I am one of the guys you guys hate. I always offer what I think is fair prices for machines that are under priced. My email is typically something like this: "If your machine isn't already spoken for I would be willing to pay between $ ----- and $ ----- depending on overall condition once I look at it in person". "But I will pay $ ----- regardless of what I see when I look at it in person based on what I can see in your pictures".

Me paying "fair" prices for machines drives my wife totally crazy because she keeps saying "you could have bought it for less money why do you do that". But doing that has gotten me so many more machines I can't even begin to add them all up. Paying a "fair price" for 5 machines by giving the seller a few hundred extra a few years ago got me into the warehouse deal which was a total of over 80 pinball machines plus arcade machines & jukeboxes as well as a bunch of parts. People remember buyers that are "fair" with them and refer other people to those buyers. It is also the reason a couple local "flippers" call me first with every machine they have for sale.

I don't only make "better offers" beyond asking price just to get in the door - very often I give people more than we had agreed on when I see something in person that is better than I thought it would be. So I don't do it just to get in the door - I do it even after a deal has already been made just trying to treat sellers fairly.

Karma is an interesting thing. In life I have found "doing the right thing" always seems to pay off in the end.

It isn't really an issue with people offering more than asking price it is more an issue of sellers backing out of a deal already made. Once I deal is made - regardless of that deal - I think it is important for both seller & buyer to honor that deal. I never pull "I'll give you $50 more than your best offer" or "I don't care if you already made a deal I'll give you more". My wording is always the same "if you machine is not already spoken for I'll pay $ ---- for it".

I think what burns me more than anything else in the hobby is "picture collectors". In the past month I have taken close to 200 pictures (good pictures cleaned up in photoshop and resized so they load easy) and have sent those pictures to at least 8 different people interested in machines & playfields I have for sale. One by one every potential buyer had an excuse why they were no longer interested in the machines & playfields I was selling. Only one of those people was because of the price or condition of a machine the rest were just excuses.

I wasted the biggest part of a day with ZERO items sold. I don't have these machines set up so every machine had to be moved around, put on legs, pictures taken, then broken back down and put back into storage. I know 3 other guys in the hobby that are so sick of this that they have just started wholesaling machines to Lloyd at coinopwarehouse instead of dealing with tire kickers and I am not far behind them. What doesn't sell for me at the York Show will be going to Lloyd. No more time wasting my time with dreamers - I just don't have the time or energy for that these days.

As far as finding machines - I stopped trying to buy machines about 3 years ago and have bought more machines in the past 3 years than ever before. Not by looking for them but by having people contact me with machines for sale hearing about me from people I had treated "fairly" in the past. Like I said in an earlier post Karma is kind of an interesting thing!

If offer wasn't in writing & accepted by the seller I doubt there is anything anyone can do.

Years ago I had been looking for months for a house about 3 hours west of where we were living. I was working with a good agent but just wasn't finding anything. Then one day when I had a little free time I stopped by a local real estate office just to looking through the MLS book. I found a house I was interested in looking at so I called my agent. She set up a showing and we bought that house. The agent at the office I stopped in at tried to sue me because she didn't get a commission from the sale. She spent ZERO time with me just handed me the MLS book I paged through. My agent had worked with me for months. Long story short - nothing ever happened. Funny how aggressive some people can get over a few dollars.