Did I screw this guy?

[Ash]

It isn't bait and switch, just laziness.

In Mississippi, you have to sell one of the mis-priced item, but no more. So, if he has three boxes priced low, he is only obligated to sell one to the customer. The rest he can then price correctly. This does protect the seller, as what happens if an idiotic employee mis-marks all of a certain item? It also allows the customer to purchase at the marked price.

Ash

 

[VARifleman]

Ash we aren't talking about Mississippi, we're talking about Ohio, and as for your comment:

Well, the question is, was it worth burning the bridge?

Ash

The customer didn't burn the bridge; the owner nuked it.

 

[Ash]

Oh really? Golly gee, man I didn't know that. Hmmm, yeow, you know, I think you are right...

Man, glad you were here to help with that. You have a real gift.

Ash

 

[Bruenor]

Did you screw the guy? No.

Did he have to sell them? No, he chose to sell them. He could have just as easily told you no, and then asked you to leave when you pressed the issue. Regardless of how you handled the situation, all of the power in that transaction, as in any transaction not involving force, is in the hands of the seller.

You told him what you were going to pay for them, and he could have said no, but he didn't. If he felt that he was getting the wrong end of the deal, he could have stopped the transaction at any time.

 

[VARifleman]

The store owner screwed up and instead of manning up and accepting that he made a fuss over it, yelled, and cursed at a customer. That is not acceptable.

 

[Eightball]

If he failed to update his prices, that's not your fault. It's only fair of a business to sell items for the marked price if they messed up.

No, you didn't rip him off, he tried to rip you out of a good deal, as did that counter monkey.

I just wouldn't make a trip back there anytime soon.

 

[Ash]

The question is still relevant, by the way. If it was worth burning that bridge never to return, then it was worth it. I have decided never to return to plenty of businesses. However, if there was something well-worth returning for, then not.

Ash

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I'm afraid I have to disagree with leadcounsel, though: In this situation, having the item on the shelf with a marked price is an advertisement, not an offer. The offer is you taking the item and saying you'll pay $X (the marked price) for it. Acceptance is them ringing you up at that price.

Sorry, but no.

Their putting a box on a shelf with a price marked on it is an offer to sell ... at the price marked on the package. As I have already commented, in my state the only option for the store is to sell the item for less than the marked price. They cannot try to mark it up when you bring the item to the register. State law: The sales price is the lower of the marked price or the actual price. Period.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

IMO, the owner was right and you got a good deal by acting like an ass. The owner had no obligation to sell his inventory to you, no matter what price (outdated, error, etc...) was listed on the boxes.

Quote:
Posted by 86thecat:
The owner was trying to rip you off. He purchase the bullets, added his mark up and put them on the shelf. Now that prices have increase he feels he is entitled to a 500% markup instead of 40%. How can he justify that?
It's called the market price and it is not a hard concept to grasp... If you purchased gold for 175/oz., a few decades ago, would you be ripping someone off by selling your gold at $940/oz? I think not.

What about all of the people that sell the auto sears, that they picked up for ten times less than what they are worth now? Should they be selling them at the price that they paid for them in 1982?

The shop owner had every right and every opportunity to change the price marked on the boxes. If he had done so, there would have been no misunderstanding. When he puts a box on the shelf with a price on it, that's an offer to see the item at that price. He does NOT have a right to change the price only after he sees that he has a paying customer on the hook. That's morally bankrupt anywhere, and illegal in many states.

 

[Moonclip]

I'm surprised they just didn't refuse the sale and/or tell you not to come back to the store ever again. Many gunshop owners and the help are social retards though and are not able to deal with such situations more tactfully.

I'd of been more discreet and tactfull when I explained to you why it wasn't for sale at that price. If yopu were a good customer I'd let you have it at that price though. If you were a PITA customer I'd of sold it to you and told you that you were no longer welcome in the shop.

I had a similar burning bridges story also. A local gunshop notorious for extreme high prices and gouging the local immigrant community becuase they stock guns they liked and spoke their language used to take 20% in a consignment you gave them.

