It’s a seller’s market and competition is high. Try to jump on deals. Offer to send a deposit immediately to hold the game. Maybe the tables will turn at some point but it has been this way for quite a long time. There are many great folks on Pinside and much of the old rgp crowd, but also more shitheads and cynicism so the culture is not as good as old rgp, rest it’s soul. Good luck finding your game.

Edit: at the same time I concur with others that if there was a meeting of the minds on price and pickup it was crappy for the guy to back out.

Hey DiabloRush, I don't believe it's a generational thing. Don't kid yourself, your expectations are very normal. The person you dealt with is a first class douche! There are good people here. I'm sorry you had to deal with such an individual.

Who was the seller? Please PM if you won’t post publicly here (I won’t publicly bash the guy). I just want to know since I’m always purchasing machines. Pinside used to have a negative feedback feature m but they got rid of it. We need to depend upon each other to avoid potential bad experiences.

Also keep in mind that you are a new pinside member. Established members will get a warning about this saying FYI person contacting you is new. Message says could be legitimate but be careful. This might cause, hesitation from some sellers, especially in a hot market

It’s a competitive market. Desirable games or good prices will attract lots of buyers. I think the best bet is to have cash in hand and be ready to buy immediately. A seller wants to get a good price with the meat amount of hassle so it’s to your advantage to be the easy buyer.

I wouldn’t hold a grudge against the seller. They either had a better deal or someone was willing to show up with cash sooner. Frustrating but it happens all the time.

as a buyer once you've agreed to a price and a location/method of transport the seller is a douche if he backs out/doesn't let you know it's still a competitive situation

Just because it’s a sellers market doesn’t give the seller the right to miss behave.

OUT THE SELLER

There is a limit to the number of PM messages you can send in a day unless you are a plus member. Maybe you went over and your PMs didn’t get delivered

To answer your question of "Is this normal here", I've never had someone back out of a confirmed deal. That sucks and regardless of the hot market is inexcusable. As for people not communicating, that is pretty often. Sometimes they just ignore a message, sometimes they forget. I've done business with someone here that I had to make several follow up messages because they seemed erratic and scatter brained in their responses. It was a big turn off for me, but ultimately they seemed to be a decent guy and the sale went through fine.

Once we’ve agreed on a price I always hold my end of the bargain. I just had a buyer fly in to buy a game from me. We had agreed on price before he traveled. I upheld and end of the bargain and he did as well, transaction went great and we are both happy. To me, once both parties have agreed on a price then there has been a meeting of the minds and both parties should uphold their agreement.

It’s pretty snotty of your seller to back out at that point, but at least you didn’t make a long distance trip or something.

You say you agreed on price and a location for in-person exchange. My guess is someone offered him the amount he was looking for AND offered to come pick up the game rather than him having to meet somewhere.

I don't know the details and timing of your PMs, but as someone who just sold a game, I know that a seller often gets multiple offers of differing amounts, people wanting to meet halfway, have the game delivered/shipped, etc. Also, buyers can be vague (e.g. "I'm interested") or want you to hold the game. At the end of the day, the seller is going to go with the deal that is some combination of the best cash offer and fastest/smoothest transaction.

In your case the seller backed out, but the reality is a lot of buyers back out, so sometimes the seller will go with the quick sale rather than some scheduled meet-up.

No, you get a message up front about that.

I do not get anyone coming here trying to make rationale of the seller's actions. The buyer did everything the seller wanted and then sold the machine out from under him. You make a deal, you set the rules and parameters of the sale, and BOTH parties STICK to it! Shit does happen, buyer cannot come up with the funds, machine breaks, no show or something else plausible. However, too bad, I am selling it to my buddy is complete and total bullshit reason. Seller should have told the buddy that he had a deal pending and if it falls through, he can have it. I call b.s. on the buddy purchase as well. Trust me, someone offered more money.

I sold my TRON pro a few years back. 12 hours after I made a deal with the buyer, another bonafide offer of $500 more than my agreed selling price came in. I declined it as my integrity is worth a whole lot more than $500. Quite frankly, if the extra few bucks means that much to you to renege on a deal, get the hell out of pinball.

A few years back I had an asshole seller here on Pinside(from N. Aurora IL) that sold me out for $100 on a ID4 while I was on the way(1.5 hour drive) with cash in hand. This is after we set up an exact time and he said it's yours.

Better communication could definitely help a lot of these situations.

I just want to clarify. There's a difference between a seller selling out from under you while you're en route and a seller not willing to hold a game for a buyer when other buyers are lined up. That doesn't sound like what's being described here though.

Name the seller, it’s not anything the seller should be afraid of if he thinks he did nothing wrong.

Not 100% specific to this situation but, Deposits help in so many ways, for one it conveys commitment on the buyers side and obligation on the seller side.

