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What would you do about a sleazy buyer??

Here's a case that I ran across last week on Audiogon and which I'm still fuming about... I'm selling my Bryston 7b-st monoblock amps. Had an Email from an interested buyer which actually made an offer. Had a second person write to me that he lives only 15 minutes from my house and wants to buy them. It was a "Lawyer" that I'll call "HM" to keep his anonymity here in xxxxxx <- (moderator cut). He wanted to buy them, but wanted to Demo them first on his system. IF he liked them, he was going to buy them for the agreed price of $2900.

Being MUCH easier to sell locally, I told the firm offer that I have a local sale, and that the buyer was going to purchase them on Saturday. If for any reason that the deal fell apart, I would contact him immediately. 2 days later,
I boxed up my 2 amps at 40 lbs each, and drove over to his house.

I listened to his PSB Golds w/ Boulder 100w/channel amp which actually sounded HORRIBLE! We hooked up my amp to his speakers and it was like night and day. NO COMPARISON!!! Totally blew away the Boulder amp. Even my girlfriend could tell right away and she hates this stuff. After 1.5 hours of demo'ing my amps, I asked him if he loved them. He agreed. He said that he would absolutely LOVE to own a pair of these!

This is when he went into his sob story... Well, he said, my economic condition is terrible right now. Let me put it this way. My financial situation is that I'm a car, heading off of a cliff with a 747 crashing right into it. In other words, he would love to have them, but has NO money to be able to buy them if he wanted to!!! He is in financial peril.

So I packed up my amps and left. Came home and wrote the other buyer. Unfortunately, the other buyer had already bought another pair of 7b-st's from someone else.

so, this completely inconsiderate S.O.B. wanted to use me to demo my gear with NO ability to buy them if he could. He was just CURIOUS how they sound. He used me to haul my goods under the pretense of buying if liking, then admits to
loving, but has NO money!

Now I'm mad. I'm fuming. Is this common for people on Audiogon to be such inconsiderate self-serving louts? I wasted 2 hours of my Saturday on this P.O.S. who never had any intention of buying, BEGGED me to leave them with him
for 3 days, and made me lose another viable sale option!!

I say that we expose people like HM from Audiogon for being the sleazy underhanded scum that he is!!! It's lawyers like him who gave many lawyers their bad reputation... How can anyone be such a self-centered lowlife is frankly beyond me.
hager_charles
sean
6,229 posts
 
I have to admit, there have been times that i have inquired about items ( if they are still available, specific questions, etc... but with NO commitment to buy ) and then forgot to follow up on them. Between everyday life and sometimes working on multiple deals at once, things get lost in the shuffle.

Your case is VERY different. The person knew their financial situation, had no intent on buying and yet still let you go through the motions. Mind you, this is not like you just lost a bona-fide sale to the other interested party, you've also lost additional time and money by driving a couple of hours to deliver and sacrificing part of your week-end to do so. Check with Detlof about how much "mental stress" this has caused and Cornfedboy to see if you can sue : )

Honestly though, this one deserves and NEEDS negative feedback. Keep it sincere and honest i.e. "lacks sincerity, no intention of buying even after delivery took place" or something to that effect. This would sum up the situation and let others know to be leary when dealing with him.

As to the Bryston's soundly stomping the Boulder, i am impressed. While i've heard situations where there just wasn't good system synergy and making a component change drastically woke things up, this at least shows that the newer Bryston stuff CAN run with the big boys. Sean
>
dill
815 posts
 
I was small high-end dealer in the 90's. This is the sort of thing that happened all the time. To add insult to injury, many times I would find out later, they bought the same product, elsewhere at reduced cost .... send him a bill for your time ... he would send you one !
griswold
22 posts
 
Did you commit to the first buyer and then back out of that deal? May be karma. I don't mean to be harsh here but you must be new to selling things. If I had a dollar for everybody that committed to buying whatever I had for sale and then suddenly could not come up with the money, I would never have to sell anything again. People want what is just out of reach. It sucks that your deal went that way but you are not the first and you won't be the last. Forget it, move on, and don,t lose faith in the rest of us here at AG.
rlwainwright
1,901 posts
 
Your problem is that you did not "pre-qualify" your sales prospect. Savvy salesmen do it all the time - make *sure* your prospect has the means to complete the purchase of the product. But how do you do this without running a credit check on every schmoe who wants to demo your equipment?

There is a very simple solution to this problem: charge an up-front demo fee, say $50-100. If, as you claim, it was such a hassle to schlepp your amps over to his place so he could check 'em out, let him pay you for your time. If he bails, at least you got paid for your time and effort. If he buys, the honorable thing to do is to credit him the demo fee towrads the purchase price. This eliminates the tire kickers and makes sure you are dealing only with SERIOUS buyers.

And so ends lesson #1 - you will be ready for lesson #2 when you can snatch the remote from my outstretched hand, grasshopper...
herman
1,974 posts
 
Sorry to hear you got jerked around. You could start a thread on lawyer jokes.
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