I would agree. But in the case of the OP- he made an offer above asking knowing nothing of whether it was sold or not. He came in with a strong offer above asking knowing it was probably his only shot at getting the pin. The post where he shared this has a few dozen "thumbs down" votes. He didn't know if it was sold or not, he just knew he hadn't heard back from the CL seller. And he knew he really wanted to buy the pin. And the posts that follow in this thread are people lecturing on how there is this buyer code that he broke. And I'm calling bullshit.

I'm calling BS on an electrician making $400 an hour.

So are you folks saying if you list your house for sale at an asking price and get multiple offers in excess of the ask..you'd take the ask because they were first? Really? It's a bidding war and that's how reality works.

Unless the bidder promised to sell at the first full offer, I fail to see the issue.

It's a free market and capitalism. Upping an offer above ask isn't a "dick" move, it's how you do business. If the original guy trying to buy doesn't like it, let him offer more.

I remember one time another hobbyist got a lead on a cheap machine for a really good deal and posted lightly about it, and another guy who wasn't even interested in buying it messaged the seller and told him that's it worth much more and gave him a retail pricing number. Not sure what ever came up of it.

As worse as it gets; there was another time somebody on KLOV took an extremely rare game off a long-abandoned lot and posted about it, and another person contacted the property owner with money and basically paid for the ownership of the machine and showed up at the first guy's house and basically took it away and he really couldn't do anything about it since the other guy paid. Grinds my gears. There was a giant thread on it there.

I see nothing wrong with this...

You knew the ask was below market, didn't get a reply, guessed the seller was getting slammed with offers, and went all in with more money to secure a deal.

People seem to confuse love of a hobby with how business works...

That's not really the point.

Why he would PUBLICLY post his email here is the head-scratcher. He'd have to know that it would cause a row, a sticky-wicket, or a gentlemanly scrum.

It's been a weird couple of days here. I'm trying to reconcile threads like these with the recent "what is my potc worth" thread, where everybody here insisted to a complete newbie after seeing one stretched out blurry pic of her game that she'd be batshit crazy for accepting a penny less than $5,000, when in fact nobody has ever sold a potc for $5,000.

It's like then only thing people fear around here more than getting ripped off is the idea that somewhere out there somebody else may be getting a bargain.

Oh, well that's a different matter.

The action of offering more than the ask is about as legit as you can get, which was my point. So is taking more than ask and allowing a few days for all offers to come in.

Emailing someone tha they got ripped off after they've already sold a game isn't quite the same thing as "offering more than the ask." I have no idea what that accomplishes.

may I chime in here... not sure where this falls, but take my case... I sell things at times. and I figure an amount, that I want to get for it... for example. I sold a really nice gmc Yukon, had 80,000 miles on it but was taken care of quite well, other than sitting for the last year and not moving at all. a friend of mine. who loves to buy used cars was interested. I asked if he would like to help me sell it (I hate to deal with negotiations on anything.) I get an idea in my head of what I want to pay, and most times its pretty close to the asking price of the item in question. anyway back to the Yukon, he told me it was easily worth 4000.00. I told him if he would help me sell it, I would give him half the money, yes 2000.00 for dealing with all the for sale stuff and the negotiations. he looked right at me and said, if you only want 2000.00 of the 4000.00 then ill just buy it from you for 2000.00 if that works... to this day he still drives that truck. (and I told him, I would hate to sell him the truck and then something go horribly wrong with it. we are friends and co workers and see each other every day.)

he said at the deal he was getting, he didn't care what happened, and it would never come back to interfere with our friendship or work relationship.

I post all this just to drive the point home, if someone wants $X for something, why do people insist on messaging the seller and telling them this could be worth so much more. then they go one to tell people, do your research, do this do that, you can get get $X + 1k or 2k ... blah blah blah... if the original seller wants sell something for a price they have in mind, why do aholes come out of the woodwork and start driving the price up, up, up... pure douchebaggery on their part if you ask me, especially if they have no interest in buying the damn thing in the firstplace...

ok, I will get off my soap box now. thanks for listening and allowing me to vent.

TGIF, hope everyone enjoys their weekend!!

p.s. sorry for the long winded post...

