What's the norm/etiquette when faced with a situation like this?

[Structo]

I don't know about you guys but if a guy low balls something I have for sale, then says I'll pay you in a few days..... that sucks.

He already got you to agree to a lower price than you wanted, now he wants to take a few days to pay?
Of course I suppose it depends on the amount, but if it is say, less than a couple hundred I would expect to be paid the next business day.

I don't do lay away!

So I would have disagreed with the time frame from the start.

You watch he will show up (or not) and offer you even less cash than you agreed to.

Now you have somebody that will pay the asking price right now!

[FractalGarden]

OP needs to be more forthcoming with details.

[bluesgolfer]

Originally Posted by coldfingaz

This is a gross over-generalization & mischaracterization of what many have stated, but whatever floats your boat.

I don't do many deals here, but all of them have been flawless & I'd be just as happy not to deal with your arbiters of impeccable moral & ethical behavior... oh, and your hardline definition of an "agreement" is flimsy.

Whatever floats my boat? I don't make the laws or the rules or set moral standards. It's a matter of right and wrong, honesty and dishonesty. Some posters here seem to recognize that and others don't. Which ones would you rather deal with? And contrary to what you posted, there is recourse if one cares to go that route. I would rather not deal with those who break their promises.

[Jeremy47]

Originally Posted by mudster

Be honest, explain the situation, give the lowball a chance to match the offer, then sell to the highest bidder.

this.

i was on both sides of this equation within the past month.
in the first deal, i agreed to sell an item for below my asking price at a certain day. got another offer for more at an earlier day. honestly explained to the first guy and he was cool with me going for the higher offer.
in the second deal i had a trade lined up but then the other guy got a cash offer he wanted to take. he let me know the situation and i was fine with him taking the better deal.

[bluesgolfer]

Originally Posted by Structo

I don't know about you guys but if a guy low balls something I have for sale, then says I'll pay you in a few days..... that sucks.

He already got you to agree to a lower price than you wanted, now he wants to take a few days to pay?
Of course I suppose it depends on the amount, but if it is say, less than a couple hundred I would expect to be paid the next business day.

I don't do lay away!

So I would have disagreed with the time frame from the start.

You watch he will show up (or not) and offer you even less cash than you agreed to.

Now you have somebody that will pay the asking price right now!

The simple solution to that is to reject the first buyer's offer at the onset.

[coldfingaz]

Originally Posted by bluesgolfer

I don't make the laws or the rules or set moral standards.

Yes, you have set your own standards both legally & morally, and then you insult those that disagree with you & paint them as liars.

Well done.

Must be nice to act as if you're the legislator, judge & jury.

[StompBoxBlues]

Originally Posted by coldfingaz

Yes, you have set your own standards both legally & morally, and then you insult those that disagree with you & paint them as liars.

Well done.

Must be nice to act as if you're the legislator, judge & jury.

Accurate portraying is not an insult (or...it is but it's fitting, what else is there to call it..it's just greed trumping honesty).

It's really easy to give lip service to being honest, moral, ethical when it doesn't cost anything. Anyone can do that, it doesn't mean anything.
It's when the excrement hits the rotating blades that we seperate the honest and the dishonest.

You give your word, agree to a deal, and want to "have it all" and back out because you gave your word when you thought that was the best you could do, so now you want to pretend you didn't... (not you, but the main thing here) AND still want to be looked on as being "honest".

It doesn't work that way. You make a deal, it's a deal. It's dead easy. IF it costs you (because you find out later you could have done better) chalk it up to experience, and make sure you do better next time.

I'm not saying I never dropped the ball on a deal, but not intentionally, and not just because I found out later I made
the deal too soon, I bit the bullet when things like this happen, didn't try to weasel out becauase I stood to gain.

Seeing how many folks think that is okay, coupled with dissing the hell out of this abstract buyer, as if HE was in the wrong for getting a better deal for himself, and all, is pretty eye-opening.

The seller agreed. He shouldn't have. He's finding that out now, and regretting that he agreed. But he did.

The buyer may flake out (the second one too? who knows) but then again, he may be scrambling to get the money together, and then after taking the seller at his word, get shafted and told "no, better offer came, it's gone.".

You can't turn weaseling out into a moral, ethical way to do things unless you want to redefine ethis as just "screw anyone you can" as the model.

You had a good suggestion upstream I think, his best bet would be to talk to buyer #1 and tell him the situation...maybe he'll
say "go ahead sell it to the other guy", or maybe he at least could be persuaded to transfer the money ASAP..there are honest ways
to see what is possible, but keeping in mind one made a deal, and that IS the deal if the other party keeps to it.

[bluesgolfer]

Originally Posted by coldfingaz

Yes, you have set your own standards both legally & morally, and then you insult those that disagree with you & paint them as liars.

Well done.

Must be nice to act as if you're the legislator, judge & jury.

Well, when buyer and seller both promise to do something and they agree they have a deal, some people here are saying they wouldn't do as promised. People like to rationalize and make excuses to justify their behavior but it doesn't always make it right. And, if they aren't going to do what they promise they are going to do, I can't imagine they are telling the truth.

I'll bet the guys here who would honor their deals don't feel insulted by anything I have posted here.

[jaycee]

I say it depends on the amount of money we're talking about. If it's $25 bucks or so, i'd say sell to #1. If it's a substantial amount, to hell with buyer #1. Tell him about #2 and see if he wants to match your original price.

