Have you had buyers/sellers back out of a deal?

I found a pair of speaker that I wanted to buy. Contacted the seller. Had everything set up. So I thought. He had agreed to sell them to me, but never got back to me. When I contacted him again, He told me that he had sold them for a higher price. I was paying the price that he had wanted on his classifed add. I asked him why he would do that, and he told me to f*** off. I should have check his feedback. He has done that numerous times. Afraid if I leave him a negative feedback, he would leave me one too. Even though he has no reason too.

Just my two cents...If someone commits to either buy or sell, they should honor their commitment. Exceptions being the person you are dealing with is unresponsive or very difficult to deal with. I also feel that if you have a bad experience you should leave negative feedback reflecting this experience. We all rely on the feedback system to determine our risk either buying or selling. Not leaving negative feedback when it is deserved is an injustice to all Audiogon members. Lets face it folks, there are crooks out there. I know firsthand as I had a bad experience buying a McIntosh tuner a few months back from a Audiogon member. Besides leaving negative feedback I also filed a dispute & his Audiogon account was closed. That's the only tool we have to weed out dishonest people.

Happy to say that of the many items that I have bought and sold on AudiogoN,..only one went bad. With that exception, everyone I have had contact with, buyers, sellers and A'goN staff have been a joy to meet...via the "net".

The one that went bad did not cost me any money, only time. I had an item for sale in mid 2001. I accepted an offer from that person..and then a series of e-mails brought no response. I kept at it for some time, then by Sept. of 2001 I did leave neg. feedback for that person(first time I had felt like it needed to be done). Interestingly, 7 months later that person left neg. feedback for me! Since that time this person did cost someone else some serious money on a speaker sale.

The only thing that we have to go by is a buyer or seller's feedback. However it is always good to ask if they have feedback on any other site...like ebay.

If you get a feeling that something is not right with a buyer or seller..before you make the deal, walk away from it. Trust your feelings before you make the deal. And always cross check the neg. feedback...if a buyer and seller both leave neg. feedback for each other on the same deal..you can usually read through it and see where(whom)the problem was.

In addition, to Hifidreams and others above....you have to leave neg. feedback when someone is dishonest...if you don't then the feedback forum won't work and someones else will get taken by that same buyer/seller. If you look up a person's feedback and decide not to do business with them because of too much neg. feedback..then other A'goN members have done you a huge favor...Shouldn't you also do this for other members? Like I said above if you state the facts and keep the emotions out of your neg. feedback..then you have nothing to fear..because the bum that's in the wrong if they leave neg. feedback for you...will likely be emotional and sound stupid..that's why you must cross check neg. feedback for both parties in a situation, and see who caused the problem!

Boy,did I go to school. After a 2 hr. phone conversation I sent a pair of wires to a member.Postal COD. I had no idea at the time one could pay with a personal check.--The check bounced. I stated this on his feedback.It took 5 mos to get the wires back and the NEGATIVE "he" left for me, removed.---Kinda gutsy,on his part!-- Guess what--15 months later I'm reading one of these dispute threads-- my same guy had screwed another member-- He got away with it because the other guy is just starting out here and "bought" the negative back,if you will. I emailed the new victim--those were his words.---Right there in Audiogon's guidelines it says you can't use past episodes or dealings.(Inadmissible) Anyway, this guy is still here with a different email / user name. Will you be his next victim?--There are a few ways around the feedback system.

For the first time, ever, I backed out of a deal. There was a CD player for sale here and the ad indicated the unit had a new transport installed and the player was in great shape both physically and sonically. Since the ad was a "OBO" I contacted the seller to make a reasonable offer. He responded with a higher price than the orginal ad...claiming that the power supply was recently changed as well! We finally came to an agreement on an equitable price and I was supposed to meet the gent the following week (he has a store) and exchange cash for the player. The transport AND power supply had crapped out? Got me thinking, my gut said something was amiss. I went to Audioreview.com to research the item more carefully, and man there was a ton of horror stories about this CDP. Very common for the transport and/or power supplies to repeatedly fail on this item. The combination of the up-front discussions re. the transport/power supply and the product reviews caused me to drop a note to the gent and advise him that due to product reliability concerns I would not be buying the unit from him. He responded, less than happy with me to say the least.

I almost went ahead with the purchase for the sake of maintaining a "perfect record" but the more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that backing out was the right thing to do. I often try things for a while then sell it, part of the fun of the hobby. In good consicence I could not sell something problematic to someone, so I shouldn't be expected to buy a problem either. Even though this item was made by a well-respected manufacturer that I have auditioned in my system a few years ago,I would have been smart to read up on the unit before considering buying it. "High end" does not imply high quality. Lesson learned. In any event, although the seller was pissed at me he did not leave negative feedback.