I offered a bike for sale a few years ago. Received several inquiries, but this one guy kept bugging me over the course of several days with persnickety questions, then he finally made an offer that was far below my asking price. I politely declined, and considered that the end of that. But he continued to contact me with questions, and later made another higher, but still low, offer. Which I again declined. Soon after, another buyer contacted me, asked a few pertinent questions, and offered my asking price. He sent a deposit and we arranged for him to pick it up and bring the balance in cash.
The first guy then contacted me with yet more questions, at which time I informed him it was sold. He asked if it had been picked up, and when I said no, he offered me several hundred above my asking price to sell it to him. I offered to let him know if the pending deal fell though, but otherwise I was committed to the deal that had been made. At which point he became very angry, calling me a fool and an idiot for not selling the bike to him, before I hung up. I slept in the garage that night, worried he would to try to steal the bike or something, he sounded so unhinged. Fortunately, I never heard from him again.
I can empathise !!
I agree with a lot of the sentiments here, especially about honour, a gentlemann's word and so forth. I've tried to use principles like that in all my dealings in life, both personal and professional.
A few months ago I put my TZ250 Yamaha racer up for sale on fee bay. I was sorry to have to let it go, but really could not see a reason to keep it as all plans had changed in the 10 years since I bought it. I decided it would get a better price if I could prove it was running, so I did a full tear down and a cosmetic restoration while verifying that there was nothing seriously amiss with it.
So I put up the ad with about 12 photos, called out it's merits and demerits and clearly called out that further photos and a video of it running were available. I set up a photobucket album with about 25 more photos of the motor in all stages of rebuild from the gearbox and cranks up, plus a 2 minute video of the brute screaming in front of my neighbour's house.
Grand, on a 7 day listing with lots of views etc, but in the end of the day only two bids both of which were below my (very fair) reserve. Let's call the bidders Mr A and Mr B.
Mr A has the higher bid, but never contacts me. Mr B asks for MORE photos, which I add to photobucket, he sounded like he had no clue as to what a TZ Yamaha is so I am a bit wary. Like why would he want something so specialist without knowing what it is ?
Auction ends without a sale, but fee bay offers a relist, so I did, for 2 days with a lower reserve which was my absolute minimum I would take, otherwise the old girl could get stored for another 10 years. No more bids. OK, done with that.
Then both start sending me messages through EBay. Mr A thinks because he had the higher bid, the bike is his : NO I explain (very nicely) the fee bay process is over without outcome, so all bets are off. Treat with me directly if you wish.
Mr B now wants to actually eye ball the bike and asks if he can come view it, and it transpires he lives (so he says) 40 Km from me, so without anything else to go I give him my number, he calls me and we discuss him coming to view the TZ the next day.
Less than an hour later Mr A asks can he have my number so he can call me to discuss the bike, so I say yes. Speaking to him, it turns out he is a racer, knows the model perfectly and from my photos, video and description knew exactly what I was offering and he offers as near as dammit my walk away price, it hurt a little, but it was OK - but I made some conditions : buy it at that price, in cash, tomorrow - no haggling or tyre kicking. Turns out he lives 400 Km from me so he had a simple demand - if he is going to commit to a 800 Km round trip the bike better be his. Deal done gentleman's word and so forth.
So to be fair to Mr B, I immediately phone him to say that there is no point in coming to view the bike coz it's now sold. He went absolutely mental, says he has now planned the journey and withdrawn cash. How much cash I asked, seeing as you have not made nor I accepted any offer. He was not to be pacified, but I made it clear there was no business to be done between us and I was calling him as soon as i could as a courtesy.
Next morning I get a call from Mr B saying he is coming round my house with some friends : "quelques mecs" in French. That never bodes well. Very politely I explained that my invitation to visit me at my home was withdrawn and I hoped that there would be no need to involve the police.
Thankfully Mr A arrived 30 mins later, was the nicest guy I ever met, loaded the bike without any further question/haggling/demands, handed over cash, had coffee and I threw in anything that I had that could be usefull : racing oil, a few bitty spares a PDF of the spares list etc, but all the time with one eye on the gate to see if Mr B had arrived.
I was at my bank about 25 seconds after his departure.
So the moral is : Mr A = sincere buyer that I was happy to facilitate : Mr B = some sort of frikken thug that I am better off never having met (but perhaps that sentiment should be mutual) : and I like to think I sleep easier knowing that was another transaction completed with honour.
Kev