Thats standard here and I didn't mind as I was getting good prices for guns I put up at normal or a little higher than normal prices as their new gun prices are insane.

The owner informed me it would be 25% though after a certain date I said fine though I already had guns waiting to be sold at 20% fee in the case he said those were already locked in.

Well sure enough he tires to pay me 75% instead of 80% of the stated pricce when those guns sold. He gave me the full correct price but told me not to consign guns there ever again.

My dad and I removed all our guns from the case and we know refuse to do business there at all and I tell everyone I know not to go there.

I spend 1000's a year on guns and own a number of guns numbering in 3 digits. Penny wise, pound foolish I think in his case.

Also this dealer knows next to nothing about guns and does ithe business as a sideline so I saw illegal things and paperwork errors going on all the time. I didn't want my name all over the 4473's and state forms whnen they go down eventually.

I miss getting higher prices for my consignments there but it was better to burn bridges in that case.

I only ever bought 3-4 guns there my whjole life anyways. Usually when I got a good deal due to that dealers ignorance or it was a rarer gun I didn't mind paying a little more for.

 

[Kind of Blued]

They should have either stuck to their word and not sold them to you for that price or admitted their fault and made a polite transaction. As it is, they don't stand by their word, AND they have bad customer service. They could have done SOMETHING right.

I didn't know anything existed legally in regard to sales and advertisements.

 

[DAVIDSDIVAD]

Well, the question is, was it worth burning the bridge?

Ash
___

I totally know what you mean by that, Ash.

I got into a similar situation a while back concerning a trade I was making with a small shop here.

The thing was, though, in my case, I already had a receipt when the owner tried to back out of the deal.

I still felt bad though, and regret that I burned that bridge.

 

[Don Gwinn]

It doesn't matter whether you buy his argument about replacement costs or not. What matters is that his customer has nothing to do with it and he shouldn't be arguing with the customer about HIS marked price. He should either finish the deal or not. All his chatter about why he shouldn't be selling at that price (while his actions drown out his words) are superfluous and pointless.

 

[Ltlabner]

Assuming the store owner isn't a total idiot, when he originally priced the items I think it's a safe bet that he priced them for more than he paid for them.

The price to replace them now is completely irrelevent since they are priced above cost originally. Could he make more money by repricing them to match the current market? Obviously yes, however, he failed to do that by changing the price tag.

So he's not losing money, he's getting product off the shelf that's not moving and if he handles the sale well has a chance for repeat business. Not sure where the problem is there.

My favorite store has a great policy of only marking up the price of new items that go into stock. The items that had been purchased before stay at the old price till they are gone. I tend to get irritated to stores that imediatley raise the price of ammo or items to match todays prices when they only paid yesterdays price.

 

[JohnMcD348]

I may have offered to deal with them a little bit but not nearly to the amount that they were trying to charge you. MAYBE offered another $20 or split the difference. But, after the comment as you were walking out, I'd never set foot in there again.

I kinda had a similar experience with a store I had done alot, most actually, of my firearms bussiness wiht. They always have the better prices around my town. I bought my wifes pistol there and purchased it using my Debit card. When I used it, I had them run it as regualr credit so I don't get charged the sevice fee from my bank which is only about $2. No problem. A few weeks later I was in the store picking up some ammo, a few cheap 1911 mags to try out and other stuff. They rang it up to $160 something and change. They hand me the little touch pad to key in my code and I tell them to run as Credit. They refuse. They tell me that they won't pay the credit charge back to allow others to use a creit card. I don't make a fuss, I'm a little mad but I had my 4 year old son with me and wasn't about to make a scene over $2. I few months later, I'm in looking at an XD9 for the wife and she picked out the model and style she wanted and I pull out the card. They ring it up, and without thinking, they hand me the touchpad again. I saw, just run it through as Credit. They do without a problem. Just beofer I sign the ticket, the previous incident comes flooding back in full technicolor. I say to the fellow, "You didn't see to have a problem ringing up my order on credit this time for a $600 pistol like you did for my 180 ammo I bought back in April. He gave me a smart remark, I can't recall at teh moment. I told them to cancel the buy, I tore up the charge ticket and walked out. As I walked out the guy said I could eat fecal material and choke on it. I just turned and reminded him that if I saw that charge on my credit card I would have every right to file charges for fraud. Please see to it that it doesn't appear.

