it does mean that they are not the equivalent of an intentional liar like the reservations weasel. I challenge anybody to present a cogent and compelling argument as to why, for example, if a seller prices an item too low for the market through their own ignorance or carelessness, realizes what he has done after the responses come in - but never tells any of the respondents that they have a deal - it is reasonable to hold that the seller MUST still agree sell the item at the listed price to one of the potential buyers offering the asking-price, even if the seller has other offers for more than the asking-price. Such an argument would defy common sense - an argument harder to defend than it is to defend the occasional careless but not intentionally dishonest seller. Also, it would be prudent to keep in mind that 'the market' is never really known until an item is listed; even the most thoroughly researched and realistically priced item could attract an offer above the asking-price, through no fault whatsoever on the part of the seller. Is it then fair to ask that the seller disregard such an offer?
I stand by my outline for good selling practice above. If Cuonghuutran's seller had followed this etiquette, there would have been no problem. Even given the clearly-less-than-optimal way this particular case was actually handled by the seller, Cuonghuutran was not wronged in any tangible way. Nothing was promised him and later taken back. Any valid offer that anybody makes on any advertised item might prove to be unsuccessful for a variety of legitmate reasons. That's life. In fact, it's better than life: Life is supposed to be unfair. This was not unfair, it was just a failed attempt at happiness. For any one advertised item, there can only be one happily fulfilled customer at most. This time, it wasn't Cuonghuutran; other times, it's not you or me. Let's get over it. The important thing here IMO is that, if sellers follow common-sense guidelines similar to the ones I laid out above, then any one of us could have a seller/customer interaction with any other one of us, and whether or not it resulted in a sale, the customer would never have cause to feel wronged in any way.
What the seller did NOT do - which keeps him free, to my mind, from accusations of immorality - was to tell Cuonghuutran that they had a deal at the advertised price and then renege on it. Cuonghuutran makes it clear that the seller never accepted his offer, instead telling him that he would "make a decision later", as Cuonghuutran puts it. It is entirely the seller's perogative to consider all the offers he receives if he so chooses, and then pick from among them based on whatever criteria he prefers to employ. Where he went wrong was in telling Cuonghuutran that Cuonghuutran could instead pay him $X.00 amount (above his asking price), and of course in the two ads business, which was just bone-headed. If he wanted to cancel his first ad and re-list the item at a higher price (instead of just accepting his highest offer on the first ad), he should have recontacted all his respondents, apologized to them, and explained that now realized that he priced his item too low, was going to withdraw his first listing (NOT mark it "Sold" like an idiot), and intended to re-list the item at a higher price. Then, any potential buyers who wanted to could make new offers on the new ad, and the seller could choose from among those offers. The point is, the seller should have done one thing or the other (either taken his highest offer quietly, or declared his mistake and re-listed), but not stupidly tried to do both. Had the seller done one of those things, instead of what he actually did do, we would probably not be having this discussion right now.
But leaving aside for a moment the two mistakes the seller made (not doing enough research, not being discreet in dealing with the fallout he created), what the seller essentially did was this: He placed an ad; he got many responses; one or more of his responses offered to pay the asking price; one or more of his responses offered to pay more than his asking price; he accepted his highest offer. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this in theory, as long as a seller is both straightfoward and discreet about it. I challenge anybody to state for me a cogent, compelling argument as to why, for instance, if a seller receives 4 equally qualified offers of $400.00 on an item he listed at $400.00, plus one equally qualified offer of $450.00 from a particularly motivated and savvy buyer, the seller should not discreetly give preference to the $450.00 offer. I would. What I WOULDN'T do is recontact the other potential buyers and announce that the going price was now $450.00, and ask if they cared to up the ante - I would just let them know the item was sold.
The example of the restaurant reservations scam is pretty funny; I hadn't heard of this behavior before, but then I'm fairly cloistered and naive. What it is not, however, is an applicable analogy to the issue at hand. In the reservations scam, the con artist knows at the outset that he is wasting the time and effort - and potentially losing business for - a number of the establishments he pretends to offer his business to, because that is part and parcel of his plan to look like a bigshot. In the case of a seller on Audiogon, there is no possible incentive to deliberately list an item at too low a price, and then tell potential customers who respond that they'll actually need to pay more to have a chance. The seller would just be inciting acrimony, and that can't be good for business. Almost any case of pricing an item too low and then deciding to backtrack can automatically be assumed to be the result of an honest mistake. This fact doesn't mean such a careless seller should be held blameless for any inconveniences they may cause, but it does mean that they are not the equivalent of an intentional liar like the reservations weasel. I challenge anybody to present a cogent and compelling argument as to why, for example, if a seller prices an item too low for the market through their own ignorance or carelessness, realizes what he has done after the responses come in - but never tells any of the respondents that they have a deal - it is reasonable to hold that the seller MUST still agree sell the item at the listed price to one of the potential buyers offering the asking-price, even if the seller has other offers for more than the asking-price. Such an argument would defy common sense - an argument harder to defend than it is to defend the occasional careless but not intentionally dishonest seller. Also, it would be prudent to keep in mind that 'the market' is never really known until an item is listed; even the most thoroughly researched and realistically priced item could attract an offer above the asking-price, through no fault whatsoever on the part of the seller. Is it then fair to ask that the seller disregard such an offer?
I stand by my outline for good selling practice above. If Cuonghuutran's seller had followed this etiquette, there would have been no problem. Even given the clearly-less-than-optimal way this particular case was actually handled by the seller, Cuonghuutran was not wronged in any tangible way. Nothing was promised him and later taken back. Any valid offer that anybody makes on any advertised item might prove to be unsuccessful for a variety of legitmate reasons. That's life. In fact, it's better than life: Life is supposed to be unfair. This was not unfair, it was just a failed attempt at happiness. For any one advertised item, there can only be one happily fulfilled customer at most. This time, it wasn't Cuonghuutran; other times, it's not you or me. Let's get over it. The important thing here IMO is that, if sellers follow common-sense guidelines similar to the ones I laid out above, then any one of us could have a seller/customer interaction with any other one of us, and whether or not it resulted in a sale, the customer would never have cause to feel wronged in any way.