In your case if you offered a deposit there could be a chance that the seller refused, giving you and indication that they weren’t fully committed to the deal (just a guess)

It is a bummer not getting the pin. But, things happen…. A million things could have made your deal not work- maybe he owed the freind a deal. Best thing to do is be ready and MAKE the deal happen as soon as possible, if you are looking at buying $10,000 pins, have $10,000 in cash ready to go. Hopefully a better deal will come.
Everyone feels they have the best etiquette… then a $50 Fathom shows up, that grandma is selling, and they rush over to grab it from her.

The guy had $10K in the bank. You wanna keep $10K to $20K cash under your mattress?

i totally sympathize w the OP's point. He's not upset he didn't get the game. He clearly has a good attitude and knows he'll get a game when the time is right. He just wishes the seller would've simply proactively contacted him and told him, rather than make the buyer have to chase him down. I've had a tentative agreement with a seller, on more than one occasion, where the seller changed their mind for one reason or the other. But the seller came out right away and contacted me saying, "Hey, i decided to go with "xyz" instead, I'm sorry. I hope it's not too much of an inconvenience" (paraphrasing, of course). And I was fine with that. Was I a little disappointed? Sure. But whatever, at least they were upfront and honest with me BEFORE I considered the deal completed. Just communicate, even if the news is bad. People respect that more than anything.

Definitely kind of a jerk move. I think once you've told a buyer that the deal is on then its done barring more crazy circumstances. I've certainly lost money before holding games for people I had made online "handshake" deals with, but I had given my word and I really go out of my way not to break that.

this hobby is full of turds and clowns

I bet the seller was Frank Furhter.

Yes, always keep fast cash around.

No excuse for the in-person deal to back out after you accepted the terms and were paying in cash.

But the reason you may be having problems with pinsiders emailing back is your pinside account is VERY NEW and while you have some posts, you don't have any feedback history at all. I'd try making some small marketplace mod purchases and ask for feedback once they're done to build up your footprint a little. There are a lot of scammers out there, even on pinside, so if a brand new account emails me about a $10k machine I need to ship cross country, I am automatically in suspicious mode. That's likely what you're running into, but if you know other long-standing pinsiders, you can give that as a reference and it should help. Your profile will naturally get less suspicious as it ages and the problem will take care of itself over time. It will just be inconvenient in the interim.

Seller lacks integrity IMHo. I’ve had plenty of arranged deals with higher offers coming in and I have never welched on an agreed sale.

I recently sold a high dollar game ($15k) and had two offers $500 plus come in after the buyer and I agreed.

Every last one of my pinball transactions has been with a solid stand up individual. Of course by saying this I probably have just cursed myself…

I guess the safe amount is in the eyes of the beholder?

Oh please....that fart knocker

Done. But for some reason pinside only lets you leave a recommendation for shop orders - you can't leave feedback, even though the shop and market are technically the same place. I PM'd Robin about this to see if it could be fixed. But for now you have a recommendation on your purchase, at least.

This happens in every genre of collecting and especially when hobbyists act as collectors and believe everything they have is rare and valuable. Many sellers list a price but act as an auction (lol at this new trade value bs). Effectively a bad seller will always be a bad seller and a bad buyer will be the same. It is my opinion that a seller has the obligation to work with every buyer in order, without discrimination. This means their ads will have the protocol to deal with them (cash, no holds, pickup only, no shipping). If they don’t list the protocols and then come up with their own story which makes no sense, please out them publicly as they are wasting hundreds or thousands of peoples time every year.

I’ve contacted people for everything from pinballs and cars and have been first in line, offering a deposit, and some people won’t do a deposit, want to meet, want to talk, want something you may not have. Some people won’t wait for you to get off work, some people expect you have cash ready (this is not a good expectation) and won’t wait for you to go to the bank, or even drive to pick up the game. These are the greedy scum at the bottom of the toilet. They are not here for community, friends or other, they are here for money, not pinball. Integrity is everything and selling integrity for anything other than your life is just immature, childish and not to be tolerated. I’d rather overpay than deal with that bs.. Cause the reality is those machines from those sellers are never what they say, since their whole life is a lie, a stretch, or under a filter. It’s better that this person canceled on you, cause now you can warn all your new friends you start to make and don’t have to worry about what likely was a game with issues with which they were going to take advantage of you. You never have to click on that persons threads and you’ve saved yourself from them in the future. That anyone sticks up for anything other than the value of a handshake is appalling and you now known not to deal with them either.

Three recent purchases.

I was looking at an unadvertised machine and would have bought it and when I felt like I was going somewhere in convo, they listed it and sold it to someone else they had spoken with. Sucks, would have paid him a grand more if he would have mentioned he was listing it. He originally mentioned 65 and listed for 55 and I would have paid 65 if he would have communicated. Seller communicated exactly what happened and all good, oh well, did not get it.

Second purchase, seller did not want a down payment, was willing to hold the game until whenever, and we set a time to meet. Hopefully on Saturday the deal goes through and I have no reason not to believe it won’t. (Non pinball person and underpriced machine imo)

Third purchase, slowly working through the sale, I made a deposit and then we are taking about a week to finalize the deal. I’m mellow, they are mellow, the deal will work.

