buyer/seller dispute

Say you are trying to buy two snakes, one for a good deal and the other added at no cost. You agree on a price and are going to send a deposit in a few weeks, then you are a couple of weeks late on that (zero payments so far). Seller now weeks later does not want to add the second snake at no cost but instead offers you a good deal on it because it proved to be something else instead of a normal in the almost two months since the deal was first talked about. Obviously buyer would be mad they didn't get the free snake now that it turned out to be a mutation but seller says no money down and missing the agree deposit date means theres no more agreement and offers very very low price for said second animal but wont just add for free anymore. What would you do being either buyer or seller? How long do you feel a talked about deal should last?

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Originally Posted by rainbowreptiles

You agree on a price and are going to send a deposit in a few weeks, then you are a couple of weeks late on that (zero payments so far).

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No money in the agreed upon timeframe ends the deal in my view.

Valid point...sounds like you didin't follow up on your end and then the seller saw a way out and is not following up on their end regarding free snake. Lose lose for both of you. You should have paid on time and then they should have been held to the promise regardless of what the snake proved out as.

If the agreement/terms were not met, due to no deposit by the agreed to date and zero payments thus far, I would say the deal is null and void. I would certainly consider a renegotiation. How long is a seller supposed to wait on a buyer before pulling the plug?

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Originally Posted by 200xth

no money in the agreed upon timeframe ends the deal in my view.

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x2

I think it depends upon whether or not communication is maintained during that time and whether there is a new date agreed upon due to extenuating circumstances. If there is no further communication from the potential buyer past the agreed upon deposit date, I would assume the deal was off as a seller. If the buyer does not make the deposit by the agreed upon date, and the seller did not agree to extend that deal to a later date, I think that is at the seller's discretion. The seller does not have to keep extending a deal for a potential buyer who won't keep up his or her end of the deal.

seller said that if payment had been made, they would have stuck to adding the free snake because that was the deal but no payment for so long makes the deal void in their eyes. especially since many other theoretical deals have been discussed since then but buyer decided they wanted to go back to original agreement, still no money down on anything tho and still may not have money for a couple of weeks to send

Lotta talk with no money or concrete agreement in hand. If you are the buyer I would suggest tread lightly about verbal agreements then not following up. If you wish to be a buyer in the future than one bad deal could change things.

If I was the seller in the given situation I would have re-posted sad animals for sale listed as what they are and for market value and a discounted price for a bundle and if original/failed buyer contacted me again I would offer them the same deals I would offer anyone else if I decided to do business with them at all. If I was buyer I would be thankful that the seller wants to do business with me still.

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Originally Posted by rainbowreptiles

Say you are trying to buy two snakes, one for a good deal and the other added at no cost. You agree on a price and are going to send a deposit in a few weeks, then you are a couple of weeks late on that (zero payments so far).

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1 day late on a verbal agreement = buyer is out of luck, deal is off UNLESS buyer can provide a tracking number for a check or USPS MO payment, and the shipper caused the delay.

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Seller now weeks later does not want to add the second snake at no cost but instead offers you a good deal on it because it proved to be something else instead of a normal in the almost two months since the deal was first talked about. Obviously buyer would be mad they didn't get the free snake now that it turned out to be a mutation but seller says no money down and missing the agree deposit date means theres no more agreement and offers very very low price for said second animal but wont just add for free anymore.

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Buyer should thank lucky stars seller is still willing do deal with a flake/deadbeat and that the snakes are still available for sale. Remember, the seller still has to feed and care for those snakes so a several week delay is more money out of the seller's pocket.

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What would you do being either buyer or seller? How long do you feel a talked about deal should last?

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As the seller I would have marketed the snakes and gotten them sold to the first person who could meet my terms, which do not include stringing the deal out for weeks without payment. If I offer a payment plan it includes a non-refundable deposit and buyer signs a payment contract with all terms, payment schedule, late fees, etc. laid out.

You didn't hold up your end of the deal. Deal is off/broken. Seller has zero obligation to you.

