too bad Audiogon seems to have morphed to fussy, picky buyers

Wow! I’m so sorry to hear this! I’ve been on audiogon since 2001 and have engaged in many purchases and sales, but I have not sold anything in several years and only made one purchase recently, as I have been very satisfied with my rig and have purchased some gear from my local high-end retailer.

As a buyer and seller, I always tried to treat people as though they were a personal friend. I guess that is out the window now, if this is the consensus. Of course, this is a self-selected group (bad seller experiences). I wonder if it is a more general feelng?

I'm not so sure it favors buyers but that buyers are increasingly demanding and used to getting their way, same thing happened on ebay and to some extent ebay encouraged this behavior. I found it odd that as a seller with 150 sales and 100% satisfaction I"d have my payment funds held until the buyer indicated they were "satisfied" with the purchase- even though the buyer had 10 transactions to their name. I would have thought that the process would favor the party with the highest number of completed and satisfactory transactions. I think it's a combination of demanding buyers and sellers feeling bullied and not wanting to get a bad review by a demanding buyer. Some times it's better to take the hit, take the product back and post bad reviews for the difficult buyer I think. Perhaps noting that if a return happens then the buyer needs to pay for the shipping or the shipping and ten percent of the selling price etc. to discourage buyer's remorse return attempts.

No, the market favors the buyer, and the last 4-5 years this has developed into a big time buyer’s market.

Good luck putting demands on a buyer returning an item. Unless you got them to pay with a check or money order, they are in control.
PayPal will take your money back before the buyer even ships the unit back to you!
No return shipping, no extra 10% restocking/advertising, nothing.


Great deals out there to be had if you are a buyer, just bite your lip and give it away if you are the seller.....or just keep it. ;^)

yeah, no worries - I never give it away, I'm never a desparate seller and- in my exp its the very people who grind you, nag you, complain and are looking to steal something at a ridiculous price that are the worst to deal with- you can never sell it cheap enough to make them happy. The best buyers are ones who buy without a lot of haggling, pay a reasonable price and know they're buying a pre-owned (and not brand new) product. Same thing when I was in the car business.