

How I got someone on Ebay to buy something they backed out on after winning - AaronM
http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/em01h/how_i_got_an_uncooperative_ebay_buyer_to_pay_for/

======
dpritchett
Please don't be taken in by this masterfully crafted story without thinking it
through carefully. The OP on reddit plays on many of our collective
sympathies, but he unfortunately omits any semblance of objectivity from his
story.

== Things that make us sympathetic to the OP ==

\- He's a redditor, just like many of us

\- He just wanted the money she promised him, nothing more

\- He couldn't attend the game - this presumes he wanted to

\- He used Google Voice - cool

\- _She_ was mean to him (and most of us are men, aren't we?)

\- He has just added a cancer-stricken relative to the story along with a
donation button

\- She writes poorly, he does not

== Context this story sorely needs but is unlikely to ever get ==

\- Face value of the tickets

\- What his sunk cost is for the tickets ($0? $50? $600?)

\- How he found himself with only 24 hours to unload the tickets

\- Any sort of verification of the cancer-donation story

~~~
skorgu
I'd say all of those are irrelevant to the central moral/legal premise which
is: did she enter into a contract to purchase the tickets? If she entered a
bid on ebay she is obligated to go through with the transaction.

That said the cancer thing is sketchy as hell in context, thanks for
mentioning it.

~~~
jemfinch
What's sketchy about trying to leverage unexpected popularity for the benefit
of the American Cancer Society?

------
blhack
Wow. A lot of people seem to forget how much money almost $700 is to somebody
who doesn't _have_ the $700. The women probably _didn't_ have the money, and
really wasn't trying to scam the guy, she probably genuinely made a mistake.

Pretend for a second that this wasn't ebay.

I go to best buy and start looking at TVs. I find one that is pretty cool,
will be great for playing wii fit on, can't wait to get it home, and I tell
the sales-person that I'd like to buy it.

On the way to the register, I realize "Wait a second, I'm living check to
check and rent is due tomorrow. I can't afford a freaking new TV!", so I look
at the sales person and say "Oh, I...this is embarrassing, but I actually
can't afford this television at all. I'm really sorry."

Would Best Buy be in the right here if they sent somebody up to me to tell me
"Wow, that is a really cool TV you just bought! My daughter _realllly_ wants
that exact TV for her dorm room and you totally bought the last one! I'll buy
it from you for $1000!"?

Absolutely not. In fact, there would probably be a lawsuit involved.

Was it a crappy thing to do to try and back out of an auction like that? Yes,
absolutely, but it was an even _worse_ thing to scam the woman out of money
that she said she didn't have.

Bad moves all around, in my opinion.

Edit: wow, reading these reddit comments is really, really disheartening.

edit2: I'm not saying that what the women did was okay. She will probably be
banned from ebay. This is fine, this is what _should_ happen. Guys, we teach
_children_ that two wrongs don't make a right, don't we? Is there a reason we
teach them this or do we just like the phrase because it rhymes?

~~~
ig1
Telling a salesman you'd like to buy a product doesn't contractually oblige
you to buy, submitting an order for a product does.

Try calling an airline after you've ordered a ticket online to explain you
can't afford it and want a refund. Just because it's ebay doesn't mean it's
any different.

~~~
blhack
She never actually got to the point of paying for it. Call a hotel, make a
reservation, then don't show up. Does the hotel come after you for the money?

If they do, they would use the court system, they wouldn't use a well known
con to recoup their loss.

~~~
christoph
A lot of hotels i've used in the last few years in the US and Europe won't let
you book a room unless you give them credit/debit card details (certainly
online anyway). Generally if you don't cancel 24hrs before, you either pay the
full amount or a no show amount (varies hotel to hotel).

~~~
ig1
Certainly that's been true for every hotel I've booked. It's also true of some
busy restaurants (they normally charge a fixed fee per head for no-shows).

------
thow_away1
My view on this is probably a bit scewed. I grew up in an around auctions,
currently work in an auction, my entire family works in auto auctions.

What happened here isn't even slightly uncommon in our industry, it just comes
with the territory. What we sell is cars, thousands of them per week.

If somebody bids on a car, but then doesn't pay up...they don't get the car.
They _might_ get thrown into something called a "KO book", which means that
they'll be banned from our auction, and everybody else's.

That's it. That's the end of it.

If one of our sellers pulled what this seller did, they would almost certainly
be banned from ever doing business with us again.

~~~
torme
While I get what you're saying, I think an important point here thats been
mentioned several times is the fact that the tickets lose all value as result
of the buyer backing out.

As a completely unrealistic example, imagine if by some magic, cars that
weren't sold exploded. If you had a buyer back out, and as a result, you could
never sell that car again, that person would most definitely be put in the "KO
book". I think the situation is different, if only slightly.

There should be some understanding from the buyer of the tickets that backing
out is potentially costing the seller a lot of money. For this, I can
understand the sellers frustration, if only because he might have had several
extremely viable offers outside of hers, that are now lost.

That said, I don't agree with his reaction at all. Is it not possible to try
and contact the other interested buyers who were out bid?

------
SHOwnsYou
This is sickening. 20+ upvotes on posts applauding this guy for scamming
someone?

She did agree to buy the tickets in as binding a situation that can arise in
an online auction, but to scam her to get the money is wrong.

I'm not rich and $600 is a lot of money to me. But I would rather eat a loss
of $600 than scam someone to gain that money because $600, $6000, or any other
number, isn't worth it.

------
aberkowitz
Anybody who uses paypal should be aware that there is not an adequate system
in place to insure an honest and amicable transaction occurs between the buyer
and sell. That's just a risk you take for using the worlds biggest online
auction site.

The way the poster went about getting his money back was absolutely stupid.
Whether it was amoral or not, he could be criminally prosecuted for his
actions.

~~~
jemfinch
What crime did he commit? He made a verbal offer to buy goods at a certain
price, and then backed out. Did his word constitute a verbal contract? Those
are notoriously difficult (read: impossible) to prove in court.

Whether or not what he did was _moral_ , I know of no enforceable law he
violated. She, on the other hand, entered a binding contract on eBay and then
violated it. She could be prosecuted; he, as far as I can tell, could not.

~~~
dwwoelfel
He committed fraud, which is a crime and a violation of civil law.

Your characterization of his actions as "he made a verbal offer to buy goods
at a certain price, and then backed out" leaves out the fact that he intended
to back out all along, and that the lie was for personal gain. If he had
intended to buy the tickets for $1,100 from her, he would not have first sold
them to her for $620.

~~~
jemfinch
Fraud is deception with the intent of gain. By contract he already had the
right to her $600, so he didn't deceive her for gain, but for equity. The
woman would have difficulty establishing that she suffered consequent damages
(an essential legal component of fraud) when she had already entered into a
contract to perform the very same transaction.

