What should I do?

[daveleau]

Hi everybody!

I collect sports figures. They are individually sculpted and hand painted and are sold for about $10 a piece at places that carry toys. Some can be very valuable, depending on how many are made and how popular the player is.

The company that sells these made 2 figures and sold them at the Super Bowl. They were limited to 2500 pieces each. They had a drawing ont heir forum to see who would be part of the lucky 100 board members to get these figures at cost directly from the company. I was one of the 100. Instead of keeping these, I planned to sell them to finance my computer upgrades. These $10 figures were selling for over $150 each when people started receiving them. I put mine on eBay and one sold for $97 and the other for $77. This enabled me to buy some great computer supplies. I also sold some of my other figures and now have enough to order my system.

One person has not paid yet. He has a +36 (no negatives) on eBay. He says he has been diagnosed with diabetes and is in the hospital. Because of this, he has no money. To compound things, he is in Canada and the exchange is poor right now, says he. I tried to work with him at first, and decided to take a couple of really common figures in trade. Normally the ones I got sell for $5-$6 on eBay, but I gave him $25 credit towards the auction.

Now his wife emails me a bit of a sob story. I don't know if I should believe her, but it seems wrong to be callous and not do anything more to help out. He asked me to cover his shipping charges for the figures he is sending me, which I am happy to do. Here is the latter part of her email:

Maybe it is a bad thing because he does not like to tell me how much he spends but now i wil know. and he is lucky he is in the hospital because we have no money and i would have put him there but since he is in the hospital I have softened a bit . i said he could get what ever he was so excited about that he won from you. Let me know what he owes you on paypal and i will try to run it and get you paid.

He said he is in school and not working and now is diabetic and in the hospital.

Something honestly smells fishy, but I feel like I would be a bad person if I didn't cut the price heavily to help out. Before he sent the other figures for trade, I sent him an out, saying I could use the second chance feature and try to sell to the next highest bidder, alleviating his responsibility completely. He never replied to that.

What do you think I should do? My wife and I are on a budget as well and the funds would help cover my computer costs. If I send him $25 for the figures he sent me, plus shipping, I would barely break even in trying to sell the item again.

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.
Dave

Tough call, Dave. But a deal is a two way street. You have already lowered the price with your trade, so IMO he should either honor his deal or back out and let you sell to the next bidder.

Even if he is in financial hardship, handouits are not what he needs. that would just get him to do it again. His wife sounds like she will keep an eye on his profligacy from now on, but is willing to meet the deal as it stands. I'd go with that, with an option for them to get out if they wish.

Is a tough call, but IMO giving him more slack will only let him hang himself more later. There is a lesson here. Let him learn it. Soumetimes it's more kind to be cruel. IMO, anyway.

Cheers
Mick

addit: health care is not costly for most in Canada, remember. So don't worry too much over that.

He said he is in school and not working and now is diabetic and in the hospital.

Well, he didn't have much money for buying sports toys to begin with eh?
Dave I think you're getting hustled.
Please don't send him another thing! And do not give him a good rating at Ebay.

I think its not true. Too glib. Too well thought out. Too well organized. No loose ends.


Cut and dry.

Minimize your exposure and get out.

And give no rating at ebay, thereby giving him the benefit of the doubt.

[swamp-fox]

What ,he had laptop in the hospital room when he bid?? If you don't have the money don't bid on things. If he's a collector like you tell him to sell some of his collection or trade for equal value or send the piece back to you.

Originally posted by shahani


And give no rating at ebay, thereby giving him the benefit of the doubt.

And is that perhaps how Dave got into this? Because no one gave him a negative for this type of behavior before?
Dave offered him an out on the deal.. He didn't want that. He wanted Dave's sports figures. He ripped Dave off. He had the opportunity to walk away clean and didn't accept it. Why enable him to continue to make bad deals and rip people off without saying anything?

[Martoch]

Originally posted by mickwish
Tough call, Dave. But a deal is a two way street. You have already lowered the price with your trade, so IMO he should either honor his deal or back out and let you sell to the next bidder.

My thoughts exactly...I wouldn't put yourself through this moral dilemma Dave. Just get a straight up yes/no answer with a deadline for the money to be paid if the answer is "yes". If no, relist the item and move on...there's no need for you to deal with this drama.

Just my .02

Mike

[daveleau]

I haven't sent anything to him yet. It would be much easier to deal with if he hadn't already sent the figures in trade.


I sent them a few options.

1- if they haven't sent the figures in trade, yet, I could cancel the whole thing and relist it on eBay.

2- Things could go as planned, but I would accept 2-3 payments

3- I offered another trade from his existing collection to cover the cost of the rare figure I sold to him

I had already given him double the value of the two common collectibles, soI felt I had done enough in the discount department. I thought the options would be enough to give them ways of handling this.

His eBay references are good and he does not appear to be bidding on other items. he has bought other items recently, but they were about a week before he bid on my figure.

Thanks for the insightful replies. Hopefully the above will settle things easily for the buyer.
Dave

[swamp-fox]

Eat the shipping and ship his trade back to him. I thought he already had your figure. Better than paying him twice the value of his figures and you having to ship your figure to him too. You still have your's he has his and you're out few dollars for shipping. No hard feelings. IMO

swamp

[EndobioticChaos]

I agree with Surreal. Plus, if he's really as poor as he claims, he had no buisness even browsing around on eBay, let alone bidding on something. Honestly, I think, to be fair to the rest of the eBayers out there you should leave a negative response.