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Originally Posted by rainbowreptiles

seller said that if payment had been made, they would have stuck to adding the free snake because that was the deal but no payment for so long makes the deal void in their eyes. especially since many other theoretical deals have been discussed since then but buyer decided they wanted to go back to original agreement, still no money down on anything tho and still may not have money for a couple of weeks to send

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So you haven't made any payments, and you state you may not for a couple more weeks! And you still think the seller should stick with the original agreement? I don't see much sympathy with this one.

Remember that buying the snake is usually the cheapest part of the project. Make sure you are financially able to properly care for this or any animal (including vet visits) before you go down that road.

If I want something I pay in full as soon as my questions are answered. Cash is the only way to ensure you get the animal and at the agreed upon price. I think it's pretty nice he's still willing to work with you. When I start selling I won't be waiting around on people that don't keep their end of the bargain. To me if you really want the animal, you throw the money down. Now say it's a several thousand dollar snake and I don't have all the money at the time, I'd pay as much as I could and pay the rest as soon as I got the money. The shorter the payment plan the less that can go wrong.

I'm pretty sure rainbowreptiles is the seller not the buyer in this scenario.

i am not the buyer, just trying to give a neutral description with facts and no bias.

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Originally Posted by rainbowreptiles

i am not the buyer, just trying to give a neutral description with facts and no bias.

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A timeline may have helped, e.g. critter #1 first offered for sale on <date>, buyer contacted me on <date>, payment was due by <date>, did not hear from buyer again until <date> at which point I realized critter #2 was a <fill in the blank>, etc. Still neutral but with enough info for people to offer advice.

That said, if you are going to offer payments over time then you really need to draft and enforce some sort of standard agreement to help weed out the tire kickers from the serious buyers. I haven't sold any BP's or other herps but I've got two businesses selling other products (not animals) and these same types of issues arise with buyers all the time. There's also nothing wrong with firing a customer if the money you make isn't worth dealing with him.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

A timeline may have helped, e.g. critter #1 first offered for sale on <date>, buyer contacted me on <date>, payment was due by <date>, did not hear from buyer again until <date> at which point I realized critter #2 was a <fill in the blank>, etc. Still neutral but with enough info for people to offer advice.

That said, if you are going to offer payments over time then you really need to draft and enforce some sort of standard agreement to help weed out the tire kickers from the serious buyers. I haven't sold any BP's or other herps but I've got two businesses selling other products (not animals) and these same types of issues arise with buyers all the time. There's also nothing wrong with firing a customer if the money you make isn't worth dealing with him.

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I haven't sold any snakes. Hopefully, I will someday when they're breeding.

That said, I don't understand why any deal would be done with someone who can't bring at least some money to the table up front.

Full cash at time of sale is always preferred. Barring that, if a payment plan needs to be done, the buyer needs to show up with something to show he's serious. If you don't have the money to pay for everything at once that's one thing, but to start the deal with a promise to pay part of it at some point down the road (which you are then late on on top of everything else), that's not even close to a serious buyer, IMO.

I'm still new to this and haven't started selling yet, but I know as a buyer that if I miss an agreed upon payment/payoff date that its on me, not the seller. And I'm very grateful if something comes up and the seller doesnt bail, but I stay in contact too. As a seller, but not of snakes yet, I have been burned before on stuff like this. Had a guy put a deposit on something I was selling and forgot to make it clear that it was non-refundable. He bailed on me and demanded his deposit back after I had passed on selling the items several times. Too bad for him I had already spent some of it. Oh well, live and learn.

it was 40 days ago now that the initial deal was discussed, two weeks ago that the first payment was to come in and then the extension was due about a week ago. there was no request for another extension, just a call on day 39 (almost a week later) asking if payment (an unstated deposit amount) could be sent in a "week or two or so" for the original deal 40 days ago. when the terms on that deal had changed, the buyer has become very upset. had the initial payment or even the payment due on the extended date come in i would have honored the deal but now that two different due dates have passed and no clear amount or date is in the future i can't see going with the original deal when i no longer even want to.

the only reason i held the animal in the first place was the buyer/seller relationship had always been good. i was just trying to do a favor, learned my lesson i guess. hope it doesn't mess with my reputation in the future.

