My buying and selling experiences on this List have paralleled those experienced in everyday American life-one gets to see it all.
I've purchased very expensive items only to find them misrepresented (whether by accident or design one doesn't know), and on the other hand, other members have sent me rare items and have refused all payment!
The members of our List are probably just a representation, in miniature, of the social behaviour in our current society, for better or worse.
George
George Hollenberg MD
CT, USA
> ..and I too have come to the same, sad realization only within
> the last
> year or so (...my tenure on the List being much shorter than
> your own).
>
> In my experience, the price of the item itself has had little or
> nothing to
> do with the casual discourtesy and/or outright inconsideration
> of those who
> would otherwise lay claim to something offered in good faith on
> the CR List.
> The ONLY measure of comfort I have found is in maintaining a
> strict "first
> come / first served" list of standby parties expressing interest
> to whom the
> part(s) in question are offered in succession whenever I do
> encounter a
> virtual deadbeat.
>
> I am only further disheartened to learn that I am not the only
> one who has
> experienced this type of grossly inappropriate behavior as of late.
>
> Sad regards,
>
> Robert "shun the bloody bums" Broderick
> ..the "Frozen Flatlands" of South Dakota
> Sioux Falls, USA
>
> P.S. For whatever it may be worth, as a long time seller of
> various items
> on eBay (...I maintain just over a dozen individual accounts) I
> can tell you
> that I have also recently encountered many more instances of
> difficultiesand/or delays in collecting payment than I did only
> but a year ago. I
> attribute this phenomenon to a restraint of activity among those
> who tend
> toward fiscal responsibility given our apparent new economic paradigm
> thereby leaving a disproportionate number of persons of dubious
> financialcompetence within the bidding pool.
>
> P.P.S. I had originally intended to send this message along to Phil
> strictly "OFF LIST". However, I ultimately decided instead to
> make this
> post public in the ever so small and quite possibly naive hope
> that bringing
> this abhorrent behavior to the full attention of the List might
> possiblyshame those who would act so into either changing their
> ways, or at the very
> least perhaps, discouraging them from replying to any such offer
> in the
> first place.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org
> [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of
> Phil Brown
> Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 7:58 PM
> To: Classic Rendezvous
> Subject: [CR] A bitter realization
>
>
> As some of you may have noticed I've been selling some small
> items
> lately. I've been going through my stuff and there are things I
> bought
> for one reason or another that I'm not going to use. I'm not
> selling
> them to make a big killing but to put them back in circulation.
> I'm not
> only doing this with bicycles but some of my other interests
> (For
> example I shot with Leicas for many years and collected a lot of
> Leica
> ephemera. I'm selling it off.) I've been a member of this list
> almost
> from the beginning and I prefer to offer stuff to the list
> rather than
> put it up on ebay. We're a community and I feel members of the
> community should get first crack at it. As you've seen it's not
> giant
> stuff but interesting items that one or another of us might need.
> I've changed my mind due to flake-ism on the list. Several items
> have
> been claimed by list members and then said members haven't paid
> for
> them. We aren't talking big money. You've seen the prices. And
> paying
> is easy: Paypal, cash in an envelope, money order, anything but
> personal checks because the Bank Of America holds out of state
> checks
> literally for weeks. And I don't hold on for weeks, I send stuff
> out
> the next day at the latest.
> It really disappoints me for this to happen in a community of
> like-minded people. But to stop the hassle and bad feeling in my
> mind
> from now on it's just going on to ebay and people can look
> there. No
> hassles there: I put it up, people bid, someone wins, transfers
> the
> money to Paypal and off the stuff goes. Simple.
> Phil Brown
> Saddened in Oakland, Calif.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> _______________________________________________
>
George Hollenberg MD
CT, USA