Yeah. The OP went from angry to asshole with that latest post.
Yeah. The OP went from angry to asshole with that latest post.
Last edited by Scooby921; March 14th, 2018 at 07:00 AM.
Sorry, but the reply was inappropriate since he was disparaging the items based on price, and not a misrepresentation of the seller. The seller blew it as well, rather badly, and now it only gets worse as more commentary piles on.
Had it been my listing, I would have PMed the other geek and ask that he delete his post on the basis of netiquette. If he refused, then I would have edited the initial (original) post to one word: "Relisted" and marked the thread SOLD, thereby locking it to only the one reply post. The seller can copy and paste the text of the original listing as a new thread. If it doesn't sell, the seller still owns it or accepts an offer.
If you want an item and the price is grossly too high, MAKE YOUR REASONABLE OFFER rather than crapping in another's thread. If the seller is an asshole, don't even make an offer and just watch the listing drift down, down down....
Last edited by FredRydr; March 14th, 2018 at 10:50 AM.
This is where I've been sitting on that FS post. I agree that $1100 for a $400 pen is asinine. I'm just nice enough not to say it aloud in the FS thread.
This isn't the first one to irk me either. On two occasions I've sold pens only to see the buyer list the item for sale at a higher price weeks later.
Sorry... if someone wants to try and sell a Jinhao 750 for $4000 that is their right. Caveat Emptor. It isn't a scam.. a smart buy will spend ten seconds on google and see it is a $12 pen and not buy it. Not my place to tell them they are wrong. If you want to send a PM to the seller -- fine.. but Let someone post a Pelikan 205 for $800 if they want.
It is only fraud to me.. if they say a M200 is a M1000 and asked for a M1000 price from false advertising. Someone tries to sell a Jinhao as a Montblanc.. that is wrong.. but selling something for any price (high or low) is the sellers perogative.
Hawk (March 25th, 2018)
I do not agree, this might be true for pure selling platforms like ebay, where nobody cares.
But I see FPGeeks not as selling platform, this is a pen community.
At least I care about the folks inside OUR community.
If somebody ask for help I try to help him.
If somebody needs advice and I can give it I will advice.
And if I see something which is obviously not correct, then I will point it out.
This explicitely include to point out if I see that somebody want to rip off less experienced community members.
And for sure I will not look the other way and claim that this is not my business, because we are a community here.
Nothing wrong trying to sell items at a good price (from seller perspective) but trying to rip off other community mates is a completely different story.
These selling threads (and there are way too many of them) are many times root cause of problems inside the community.
My personal opinion:
I wrote it many times in the past, I do not see FPGeeks as a selling platform, it’s a pen community.
I don’t like them and if it would be my site I would ban them from the site.
There are plenty of other options to sell stuff, why don´t they sell on eBay instead?
Ohhh, maybe because there are such nasty things like buyer protection, missing anonymity, warranty claims, selling fees, public seller Profiles, buyers feedback, transparency,......
All these nasty things can be easily excluded selling stuff on a forum.....
Last edited by Pterodactylus; March 14th, 2018 at 03:40 PM.
Ahriman4891 (March 25th, 2018), dfo (March 19th, 2018), Hawk (March 25th, 2018)
You said "if people ask".. but you aren't doing that. You are being a pricing warrior. If you want to send a private message to someone.. that is fine.. but it Joe buys a pen at $100 and sells it next week at $200 that is THEIR business. If Joe has a Vanishing Point and he wants to sell it at $1000 that is THEIR business. Value is in what people determine between each other.
People who are self-proclaimed policemen just irk me.
Now.. in a discussion board.. hey.. that is a conversation.. yap all you want here-- this is the place to do it. But imagine if every time you posted a sale on this board someone just started in waiving their hands and posting how they shouldn't pay your price or you aren't a good seller or the product isn't worth what YOU would pay for it.
I bet people love you standing outside your neighbors' yard sales commenting on everything people are considering buying.
I don´t think this will lead into something.
To be honest, I don´t care if a sales thread is disturbed or not (normally I do not look at these threads actively because I hate such contentfree posts).
Imo all questions that might come up are valid and allowed to be asked, and not only in a private message also in that thread.
Because these questions might be interesting also for others.
So if somebody is trying to sell a pen of value x for a multiple of its value x*y , everybody has the right to ask why it was offered at this price point.
And the seller might not like such questions, but I and nobody else should care about this.
This guy want to sell something and if he really want to sell that crappy thing he has to answer any question that might come up.
If he do not like it, he still has the option to sell somewhere else.
And even if somebody post a link into his thread to an realistic priced other offer, then imo he has to say thank you for the info, and correct his (hopefully) accidentally made mistake.
Rip off people intentially is not an acceptable behavior, especially in a community where no control mechanisms are available.
Rip-off is a vacuous term. What isn't a deal for you may be a great deal for someone else. And it is not anyone's job to be the price police.
And it is recipricol courtesy.
Fraud is selling something with no intention of giving the advertised good. That is different. But price policing is just rude.
