I just quarantined a thread regarding the ebay sale of a rare and high-end whistle made by a highly regarded member of this board who is also in instrument sales business. After carefully reading it, I believe that the seller acted in good faith, was as diligent and disclosing as he could be and, then, when he learned that whistle’s pedigree was somewhat different from how he’d originally described it, did everything he could to make the right. Upon learning the new information, he made admirable attempts to rectify the problem. In spite of that, he was criticized and accused of unscrupulous behavior by a couple of members who weren’t involved in the transaction. These attacks were unwarranted and excessive and so I have tucked the thread away until further notice. Personally, I think the seller conducted himself so well on the thread that it’s more likely to help his business than to hurt it (I have no personal relationship with this seller but would not hesitate to buy from him), but I’ll consult with him about whether he’d rather have the thread out there.
In the meantime, CEASE AND DESIST from badgering people about this kind of thing. If you’ve got an issue, bring it to the moderators.
In the meantime, I’m reminded that I’ve visited a couple of forums similar to this that have rules against members acting as the Price Police or the Ebay Police. I get it. I find these discussions about whether someone is charging too much or people are bidding too much, etc.., to be tedious. There are inherent risks in ebay transactions and, hell, for that matter, if I go into an antique store and the guy tells me the table was made in the 1870s by Joseph Smith’s great grand-dad, no matter what I do there is some risk the thing was made in Malaysia in 1983. Furthermore, there’s a decent chance the antique dealer really believes the damn thing was made in 1870.
For now, I am going to ask that people exercise more care and discretion about this kind of thing. If someone is clearly trying to rip people off, I don’t have a problem with this board being used to try to ASSIST OUR OWN MEMBERS avoid a shady deal. But, this is NOT the place to interrogate and berate people for whom we have NO evidence of intent to swindle, and for whom, in fact, we had every reason to believe had made good faith efforts throughout.
If you’ve questions, PM me, please.
Dale