On Mon, 23 Apr 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Now that I've read Tom V's example--"$500 or best offer"--I have another
> question: Does that mean, "or best offer a bit below what I'm asking?" Or
> does it also include offers above what the seller is asking?
Hmmm... never thought of that before. For me, it usually depends on the
order of the requests. If someone offers me the $500 I was asking, and
then later (even before I reply to them) someone else offers me $600, I'd
sell it to the first person, simply because they were first. But if the
$600 was the first offer, and then $500, I'd sell it to the $600 bidder
because they were first. As far as I work, it's the first offer that
meets or exceeds my price.
If I wanted to do what you were talking about, I wouldn't use an
"OBO" clause. I'd say something like, "I'll be accepting offers until
next Friday night, and the highest offer between now and Friday night will
win the item." Usually I like to just give it to the first person who
asks, to reward promptness, but if I *really* need the money then I'd
consider accepting offers for a few days before going with the
highest. That's different from "OBO", IMO, and should be explicitly
specified as such.
> Let's say somone advertises a lens that many of us would want: a Pentax
> 85/1.8K. The price? "$500 or best offer." The ad appears on a Tuesday, and
> you immediately send an email saying, "Yes, I'll take it for $500. As soon
> as I hear back from you, I'll get a money order from the bank and mail it."
> He says, "Great! I wasn't expecting to get what I had asked for."
>
> Is the lens yours?
I would expect so, yes.
> If you say, "Yes," then suppose a collector in another country notices the
> ad a day later. He immediately sends an email, saying, "I'll pay you $600!"
>
> Who should get the lens?
The first bidder ($500). I suppose "OBO" could be stretched to encompass
prices *above* the desired amount, but I've never thought of it that way
before. Like I said above, if you're going to accept higher offers than
your desired price *even if they come after an acceptable offer* then you
should say that explicitly, and should probably provide a time frame.
> At least three of you have now written that you have always understood
> "best offer" to mean "best reasonable offer." Frankly, I'm stunned. In the
> world I inhabit, an unconditional statement means "unconditionally."
I'm talking about the best reasonable offer *below* the desired price.
And the trouble with nitpicking unconditional statements is that it can be
done back to you, too. If the seller says "$500 OBO" and you have the
highest offer at, say, $100, then it's not likely they'll want to sell it
for that. If you try and claim that "OBO" means that they should accept
any offer because "OBO" is unconditional, then they can come right back
and say that they didn't specify a time frame for the sale. Because they
didn't specify this condition, they can take as long to sell it as they
want. You can't force them to sell something before they're ready to,
though you can retract your bid in protest. I don't see anything
unethical about waiting for a reasonable offer, though it's not the way I
would choose to do it. If you want to pick nits about "OBO" being
unconditional (even though it would be pretty unfair to the seller to
expect them to sell something for a huge loss), then you have to admit
that the seller is not tied into any particular time frame for making the
sale (even though that may seem unfair to the buyer). Is that a clearer
explanation of what I think? I'm coming down with a cold now so I'm not
entirely all here. :)
chris
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