The seller did the "stand up" thing. Despite "temptations" to do otherwise. Bravo to the seller!

Now that sounds like fun!

100% agreed!!!

There is nothing wrong with offering more than an asking price. However, as a seller if you price it at X and agree to a deal for X then that is where it should end. The OP did nothing wrong, the seller did nothing wrong.

If the original buyer doesn't show up, then it is open season to the offers.

I have been at both ends. I sold my Tron recently and had a verbal deal set with a delivery time. Low and behold I got an offer of $500 more than I agreed to sell it for. I told the guy with the offer that I have a deal made already, if it falls through, then I would call him.

On that same note, I have been at the shitty end of the stick. I had a verbal deal made to buy an ID4 with a time for pick up set and drove the 90 minutes to only get to the guys house in Aurora and have him tell me I just sold it for more than your offer. Found out he sold it for $100 more than our agreement. His excuse was oh, I tried to call but you didn't answer.......

So this is a big middle finger and F.U. to the sellers that tell multiple people come and get it , only to come back with "it's the 1st one with the cash". Make that clear up front so I can decide if I want to take that chance.

Have some integrity, a fellow man's word should mean something.

I applaud the seller and the guy who got a great deal!!!!

It's a free market, plain and simple. I don't advocate offering more than what someone is asking, however, there is nothing wrong with it either.

High or low, a price is a starting point of a negotiation. It is 100% up to the seller to direct how they want those negotiations to go.

No difference if a seller says $1000 FIRM, and someone offers $900. Is that a dick move? Hell no, especially if the seller takes it.

It's a dick move to offer more WHEN knowledge of another deal has already been made. If a seller asks $1000 and says I already have a deal on it, it's then really low class to offer more to try and steal a deal. At that point I agree, total bullsh*t.

What is acceptable here is different than what it acceptable at a flea market or Craigslist.

Expecting Craigslist one-time pin sellers to live by the same "pinsider honor code" is silly. They have no reputation to protect nor any long-term interest in maintaining relationships in the pin community. It's also unfair or realistic to expect them to "uphold their honor" or be "men of their word" when someone comes calling offering hundreds (or thousands) more on a game.

"Well my honor is worth more than that!" Good for you. But this is craigslist bro.

So you're rich and don't care about money. Your story has nothing to do with the average Craigslist seller, who 99% of the time is trying to get cash for an object they don't want anymore, and generally would like to get the most cash in the easiest way.

if the original seller wants sell something for a price they have in mind, why do aholes come out of the woodwork and start driving the price up, up, up...

Again with calling people making FAIR MARKET VALUE OFFERS "assholes". Just admit that you're bent out of shape that someone else informed the seller of the TRUE value of what they were selling and screwed you before you could screw them. At least be honest.

I'm no saint - if someone is offering to sell me something for considerably less than market rate, I'm generally not going to correct them.

But like Levi says, "this is craigslist bro", it is 100% guaranteed that someone is going to offer them more than asking on a pinball machine because it's usually the only way to differentiate yourself from the 17 other guys calling to buy the game.

The market is just TOO HOT to ignore REALITY. I would in no way fault the seller for taking the higher offer, and I know better than to start driving until the guy says no one else is coming sooner.

This "house-ument" is along the lines of the "cargument"...when you put your house up for sale you set a price and prospective buyers look at your house and make an offer. You decide which offer you like and start the purchase process. Once you've accepted the offer, if another offer comes in, say $10,000 higher than the offer you accepted, you don't take that offer - you continue with the one you accepted.

Now, we don't know if the seller of this pinball machine had already agreed to accept the offer of $1,000 for this game before the other guy came in with his higher offer. If he got 100 emails and took the highest offer before contacting anyone else then I'm cool with that. If he already told someone he'd sell it for $1000 and then reneged because he got a higher offer I wouldn't be happy about it but I'd understand that I'm dealing with craigslist and a seller will do what a seller wants to do.

I've been on both ends of this; getting a good deal and having the seller honor our deal and being in transit and getting a call that the price has gone up due to other people offering more and asking how high I'm willing to go. I don't get involved in craigslist auctions and I appreciate when a seller follows through on a verbal agreement.