So you are the seller. Got it. Without sugar coating anything I would politely tell the wanna be buyer to pound sand. They apparently by your statments failed to live up to terms that were verbally discussed. A polite way to put it would be to thank them for the interest and then look for buyers that understand professionalism on both sides of the transaction.

Forgot to add that I wouldn't even do a deal without a deposit up front. Nonrefundable of course.

No deposit, no deal.

I don't understand how people expect a seller to hold something for them when no deposit was made. I also don't understand why the seller is chasing after the buyer either. I wouldn't trust getting a payment from someone who failed to be diligent from the start.

I know I research breeders before I buy and ask a million questions to make sure they are legit. So how come sellers can't be picky with their buyers? Seems a bit unfair. The seller gave the buyer a chance and the buyer blew it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

It would be awesome if we could put down that type of buyer,like a rabid animal!http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/s...violent006.gif

As a new seller myself, I've already been in this kind of situation. I've had lots of people who say "Hey! I want X baby. BUT....I won't have the money for x-days". After getting stood up on payments or planning to meet at a neutral location for them not to show up, I had to adopt a "no nice girl" policy. If there is no down payment sent on the animal, I do not hold it...for any reason. I don't care if you are my best friend.

The buyer in this case is just butt hurt that he/she can't take advantage of your deal when it's convenient for him/her. You shouldn't have to be subjected to that. The buyer hasn't made any payment. I would go ahead and offer the snake for sale to someone else who can make payments.

I don't think this will be bad on your reputation. If the buyers plans on sharing his/her distaste, there are plenty of reasonable people (like on here) that will kindly tell him/her to stop being a whinny baby and just pay the money if money is due.

This person just wants something for nothing, but ONLY when it's convenient. Tell them to take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut and move on. If you are interested in one of my animals, be it a $20 normal or a $850 Vanilla super pastel, until I see cash, you get zero accommodation from me.

I'll use a really nice guy I recently did a payment plan for. He put down the required non-refundable deposit on a snake, and agreed to 90 days to pay said snake in full. When the 90 day mark neared, I contacted him and asked about it, since I had heard nothing from him for the entire time. He explained he was having some personal problems, but promised to pay as soon as he could. As a gesture of good faith, he sent additional payment. More time passed, I began to get nervous about the whole thing. Eventually he contacted me again and sent another payment. Although it was within my rights to deny him this snake, having broken the original contract, I couldn't quite bring myself to just keep the money and re-sell the snake. I agreed to set another limit, if remaining payment was not received the snake would be re-sold. Happily, things fell into place for him and the snake was paid for and shipped.

But, in the first place, a verbal agreement means diddly squat. If no money was exchanged, tough turkey if you don't like the fact that the deal is different. If you weren't such a jerk to begin with, you wouldn't be in this situation now. As the seller, you own this looser nothing. Not. One. Thing. Tell him/her the animal/animals are already sold, and advise next time payment or at least deposit be made promptly to prevent a repeat of the situation.

Gale

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Originally Posted by rainbowreptiles

it was 40 days ago now that the initial deal was discussed, two weeks ago that the first payment was to come in and then the extension was due about a week ago. there was no request for another extension, just a call on day 39 (almost a week later) asking if payment (an unstated deposit amount) could be sent in a "week or two or so" for the original deal 40 days ago. when the terms on that deal had changed, the buyer has become very upset. had the initial payment or even the payment due on the extended date come in i would have honored the deal but now that two different due dates have passed and no clear amount or date is in the future i can't see going with the original deal when i no longer even want to.

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Something else to consider... I don't know what the price is on this snake, but I expect it's not in the 4+ figure range because those buyers understand the concept of "pay to play". So, you're dealing with someone who can't manage to save up the sale price on the snake over the course of 8 weeks... what happens if the snake gets sick? Or will you see that buyer here asking for home remedies for burns because he didn't get a t-stat to regulate the UTH, and he can't afford to take it to the vet? Personally I wouldn't want to put an animal I'm responsible for into that situation, which is why I will keep BP breeding as a hobby rather than a business, I can be pickier about buyers. Someone who has to make money can't do that.