War PP bought at unethical shop

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Maybe if there was more government oversight over pawn shops, then price gauging like this wouldn't be an issue. I mean, somebody has to stop this unfairness. :rolleyes: Say goodbye to the "free market".

Normally, problems like this should fix themselves. If he still got your business, I guess his practices weren't bad enough.
 
You are just upset that you didn't pull one over on him.

Who's unethical? The guy who sells his wares for market price or the guy who knew the price was too small and tried to buy it anyway?

How is that un-ethical? You would have paid the man what he was asking for the gun.
I'm sure the pawn broker called the person that pawned the pistol and gave him some extra money when he found it was worth more!
 
I saw gasoline at the station yesterday for $3.35. Told them I'd come back tomorrow. Today I went back and it was $3.39. Never going there again!
 
I always get a chuckle out of those who are never going to go to a pawn shop again, and act like if they tell enough people they will go out of business.

I have a friend in the pawn business who owns 3 good sized shops. He's earning 10% on a few million dollars in loans each and every month....120% a year, and only has about a 30% default rate.

He could throw everything that is lost in pawn in the trash, and still be making money hand over fist.

I learned a long time ago. Deals don't wait. If you're out looking for a deal, you better be prepared with cash on hand.
 
I saw gasoline at the station yesterday for $3.35. Told them I'd come back tomorrow. Today I went back and it was $3.39. Never going there again!

Hate it when I have a reply I like and someone uses it first:what:. Never going to patronize your threads again.:D
 
Chalk it up as a relatively cheap lesson at $150 and apply what you learned in the future.

1. don't tip your hand in any negotiation.
2. be willing and able to make a decision to "buy it now".

I watched a plumb of a 5 acre house lot with river frontage for 6 months. It came down in price three times and I really wanted it. I had a number in mind and bonus money in the bank/ But rather than make an offer I continued to watch, hoping it would come down again. Of course, some one snapped it up for less money than I was going to offer.

You snooze, you lose right?

A year later, I stumbled onto a larger lot, on high ground, very secluded, listed with a small one man show realtor.

I made a cash offer for 2/3 the asking price and signed a P&S the day I looked at it.

Come to find out a few years later why the neighbor always gives me the cold shoulder. He wanted the land and was "prepared" to pay quite a bit more $ than I paid.

Ten years later, I sold a quarter of the lot for 3-1/2 times what I paid for the whole.

It was the best deal I ever made and I would have missed out on it completely if I didn't learn my lesson on the first lot.
 
Sometimes you have to walk away... I would have if he had heard me say I would be back the next day and the price all of a sudden jumped $150.00

He has the right to do that, and I have the right to walk away. It's not even about principle, to me it's about negotiating and taking a hard stance.
 
whats unethical about it? you had an opportunity to buy it at the price listed and passed it up. the price then changed. nothing unethical at all.
 
Babba...

Aggravating but WOW...that is a very nice gun! Try to forget the aggravation and enjoy that beautiful firearm.

QB
 
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by ignorance or stupidity.

That's an excellent adage, but I don't see any ignorance or stupidity on the part of the shop owner whatsoever. He made the right decision whether or not the original poster here was coming back, and doubly so because the OP did come back!

kingpin, turn your humor detector on. :neener:
 
I don't think his actions were unethical.

Hand you NOT returned, could he have taken you to court and sued you for breech of contract for failing to do as you stated? (return and buy) NO.

Same as on your part.

Unless you made a down-payment at that price, he was free to change the price.
 
I'd go out on a limb here and say even if it wasn't "unethical" it sure wasn't very respectable.

It's the same thing websites like godaddy do. You search for a domain name once and if you don't buy it then, they buy it for themselves and offer to "negotiate" with the owner.

oh, and don't jump on they guy for being willing to "rip-off" the pawn broker. It's not like it was a little kid who didn't know what he had, the guy's an expert an buying items for less than they're worth and selling them for more than they're worth. The business he is in is far more ethically questionable than any one customer.
 
Let me understand this:
You went pawn shopping without the intent or ability to purchase on-the-spot, and then you get angry that the owner of the business decided to raise the price before you could return to seal the deal?

The way I see it, you're likely the only one to blame for telegraphing your intent to buy it. Who knows how long it had been there, but even if for a short time, he may not have looked into the real value until you showed interest in it. Then he went and checked out the value of that gun and realized that he was selling it for less than the market would bear, and brought his price in line with that.

It seems to me that the real problem was that you decided not to purchase the first time you saw it. Certainly if you'd been looking for one for so long, you must have recognized the great value for what it was right then and there, yes?
 
What I think some of your guys aren't getting is that sure, legally, the proprietor had the right to raise the price; what babbalanja's saying, from what I hear, is that businesses screw customers over at a much greater rate than in reverse. When opening up a business, you must be the more ethical and moral party, but in reality, it's a license to begin the scamming. Gun dealers and pawnshops carnies are notorious for taking advantage of customers--you can call that great business sense if you want, I call it slimy. The balance between the business and customer has been imbalanced in favor of the business for years, and, well, customers are getting restive that there is no recourse other than walking out the door past the 2 schmucks who are walking in. Babbalanja, I hear you.
 