When it comes to money, there is NO such thing as morals or integrity or any other 'high horse' words. Money talks. Just tell the guy, "sorry but i need the money". End of story. It's your stuff and you should get what you want for it. It sucks to have to re-neg on a deal and i'd feel bad about it but money talks. Period.

It does NOT make you a bad person or a dishonest person or whatever else people want to call you. Tough $hit.

[semi-hollowbody]

If some one offers me ASKING price, I agree, and then someone offers more, I would go with the original offer..

But if someone low balls me, then he better hope no one offers more before we make the exchange...

However, if I am low balled...I tell the buyer "as long as we make the exchange before I get a beter offer"

[rog951]

The way I see it, what's done is done. If you already agreed to a deal with buyer #1, then I'd feel like I had to sell it to him under the terms that I agreed to. That said, I certainly wouldn't tell buyer #2 that the item is sold until I had buyer #1's money in my hands. And the instant buyer #1 deviates in the slightest from doing what he said he'd do, buyer #2 becomes buyer #1.

[sleshnyc]

Yes. Stick with whatever terms you agreed upon with buyer 1. next time be more specific to allow yourself the option of selling to someone else. But agreement in an email is binding (at least morally) and should be agreed upon. Happened to me in something with at several hundred dollar difference but I honored the terms and felt good about it.

[DavidG]

Originally Posted by rog951

The way I see it, what's done is done. If you already agreed to a deal with buyer #1, then I'd feel like I had to sell it to him under the terms that I agreed to. That said, I certainly wouldn't tell buyer #2 that the item is sold until I had buyer #1's money in my hands. And the instant buyer #1 deviates in the slightest from doing what he said he'd do, buyer #2 becomes buyer #1.

Agree. I've had a couple honest people wait on me here at TGP. One was a very high dollar item. Of course I didn't try to haggle the price lol. If I was the seller I'd be doing everything possible to try and communicate with buyer #1 pronto. If I had made that deal, as bad as I knew I was screwing myself, I'd have to give buyer #1 whatever timeline we agreed upon. I'd also be up front with buyer #2 (maybe not about me waiting on a lowball offer, lol) but if he would give me a couple days to make my mind up. I care what people think of me, but I care more what I think of myself.. if that makes any sense.

[Grantme]

Originally Posted by jcarpenter

It's buisness. The guy that low balled you so obviously he's a buisnessman too.

Worth repeating, point. Nice.

He knows he's getting a deal. The only argument I could see for approaching it any other way is if it's a child. No one likes to let children down, but if you're an adult and get twisted by this then your an emotional handful.

[coldfingaz]

Originally Posted by StompBoxBlues

Accurate portraying is not an insult (or...it is but it's fitting, what else is there to call it..it's just greed trumping honesty).

It's really easy to give lip service to being honest, moral, ethical when it doesn't cost anything. Anyone can do that, it doesn't mean anything.
It's when the excrement hits the rotating blades that we seperate the honest and the dishonest.

You give your word, agree to a deal, and want to "have it all" and back out because you gave your word when you thought that was the best you could do, so now you want to pretend you didn't... (not you, but the main thing here) AND still want to be looked on as being "honest".

It doesn't work that way. You make a deal, it's a deal. It's dead easy. IF it costs you (because you find out later you could have done better) chalk it up to experience, and make sure you do better next time.

I'm not saying I never dropped the ball on a deal, but not intentionally, and not just because I found out later I made
the deal too soon, I bit the bullet when things like this happen, didn't try to weasel out becauase I stood to gain.

Seeing how many folks think that is okay, coupled with dissing the hell out of this abstract buyer, as if HE was in the wrong for getting a better deal for himself, and all, is pretty eye-opening.

The seller agreed. He shouldn't have. He's finding that out now, and regretting that he agreed. But he did.

The buyer may flake out (the second one too? who knows) but then again, he may be scrambling to get the money together, and then after taking the seller at his word, get shafted and told "no, better offer came, it's gone.".

You can't turn weaseling out into a moral, ethical way to do things unless you want to redefine ethis as just "screw anyone you can" as the model.

You had a good suggestion upstream I think, his best bet would be to talk to buyer #1 and tell him the situation...maybe he'll
say "go ahead sell it to the other guy", or maybe he at least could be persuaded to transfer the money ASAP..there are honest ways
to see what is possible, but keeping in mind one made a deal, and that IS the deal if the other party keeps to it.

I don't entirely disagree with you, but I think it's slippery slope to judge somebody's take on this specific & fairly unusual circumstance (both the lowball offer combined with a delayed/pending payment issue) by labeling them as an across the board liar worthy of being blacklisted, etc. I mean it just got completely ridiculous.

Here's what I would have done:

- Not accepted a lowball offer in the first place.
- If I had in a moment of temporary insanity, I would have at least told the non-paying buyer that I'd be unloading it if another higher offer comes in before he could commit to pay.
- If I had another offer, I'd go to the original guy to go over the options.

The only thing I objected to here was the black/white judgment some have labeled others as (i.e. "liars", while inferring they lack moral or ethical character, etc.) when this situation isn't at all a clean deal or completed transaction.

Sure, the OP has some lessons to learn & I hope this thread is helpful. But, apparently, so do some others.