I refuse to step foot in that store again.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

Ok he was going to make a profit. If he had the bullets marketed at $29.99 for the 9mm and $10 Per 100 for the others. Then he bought them for cheaper than that right? Am I missing something here or not? So the cost to replace said items is null and void. What it cost him to buy them would have been recovered when he sold you them no matter how long they had been on the shelf.

The above is really the bottom line. Yes you screwed him. But it seems all he had to say was something like, "I never got around to re-pricing all my bullets, how about 50 bucks?" Still a great deal for you, plus he makes a little more on something he's making a profit on anyway. Win win and no hard feelings. He didn't have to be a putz.

After seeing the prices on bullets the other day, I would have given him 50 bucks, easily.

 

[jakk280rem]

the fact that the owner rang up the price of the goods as marked is proof that you did nothing wrong. a local shop here in salem has some old stuff in the back room with the original price tags on them. i know that if i were to bring any of the items up to the register they would be sold at the price as marked.

 

[jakk280rem]

as far as the burning of the bridge question ash, there seems to be no bridge. the op stated that he is an irregular customer at the store anyways. even if afetr being told that the marked price was irrelevant and was severly marked up the op had simply said, "i'm sorry, i cant pay that much, thanks for your time. have a nice day." and left, the behavior of the owner and his employee makes the liklihood of the op, imo, ever returning unlikly.

 

[FCFC]

It would be good to get the shop owner's side of the story. We only have one side of it.

It sure turned into an adversarial situation. Both sides contributed to that, I think.

I always am biased toward the customer in disputes/arguments/fights with retailers....but we only have Evan's side of the story. It's probably accurate but it would be nice to hear the seller's viewpoint and his details. That would allow a more informed critique of the event.

We do know that Evan got some stuff real cheap. Unexpectedly cheap.

 

[punchdrunk]

Seems like a big increase in stress for what was gained. I think I would have politely walked out and never ever set foot in there again.

 

[f4t9r]

You made a stand and he took your money.
That makes the deal complete. The comment you got as you left the store is way out of line and I would not want to do buisness with those people anyway. Good for you !!! on finding a good deal.

 

[Fburgtx]

I could maybe understand if this was "regular stock" stuff, but I don't see how he thinks he should get to mark up "clearance items" to reflect market value. This was obviously merchandise that had failed to move when it WAS priced at market value. I thought that the whole point of having stuff in the bargain bin was to get rid of it, not to make a large profit.

If he didn't want to sell it at that price, he should have just said "sorry, I can't sell it for that amount", and left it at that. This wasn't a mis-marked price issue, this was either a laziness issue or the guy was trying to gouge you.

 

[john917v]

Evan, you did not screw the guy. If any 'screwing' did occur, he did it to himself by not changing the prices. If he is too busy to do it, he should get his employee(s) to do it. I own a shop, and if something were to be mispriced, I'd charge the customer the stated price. I can't see how it would help him not too. I can't imagine you recommending his store to anyone from now on...normally, that's free advertisement. He turned it into negative advertisement. I'd know, I've had several referrals from satisfied customers. It's like not posting the correct speed limit, then getting pulled over for not doing the correct speed. Would that be fair??

 

[torpid]

Owner says I am ripping him off at that price, stealing food from his kids' mouths, and going to drive him out of business.

Did he then place his hand on his forehead and swoon?

 

[theotherwaldo]

The price they mark is the price you pay.

Might be less, can't be more.

Ever.

If anyone is burning bridges it isn't you.