For example. If I put my Visconti Divina up for $700. There are places that sell it for that. There are places that sell it for more. There are places that sell it for less. There are used Visconti that sell for significantly less. Depending on condition and use, etc. all sorts of factors. So are you going to post to everyone where they can get it cheaper than $700?
What if the pen was very important to me. It was my grandfather's and I value it at $1400 for sentimental reasons. It may be a bad business decision.. but is that YOUR business? As long as it is what it is described as.. if there is a person out there that wants to pay $1400, that it THEIR business.
Last edited by Stickler; March 15th, 2018 at 11:24 AM.
SIR (March 16th, 2018)
Tl;dr: It wasn't the question, it was the assertion without providing evidence.
Hi Fellow FPGeeks,
I am the asshole seller from the quoted post and would like to clarify that my frustration came not from the question, but from the other poster throwing out an alternative price without any supporting evidence. A quick FPG search led me to find that the poster previously bought a similar pen at around $400-500 some years back, which was market when they were in production. In the time between his purchase and my post, the nibs are out of production and longer readily available in the US or Japan. The poster's question wasn't the issue--it was the poster's alternative price offered on my thread, with no evidence to support other than "should be", which is not the same as a market reference point.
When checking for recent sales, one lonely pen appeared in ebay's sold searches, and I priced mine based on that pricing and three factors: availability of the nib, availability of the pen body, and their respective conditions. These pens aren't everyone's cup of tea, so I drafted the post for someone who would have known that availability was at issue. I later posted a screen shot of that pen auction in the thread. It would have taken minimal effort to check current pricing on his own, or to post his question without injecting his price opinion. The other poster did neither. I'm unable to edit or close posts, so unfortunately I was not able to close and repost as was suggested.
If my response makes me unwelcome here, then that's unfortunate. Still, I hope you can appreciate how frustrating it is to have done your research and have someone disagree without evidence, purely because they feel the outcome should be different.
Since I'm the one who specifically used the word "asshole"...
I saw no problem when the question was asked. I saw no problem when you responded and explained why. When you got a little heated and attacked the person (troll pic) it got too hostile. While the customer is seldom right, you can't go on the offensive when you're selling things.
As much as I may disagree with your price I do hope you can, at the very least, get back what you paid for the pen. I've owned and sold a few Sailor pens and, unfortunately, they don't seem to hold any value. If one person can get back what they paid perhaps it helps the value of every other Sailor.
Last edited by Scooby921; March 19th, 2018 at 06:34 AM.
Not so much a matter of netiquette, but more of an FYI: Note the recent listing where the OP put his price in the title. Be aware that after a few minutes, a title cannot be edited insofar as how the title appears in the index. Since that price is, um, probably not going to withstand scrutiny, it may deter potential customers from even clicking on the thread. So, it's best to keep a price out of the title.
You and Pterodactylus seem to be talking past each other. If this is a community, then yes, it's kinda everybody's business. If you want it to be YOUR business, either go to a specialized business platform or I guess try to make FPG less community-like.
I don't like censorship. I also don't like speculators trying to make a quick buck at the expense of fellow geeks (i.e. buying from one member and selling the pen for more two weeks later). I think asking a question in public is absolutely fine, as long as it is done politely, and there is no reason for the sellers to balk at it. The seller should have responded "I priced it as such because it's a rare nib in a rare body -- this is a recent eBay listing for reference; I feel my price is fair given these factors" instead of accusing the other member of trolling.
Would you Act that way if it was a pen show? Just stand outside someone’s booth telling people as they go look at pens that they could get a better deal elsewhere?
If you wouldn’t behave that way there— then you shouldn’t here. If you would there— how do you think that would play out with other vendors and coordinators?
If a vendor tries to sell me a run-of-the-mill Visconti for $1400, I will definitely ask them why that particular pen is so expensive. It's OK if other attendees at that booth overhear me asking, I'm not going to whisper. If I strike a conversation with somebody and it turns to pen prices, I may say "Just saw vendor X trying to sell a Visconti for double the going rate, can you imagine?!" If, however, there were good deals at the vendor's table next to the Visconti, I would mention that too.
Your analogy would hold, somewhat, if I saw your sales post and then made separate threads in Italian Pens, Pens in General, and Market Feedback, titled "Beware! Stickler is selling a Visconti for $1400! Never buy anything from him!" -- i.e. 1) tried to broadcast it to as many people as possible, AND 2) generalized my disagreement with a single pen's price to "never buy from the guy, period". I don't think anyone would bother doing that unless they had a particular beef with you personally.
So our disagreement is narrow but deep. To me.. walking into someone’s b/s thread and saying that the price isn’t good enough is not the same as a private conversation with the seller (a PM is).. and so it might as well be someone standing next to a pen booth yelling.. “Hey everyone.. don’t buy this pen because I don’t think it is worth what he is selling it for!”
Distinct difference to me that is significant.
I don’t think it is you and I talking past each other but significant philosophical views that diverge in nuance of explaination.
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