Can asking price be changed after offer is made?


Is it ethical to change your asking price after you receive many offers?

Last night some one ran TWO ads for the same model of Billy Bag stand for $200. I made an offer on one ad and the seller told me that he will make a decision later. Then on this same ad (same item number), the seller changed the price to $300.00. The other ad still has the price of $200 but it was marked SOLD.

Seems like greed speaks louder than ethics. Can an user do anything about the fact the item price is jacked up *after* the buyer made an offer? I wanted to contact audiogon service but cannot find any link to send them an e-mail.
cuonghuutran
No contract take your business elsewhere. I have had this happen to me as well. It really upsets me when people do this.

Chuck
I'm not a lawyer either, but I do know that a contract requires the agreement of both parties, and placing an ad does not constitute agreeing to anything. And while it may be annoying to a buyer to make a full-price offer and then see the price hiked, that is well within a seller's rights, and I don't see anything unethical about it. Of course, if you're annoyed you don't have to do business with the guy.

Also, CW, if you will permit a mild criticism, why are you posting? It doesn't look like you followed up with the seller to find out what he was up to. That should have been your first step, before taking this public. (If you did and got no response, I apologize, but you didn't indicate that in your post.)
I found an item listed here on Audiogon which was being sold by someone 30 minutes from my house in the Phoenix area. The price was fair and probably too low for the seller's described reason to sell-changing to silver Sony SACD player to match Mark Levinson (the company) gear. I called & offered to pay his asking price in cash on the following Monday. He said O.K., then gave me the runaround until the next Tuesday, when he re-listed at a higher price.
Needless to say I was miffed! I told my friends & all the local dealers what happened....
He had 3 glowing positive feedbacks a week later. Probably because he sold all the items at such a big loss. This is what happens when someone:
A. Has big bucks.
B. Buys equipment by reading reviews & not listening to the components in a system context!

I haven't seen him on this site since. He probably moved on to video only..........
He deserves it.


Integrity Counts!
Bomarc, may be I was naive, thinking that once a buyer agrees to pay the full asking price, then the seller cannot up the price. I did contact the seller and was offered the opportunity to buy at a higher price.

So it looks like you give me a dose of reality. On Internet and even on audiogon, buying and selling is a wild wild west. Until the money changes hands, anything goes.