Woodbury, MN
Quoted from mcclad:One time I was selling a No Fear and a Who Dunnit as a package deal for around $2200. Buyer was coming from out of town and said he was interested because he was on a road trip collecting machines. We agree on a date and time. I take the day out of work. No show. Set another time and date. I take the day out of work. Same thing, different excuse. The pins were being stored in my sister's garage so it was an inconvenience to them as well. Third day. Take a day out of work. Waiting all day. Finally get a call. Guy says its raining and he will have to buy tarps to cover the machines, since he had an open trailer, and He did not want them to get wet at the hotel. Asks if he can reschedule. No. F that. If you are not here by tonight they are being sold to someone else. I will never go through that again. If you are local and want to stop by and play the machine when I am home, fine. If the buyer is from out of town and planning a road trip, I will not give them much consideration. Too many things can go south, fast. I know that's a terrible attitude, but I have had bad experiences in the past. This particular one was the worst though. If I can sell locally in a quick and easy sale, that is the route that I am going to take.
I've had a similar situation. I was cleaning out my storage unit and I had a guy coming from one state over to buy most of my remaining few arcade games. We talked, agreed on a total price and 11:00am to meet at the storage unit. I go up there to the storage unit that day and wait around, time comes and goes. This was in the dead of winter in Minnesota, so it was super cold out and there is nothing to do at the unit of course. I try to get ahold of him and then I get a call back that he was running late because of the weather. Fine, understandable it was snowing and he was traveling. He'll be there soon he says. Multiple push backs and 7 hours later he finally shows up with little remorse after he had wasted my entire day. I come to later find out, he was running around town in the Twin Cities picking up games and just kept blowing me off because he thought he could since he knew I had to get out of my storage unit. So we start loading up games in the cold, snow and almost total darkness since it is now late at night. Now after hey are loaded up, he now wants to renegotiate price and pay less. I should have gotten the money up front, lesson learned there. Guy was an absolute douche, if anything he should pay me more for wasting my time. I couldn't believe the nerve he had. I finally get the cash from him and he leaves. The next day I get an angry message from him saying that one of the games isn't in as good of condition as he thought and he wouldn't have wanted it if he could have seen it, but since it was dark at the storage unit he couldn't check it out, like it was my master plan to sneak it past him. I quickly told him that if he had been on time, or even close to when he was supposed to be there (11am) he would have had plenty of sunlight to check everything out so that's on you and ended that conversation then and there.
All it takes it one situation like this to make any seller leery of buyers that have all sorts of special needs, time lines and/or agendas. Now when I sell a game, I sell it local and by word of mouth for market value or under. Games sell very quick and to local people I know that wouldn't waste my time or screw me over. And unless you say "I'll take it" and we have an agreed upon price and pick up time, we don't have a sale or deal. If someone else comes along and says those words to me while a potential buyer is trying to get his brother's wife's nephew to watch his kids so he can try to find a truck to use to drive over to my place in a week and a half to LOOK at my game...I'm sorry it will be long gone by then. I would certainly tell someone who had plans to come and look at the game that the game was now sold though.
