Does anyone on the list know the buyer? Is he a list member?
David
David G. White Burlington, VT
BobHoveyGa@aol.com wrote:
> A few of us have been having an interesting off-list conversation about this
> auction... If the seller had not put a "Buy it Now" on the bike, there might
> have been a few individuals (myself for sure) who would have written him and
> told him what he had. Just out of consideration.
>
> In this discussion, the question was posed that if the seller had posted the
> bike on the CR list instead of eBay, would he have had dozens of emails
> telling him either not to sell it, or that his price was too low ... or would those
> folks have been outnumbered by those reaching for their checkbooks? Most of
> us agreed that the former would occur, since this list has been, by and large,
> all about fellowship and fairness and educating each other.
>
> But eBay's a whole 'nother deal... maybe I'm wrong, but I think that most
> folks are very quick to write a seller when he has described something
> incorrectly in a way that places the object in a better light, but not as likely to
> write when he has described an item in a way that would tend to undervalue it and
> thereby benefit the astute bidder.
>
> When it comes to Masis, I tend to write the seller in either case, to correct
> any glaring inconsistency whether it might be of benefit to the bidder OR the
> seller. But in this case, the seller made that impossible because I was
> dead certain that by the time he read my email the bike would be gone, gone,
> gone.
>
> So when you don't have a friendly group of pals to help you out as he
> probably would have had if he had posted the bike on the list, the only alternative
> is a few minutes of what many would term "due diligence," which in this case
> could mean as little as typing a few words in Google and exploring the results.
> Most sellers are willing to do this, at least with Masis, since I've gotten
> dozens of emails from folks who have stumbled across my web site and either
> want more info on a Masi they're selling or want permission to post my link in
> their eBay description. Some might suggest that there might be too much info
> on my site for the mere passerby (and I'll freely admit that the site was not
> created for them, but for the more rabid Masiphile), but I still don't see how
> it would take more than about five or ten minutes of skimming to discover
> both the year of his bike and the significance of a "1S1" serial number (either
> on the USA Registry page or my article on US serial numbers).
>
> So if you combine a lack of basic research with his "Buy It Now" which might
> have discouraged others besides myself from dropping him a cautionary email,
> it's probably safe to say that the seller deserved to get exactly the amount of
> money he asked for and not the amount that the bike was really worth.
>
> Bob Hovey
> Columbus, GA
> http://bhovey.com/