Verbal contracts are every bit as binding as paper ones
I believe that in some states, verbal contracts do not legally exist: if it ain't signed and on paper, then it just ain't.

Verbal agreements are ethically binding in all 50 states and beyond--if I give you my word, I'm sticking to it, barring force majeure--but hard to enforce.
$150 was likely not going to cause him to lose his business; treating a customer like will cause him to lose business. I won't patronize his place again and advise my contacts to avoid him.
Absolutely it is your right to do so. (But, does it seem somewhat petty to bad-mouth him after you bought the gun at a fair price--I assume it was a fair price: if it wasn't , why'd you buy it?).

And absolutely his right to treat customers as he sees fit. True, most gun dealers I've dealt with were more concerned about keeping customers happy (for return business) that making an extra few bucks on any given sales, but who knows? Maybe he's got gobs of customers.

Hypothetical--if you dropped in the next day and the gun was already SOLD (at whichever price), and the guy said, "Yeah, I remember you said you might come back, but this guy had cash and said, 'I'll take it NOW.' So I sold it."--would you still feel gipped? I mean, it not like he said to you, "Well, since you're interested, let me just take it out of the display case and store it in back so no one else buys it before you get back," is it?

:)
 
I don't think he did anything unethical, I think he just did something you did not like. By the way, if it was so unethical, then why support his alleged lack of ethics by buying it from him?

All the best,
GB
 
My take:

That's a less than ideal way to run a business. Excellent customer satisfaction as a result of great customer service leads to long term customer loyalty to YOUR STORE as opposed to whichever store has the lowest prices.

A good example would be if you have a trusted mechanic. You always to there instead of shopping around for the lowest prices every time you have a problem on your car. Your mechanic now doesn't need to compete with having the lowest price(which is the last thing you want to do and spare me the Wal-Mart example as they have the highest purchasing power of any retailer which allows them to buy at the lowest wholesale prices). You go there every time without shopping around because he takes care of you and doesn't try and jerk you around.

That pawn shop owner gained the extra $150 on the sale but he might have lost a what could have been a long term customer.

Look at it this way, if you piss off a customer over $150 and that customer now decides that he will never shop at your store again you've now lost the lifetime value of the customer which is probably going to FAR EXCEED the $150 extra profit that you gained by jumping the price around.

That isn't always going to be the case but you never know how much lifetime value you are losing when you piss a customer off and he never comes back again.

Here is the way wiki describes lifetime customer value.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_lifetime_value

On the flip side alot of customers can be jerks and they will attempt to jack the business owner/shop around. In some cases you just need to let them know that there business is no longer welcome. The headache and hassle just isn't worth the lifetime value that they offer. ;)
 
That pawn shop owner gained the extra $150 on the sale but he might have lost a what could have been a long term customer.

Or he might have gained $150 on the sale, and not lost a thing customer-wise. Remember, the OP never committed to a sale in any way - he gave the shop owner the equivalent of "I'll think about it" and left. That doesn't make him a customer, nor does it lead one to think that the guy is going to ever come back for anything in the future. So as far as "losing a customer" goes, I don't buy it.
 
To quote myself from my post concering losing a customer long term.

That isn't always going to be the case but you never know how much lifetime value you are losing when you piss a customer off and he never comes back again.

Also the OP said this himself.

I won't patronize his place again and advise my contacts to avoid him.
 
If you are looking for sympathy - look elsewhere. If you wanted to secure the purchase, you should have put a deposit down. Over the years, I've seen many, many people say they will be back the next day and never re-appear. Talking is not purchasing and the gun shop owners get the "I will be back tomorrow BS" every day. You didn't have an obligation to return - and, they didn't have an obligation to hold the price at yesterday's amount. If you had put a deposit down and the dealer decided later to change the price - then you would have a case to be PO'd.
 
Seeking no sympathy, I take my lumps

Let me state clearly that I have no one to blame but myself. My hesitation and not buying the gun immediately was MY stupidity. I bought the gun for a fair price and don't feel hypocritical for buying it. Amazing how many sea lawyers out there want to talk about what constitutes a contract and what doesn't. I'm not talking legality as I understand the seller has a right to raise or lower the price of his products. I would however, point out that his raising the price was not arbitrary but rather an obvious reaction to my showing interest. That is poor customer service and I personally would not have pulled the rug on my customer like that. One of you posted the following:

Look at it this way, if you piss off a customer over $150 and that customer now decides that he will never shop at your store again you've now lost the lifetime value of the customer which is probably going to FAR EXCEED the $150 extra profit that you gained by jumping the price around.

Let me say that this comment is dead on. In the town of 3000 I live in, I can assure you that the pawn shop has paid far more than $150 in lost business and will continue losing that into the future.
 
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