First NIB- found a Godzilla prem, made a deposit and one week later had the game, at msrp.

Other various games over the past week, no responses from bad sellers, so I make sure to send them lots and lots of emails and especially love when they list their phone number and don’t respond

TLDR? It’s normal in every hobby, truly. Just out the scum and don’t deal with them again. Pinside has a great ignore feature.

This part I don't agree with. If it is someone who screwed me in the past or screwed someone I know they get ignored, don't care when they contacted me. Same with someone who is just a general asshole, every website has them.

I am semi-retired and work for myself now. Over the years there have been some bad customers, luckily it is rare but there are a few. I keep them logged in my phone and if they call they get ignored. Life is too short to deal with people who feel they are entitled to everything and everyone should bow to them because they are paying.

That being said this doesn't apply to the original poster, he did everything right and got screwed by someone who doesn't care. He obviously needs to block this person from future transactions.

This is something I cannot agree with.

You have an item up for sale for $5K, 1st one to inquire has a million questions, 2nd one to inquire is kicking tires, 3rd one makes a low ball offer , 4th person says "I will take it". Guess what? As long as I haven't made a deal with 1 thru 3, too bad, so sad, that 4th person is now my #1 buyer.

I am with you on this. If someone is serious, cool lets chat. The random message "offers" that have no other communication, context, name, etc... Those get a simple "No, that won't work". Counter offers to low ball offers isn't even worth it most times.

Yeah I have definitely flat out told people I wasn't going to sell my game to them because of the way they came at me. No shortage of buyers in this hobby usually, so just because Johnny Jackwagon is the first person to message you, that shouldn't mean that hes automatically the first in line to buy it (although it can help in many, if not most situations).

"sold to a friend" and canceled several listings sounds more like he avoiding paying the Pinside sales fees.

Generally I am a money talks, bs walks kind of guy when it comes to selling something. I find everyone is just kicking tires and collecting pictures until you have agreed on a definite price and a definite time to come pick up the game. Then the deal is done in my opinion despite what other buyers may say or offer afterwards. We made a deal, we stick to it.

As long as the guy shows up when he said he would with the agreed upon money, its his game. If he waffles, or tries to beat you down upon arrival, or decides to go home and think about it, or talk to his wife, or consult his tarot reader, then it's potentially back up to the next guy in line.

I've had "done deals" where the buyer got a higher offer after we talked and then sold the game without even telling me or giving me a chance to counter and it sucks. I'm old fashioned - if we "shake" on a deal, its my word and I won't break it and if you do, we're not going to be doing much dealing in the future.

BRAVO!!!

This is a pay to play hobby and in the grand scheme of things, take it as the cost of doing business in the hobby.
For every ten dildos out there you only need one person to make a successful purchase/sale from.
And then it is enjoy your cash or pinball machine and move on .

I stand by the fact that 99% of Pinsiders, once known or established, are pretty straightforward to deal with .

Well I agree in general. I was speaking to a normal transaction past baggage.

A wise man once said, "All I have in this world is my balls and my word...and I don't break 'em for nobody!"

Wait, he wasn't wise, he was a sociopathic criminal movie character! But still the sentiment remains.

As we know, a problem with this logic is that there are persons that always start with “I’ll take it” with every intention of being difficult upon the in person transaction and doing all the thing you think are bad for someone to do in the first conversation. (Just because I ask to use PayPal doesn’t mean I NEED to use PayPal and if the seller could communicate as a normal human, they would get past “I don’t accept PayPal” and likely have more satisfied customers) Those people that immediately “take it” are often the biggest time wasters and cause delay in sales. Honestly, how many people have bought anything without asking a question or seeing it in person? I suppose “this type” also has the item shipped and never lay eyes on it until it arrives, and never complains about deviations from sales descriptions. That’s abnormal operation and out of thousands of internet transactions I’ve communicated and tens of millions in business I’ve created in my real life, that IS NOT how most transactions work. I did this once with a person on pinside JCJP and that person ripped me off and the game arrived 1500 miles away and was not at all hou, blah blah blah. I absolutely warn anyone I see about to deal with them (JCJP), and I told them strait up I would make sure to do this so nobody else had to go down that road. JCJP scammed me and what was sold as hou and it was literally blown out, chunks of wood missing, inoperable, plastics broken, rusty and scribbled inside in Spanish with operating routing notes.

Most normal NORMAL sellers are happy to go down the line that forms, answer questions, take deposits and wait for delivery details that both parties agree with. Sniping, underselling, canceling transactions means you don’t deserve the handshake, nor the business and in a forum situation, outed for educational purposes. This last part should not offend any outed sellers because they are ok with how they acted usually. Seriously, those that can’t make or take a handshake have really got some growing up to do. Unfortunately, I hear this in every “collector” forum. As mentioned, 99% are great!! Most of the great guys and gals you read about on here, really are great!