TOPIC:

"Hind site is 20/20" and "Buyer Beware" are the two things we hate to hear or admit too !

Some recent "less then satisfactory" purchases noted in this forum prompts the following comment and suggestion.

In this age of instant messaging and electronic info/data exchange it is difficult to imagine buying anything of any value or significance without at least getting some pictures or video to validate the item.

I recently sold a set of reconditioned 1979 carbs to someone whose had an extremely difficult time getting either of his own 2 sets sorted out and working correctly. Just because I set them up on my own bike and gave verbal assurances to the buyer that these carbs are working 100% doesn't mean (from the buyers point of view) they are guaranteed to be operating as promised. I could be less then honorable and could have made any claims I chose, just to make a quick sale.

In order to give the buyer the highest degree of confidence in what he was purchasing and to also protect myself from any criticism of misrepresentation or malfunction, I used my iPhone to shoot a couple of short clips of the bike starting and operating with the carbs installed. Additionally in a written note I outlined some pertinent details, install tips and some definitive do's and don'ts.

It took 1 1/2 minute to capture some video and about 2 minutes to send these two clips to the buyer. The E-mail note took 5 minutes. SO: For less then 10 minutes of my time both myself and the buyer now had clear and irrefutable documentation that validates and qualifies the sale. No false claims and no unrealistic expectations.

It's often easy to let our enthusiasm get in the way of due diligence and it's equally difficult to "lick the wounds" when they're full of salt.

If the seller of an item is unwilling to take a few minutes to satisfy my query with some pictures and/or a brief Video-clip then they and/or the item are not worth my time to pursue and I move on.

I would like to add a side note to buyers to try to get to know a little something about the seller from forums, or from sales history elsewhere. All someone has to do to know YOU, Scotch, is to read just a tiny bit of this forum to know that you offer quality stuff. When I get something that turns out to be good quality I also try to promote the source of the goods. Like that article about the build of that engine and that they used Scotch's floats, but never bothered to mention his name.

About 2 years ago I had an electric aerial for an Audi 80 cabriolet on evil bay with a description of "It was working when I took it off the car but that was I while ago" After repeating this to 2 or 3 interested buyers I decided to quickly hook it up in the vice in my garage and videoed it going up and down a couple of times with my phone and posted a link to it in the listing.



As soon as I did that the bids started going on and it sold for £82.11 - I thought this was astonishing for a used aerial - but quite happy. I reckon without proving it was working it would probably have sold for around £20.

There was even a guy in Germany bidding on it - I would have thought they were more abundant over there