Maybe that's how it works in Muskego, but here in Toronto or out in Vancouver, there's tons of "after acceptance" offers that cause a deal to fall through. Hell, they recently had to outlaw realtors re-selling people's homes a bunch of times without telling them, often for more than a million dollars over the initial price.

When demand is high, as it is in pinball, these arbitrary rules (that, by the way, seem to benefit the BUYER the most, isn't that surprising since it's all buyers expressing it) go out the window.

So a homeowner would hire a realtor to sell his home and the realtor would buy the house and then flip it?

If the homeowner got the price they were asking, what rule is being broken there?

It's called Shadow Flipping.

http://globalnews.ca/news/2510453/what-you-need-to-know-about-shadow-flipping-in-vancouver/

But it isn't just the pinside community I am speaking of, nor does even have to be about money. If you make a deal, honor it, plain and simple.

No different if you promise to help a friend move on a Sat night , but then you get an offer to go do something else and you leave the original guy high and dry. If you give someone your word, stand by it.

Some games sell way too cheap, for whatever reason. Mystery and intrigue abound.

Some games sit forever, ridiculously overpriced with a stubborn seller. Maybe they'll come around, maybe we'll see it at their estate sale, who knows...

And everything in between.

Why do we bother getting all upset about any individual game's possible circumstances? We all wind up collectively spending way more negative energy going on about it than did anyone actually involved in the transaction.

The one guy heard nothing back, so he took a shot. I say BFD.

Let it be.

That said, this is actually one of the better discussions on the subject that I remember reading.

Let's strive for a day when everyone can be a person of their word.

I once bought a STTNG for $1200. I was so freaking happy. Didn't even have a credit dot. I was the first person to email the lady on Craigslist. Literally minutes after it was posted. She had it listed at $1000, and my original offer was $1200. She took that immediately. She had multiple offers for more, but I was there too quickly. Should I have offered more because she could've made more? Hell no. The verbal deal was done.
I did have a verbal deal done for a POTC for $500 back in 2011, but when I got there he had sold it for twice the amount that we had made the deal for. I had driven a little over two hours, so it wasn't fun. I guess it just comes down to you win some you lose some. Sellers should always research the item they are selling!!! If they don't it's their loss, just like the guy emailed back.

So lets put this in perspective. If Ben offered the game to you for $2700 would you step up and buy it sight unseen? If no then why not. You were willing to put $1700 more in a random craigslist sellers pocket. You should feel happy to give it to a fellow pinsider right? If not you were just being a dick as others have said and would have used the offer of more cash to get in front of the machine so you could talk it down to a better deal. I have seen this over and over on CL. I once told a seller to ask the buyer who offered $800 more on a pin to paypal him the extra 800 as a non refundable deposit...
Funny the deep pocketed buyer wasn't willing to do it, but some other guy did agree to buy it for $500 more, so in the end I didn't get it anyway...
-S

This is why i no longer look on CL or will sell games to people on CL or friends. Much easier to trade them in when I'm done with them.

Total dick move.

Craigslist is definitely a cutthroat market place but you do occasionally find deals and some real honest one time sellers who hold true to their word. I picked up a riverboat gambler for $200 once that worked. I gave the fellow some extra cash on arrival just for holding it for me but he would have been content with the original asking price. I have made a ton of deals like that.

However, there have been many other times that I felt like I was screwed hard. Once I called a guy about a broken high speed for $400. I told him how to fix it over the phone. He got the game running and I offered more money for the machine. He said that he was asking $400 and would still sell it for $400 since if it weren't for me it would still be broken. I thought that was quite admirable. I began to leave the next day to get the machine and he emailed me saying someone stopped by the night before and offered way more money and he took since he needed it gone and all. "No hard feelings" he said. Lol. What a prick. I even offered more money in the first place since the machine was now in working condition. Oh well. You win some you lose some. Right now I'm playing the crap out of my $1200 Royal rumble that is finally fixed last night

Or you sell to a friend who you know won't bitch about anything once the game is home.

$300 down payment made!

