Potential problem with sale.

I think it's the buyer's responsibility to know about what he is buying. The seller is responsible for the item's condition, not its functionality. I bought a Meridian 598 with progressive scan and didn't discover that it didn't have outputs compatible with my TV until I tried to hook it up. Duh! (I bought a used 565 to solve this.) I bought a remote for one of my components and didn't find out that the component didn't have the circuitry to receive remote commands until I tried to use it. Double Duh! (It's in the drawer now.) These are MY mistakes, not the sellers'. If I had wanted, I could have sold my mistakes on Audiogon.

Now, having said all this, I would nevertheless be willing to take back the Camelot dvd player IF the buyer really wanted to back out of the deal. He should pay for round trip shipping and any transaction costs (credit card fee, etc). I would relist it for sale and hope to get a comparable deal. In other words, he would make me whole financially (presumably not a big number), but I would be willing to put up with the hassle of trying again to sell it. I think this position is reasonable on both sides given the sense of community courtesy and mutual respect shared on this site. No one wants to be taken advantaged of or put at a disadvantage, but I would try to be civilized and understanding about the whole thing.

Rmml: Your situation sounded extremely fishy. Having dealt with you, i know that you would have done the "right thing", but it makes one wonder what the real deal really was. I have no doubt in my mind that you send a fully functional product. My guess is that one of the buyer's other subs was "smoked" and he was asking you to help pay for the repair. I guess that he was creative enough to figure out how to repair what he had without buying a bunch of OEM parts using his new sub ( your old sub ) as a reference, letting you "off the hook". This is pure speculation, but i've seen similar situations happen before.

Jeff: I am currently in a situation very similar to yours. I sold a digital component that has multiple functions. As such, i had never used some of those functions nor did i have the capacity to test them. I had used the unit for an extended period of time in various systems and it had performed flawlessly. I listed it for sale and a fellow Agon member purchased it from me.

When the unit arrived, the buyer hooked it up and was overjoyed with it. He was quite pleased with the unit, both cosmetically and sonically. A few days later, the buyer tried to make use of some of the other features of the unit that i had never used. Unfortunately, it would not work for him as he had planned. From what we could deduce, the problem appears to be relatively simple and it is electrical. As such, i offered to either refund his money or repair the unit, covering the cost of shipping both ways. The choice was his.

Having fell in love with the unit, he decided to have the unit repaired but did not want to do so right away. He was in the process of setting up a new system and this piece was somewhat central to the operation of it. Once he could get everything dialed in and make sure that everything else was okay, he would contact me and we would go from there.

Well, that was over a month ago. I just contacted the buyer to see where we were at and he told me he'd be ready to go soon. I have no problem with this as the gentleman has been completely reasonable throughout all of our dealings. He struck me as being completely sincere and totally honest. As such, i'm going to do what it takes to make things "right". I just hope that he picked up the same "vibe" from me that i did from him. If he did, he knows that i am not a "shyster", nor did i try to sell him a partially defective unit while trying to play dumb. It did have some flaws that i was aware of and made sure that he was aware of them prior to closing the deal.

I think that this is a matter of having to deal with each specific situation as it develops. While i don't think that any "reasonable" Agon member would expect to be able to return an item purchased from another individual just because it didn't measure up to their personal expectations or work well with their system, i do think that they SHOULD expect to be able to return an item if it is defective and / or damaged in transit. It is also not the buyers fault that what they received was damaged, so it is up to the seller to refund the money and deal with the insurance claim. I know that there are excruciating circumstances that come up from time to time, but hopefully, we are all adult enough to work our way out of the situations that we sometimes get ourselves into. Sean
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I agree that you have no obligation to take the unit back, but if I was in your situation I would. In fact, anybody who wants to return something I sell them based on being disappointed, and they do so promptly, I would undo the deal assuming shipping both ways was on their nickel. If it was my mistake, I'd pay shipping both ways.

I sold a HT receiver once to a guy and he couldn't get one of the inputs to work. It was only because it was configured differently, but I didn't have the manual anymore and trying to coach him wasn't working. I think he just wanted to back out and this "malfunction" was his reasoning. He was a good guy and I don't think this was a normal mode of operation. In any case, we undid the deal on his nickel and I sold to somebody else. Somewhat a pain, but it all worked out better in the end I suppose.

Jameswei is right on the money. No obligation on your part, you should not be out any $, but it would be a nice gesture. BTW, I also have items I've bought, sitting in a cupboard, cause I didn't do my research. If its my mistake, I probably would not ask for a refund on a minor cost item; in this case, I might, offering to pay shipping both ways, transaction costs, and re-listing costs.

If there was/is nothing wrong with the unit and no discussion or representation was made regarding compatibility, this is the buyers problem. You could offer to help them re-sell by iquiring with others who were interested when you sold originally and encourage the new owner to list on a-gon at a reasonable price (which is exactly what you would have to do if you took it back).