Craigslist is still a good place to get old SS and EM projects on the cheap. Your average DMD freak shark couldn't care less about those games so you don't have to worry about all this nonsense generally.

I've never had a $400 Target Alpha bought out from under me on Craigslist.

Your admittedly didnt-see-that-coming moving analogy aside, and with all due respect to your honor and upstanding nature, you just can't expect that kind of thing on Craigslist. It's a flea market and you aren't making a "deal" in any legal sense of the word. And dealing with friends (like your moving scenario) is completely different than dealing with total strangers on an online flea market.

And if my friend asks me to move (on a Saturday night no less!!!!) I will tell them you are out of your Fn mind, I'm 41 and I don't help friends move anymore. We aren't in college, Hire some movers, I'll even chip in 20 bucks.

To all of you who think the OP was being a dick:

What if the ad had said " $1000.00 OBO"? OBO does not automatically mean a lower price. A higher price fits in with the OBO model, as well.

But it did not, so it WAS a total dick move.

Based on the time stamps of the emails, this is what I see...

Asks about WCS
No reply, offered more than ask to get attention of seller
Seller replies it's sold

What part of that violates any notion of a free offer to transact?

Suppose you contacted the seller and he agreed to sell it to you for $1000 and you were four hours away.
You drive the four hours, arrive, and it sold because some sick pulled that crap on you?

I stand by my dick move comment.

You're confusing SELLER with BUYER.

Really? You look way older, and your posts kind of put you in the 50+ age range.

Actually went to their store in Nashville. Stopped there purposely for that reason. It was a total waste, unless that it you want to buy a t-shirt or maybe a coozie for your beer can with their logo on it. All other stuff was priced high enough so that it never sold. For all the neat stuff that you see on the TV program, little if any of that was i their Nashville store when I was there early this year.

Sorry for getting OT

G

The Iowa store is just as bad and a waste of time tourist trap.

Ok, but then it equates on both ends. If it is OK to say we have a deal, but renege on said deal because it is Craigslist, then there is no shame in offering more money to break someone else deal because it is Craigslist.

Now listen here sonny...

There's no right or wrong on Craigslist. It's like thunderdome.

Stating your best offer when not hearing back after emailing promptly does not strike me as a "total dick move." Borderline perhaps, not total.

Selling to someone making such an offer after telling someone else it was theirs for the asking price, on the other hand... totally.

Letting that someone else know that it's gone after they drive for several hours: extreme dick move!

If it were me, I'd be telling the buyer that whoever arrived first with the money gets the machine. If you live four hours away, why are you even looking at Craigslist listings in that area? You have to know pins are hot everywhere and any true deals are going to be gone in minutes.

What a dirt sack move!!

Because some people are true to their word and will sell to the first caller. I search up to four hours but I live in a pinball wasteland so.... If it is a deal and they will hold it I always show up, never haggle, and will tip for holding (if the deal allows it of course). Buying form the pinball community is also different and I find new pinheads four hours away all the time. I also like to trade and a lot of people I know trade only due to the limited supply of pins on the market. So all of that being said I don't think four hours is out of the questions I just don't expect too much in the way of great deals.

I'll tell you why: it's like the lottery, you can't win if you don't play. I've answered many Chicago ads from 3 hours north, and the sellers have been honorable folk who give the first respondent first crack, wait for the tentative buyer to arrive, and stick to their stated price despite other offers from "dirt sacks" and "total dicks."

Or maybe they just live in the boonies and looking at CLs from hours away is the only way to see what's happening in the regional market.

Yeah and gives people who dont have a high budget a chance to own a great machine

I wonder if there are any other hobbies out there where someone buys something off Craigslist and it generates 97 posts on a niche Internet forum.

All the time

There are other hobbies??? pinball has consumed my life lol

Okay then, how long does the first caller have "dibs"? There seem to be complex rules involved with this whole "dibs" thing. I suspect, however, that whoever shows up first with cash wins.

will tip for holding (if the deal allows it of course).

So you're willing to pay more than the asking price?

So all of that being said I don't think four hours is out of the questions I just don't expect too much in the way of great deals.

As long as you're not expecting any deals, search as far wide as you want I say.