What would you do in this Situation?

[oldskoolpokemon]

Today, I visited a semi-local (hour drive) retail card-shop that was shutting-down. I had arranged an appointment to meet with the shop owner and buy-out a large portion of his Pokemon Inventory. I arrived shortly after 1:30 PM and sat there sorting-through and discussing Pokemon Cards until about 5:00 PM - it was a LONG, FUN Day!

Anyway, I’m sitting with the shop owner and we’re discussing pricing on various items for HOURS going back-and-forth with our negotiations. We’ll agree upon pricing for one item / lot and then move onto the next item / lot - all the while he is recording our agreed pricing on a notepad and I am recording our agreed pricing on my iPad for my own records (same info / pricing as him).

Upon Completion, I quickly add-up everything we’ve discussed throughout the afternoon from the figures I have on my iPad and arrive at $X. Don’t want to disclose my exact cost for everything; it was A LOT! With that figure in-mind, I ask the shop owner what the damage for everything is. Using his notepad and calculator, he adds everything and double-checks his math before arriving at and telling me $Y (Nearly 50% LESS than my Figure)!

Now, I know my figure is 100% Correct and we were both discussing my buy-price - “wholesale” pricing that we were both content with. He was making a decent profit, and I would be able to make a decent profit flipping myself. There weren’t any further discounts that were supposed to be applied at the end of our transaction.

So, what would you have done?

Would you have voiced your “concern” with this pricing and inform that the figure is actually $X. Or, would you have jumped at the opportunity to purchase everything at a HUGE DISCOUNT and RAKE-IN the Profit? And, I am talking HUGE DISCOUNT - deal of a life-time here!

Few Notes:

1.) It’s a card-shop that you’ve never visited (never knew existed until recently). And, it’s a card-shop that’s shutting-down very soon - so there’s really no more future-business to conduct.

2.) All “dealings” with this card-shop have been done in-person - never via phone / e-mail. And, you’re providing payment in cash. Basically, once you walk-out of that card-shop there’s no way that they’re going to be able to contact you if they do eventually realize that they made a huge mistake in their calculation.

I’ll hold-off on telling the out-come until we get some responses

[oldskoolpokemon]

And just to add onto the situation - as it was one of those that you really had to see to believe. The shop-owner was confident on his pricing! He wouldn’t have noticed his error until well after the fact of you leaving the shop - I’m positive about that!

[muhkurt]

so…what did you do? haha

[admiral]

Do you know the owner on a personal level? Are you likely to see the owner again in any capacity?
Does he have your personal number?

If any of the above is “yes”, I would let him know there might be an error.

If he is extremely confident in his pricing, say “You are happy to sell it all for me at $XXX?”, then make a deal based off that.

[charizandrew]

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching”

Integrity > $$$

[teamrocketop]

I would of told him the figure that I got a different figure which was quite a bit higher, maybe even asked to confirm it my by looking at my math. If he knew I had good a conscience, he may have just done it at his pricing anyways or disregarded it. If you feel off, then it is off…

[teamrocketop]

@charizandrew

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching”

Integrity > $$$

This pretty much sums what I wrote lol

[spinch]

I would tell him about his mistake and go through the errors he may have made. In life it’s easy to profiteer on other peoples’ mistakes. Regardless of whether you just met him or he is your best mate i couldn’t walk away from a dealing knowing that it was made by me being dishonest.

If you start justifying things by saying that oh well he’s still making a profit so it’s all right then where do you draw the line? I have a mate that ‘steals’ things at the supermarket by passing more expensive items as cheaper ones at the self serve. His reasoning is that they have enough money so it’s no big deal. Are the rest of us punished somewhat by supermarkets who are trying to recoup costs from people stealing? I think from a holistic view that every action that we have with each other affects society in some way. If this was a 10year old child who made the mistake would you have told him/her? What about someone who was struggling financially?

I would also think about the other person. If that was you and you realised your mistake down the line how would you feel? How would that affect your future dealings with anyone? Conversely, if you tell him about his mistake he will definitely remember it when he faces a similar moral dilemma and the one good deed can be passed on and on

[teraz]

Compare notes. Make sure you both have written down the same asking price for each item.

Either there was miscommunication on the actual negotiated price of each item, or he really sucks at math. Lol. I mean, 50% off…?!

Whatever it may be, definitely wouldn’t walk away without double-checking.

Or you could:

getyarn.io/yarn-clip/6590ffae-54b1-4567-98ca-675ddaf36a8a

I kid, I kid A

[poken00b88]

I would definitely ask them to recount as we’re clearly not arriving at the same number.

I have a feeling they were indeed giving you an undisclosed discount or this was some sort of integrity test.

Looking forward to the rest of the story!

[neverforget50in07]

I’m curious to know what the outcome was.

[youngbambino]

Meet him in the middle. Acknowledge that you saw a discrepancy in your respective sums and propose to split the difference. He will feel like he is coming out better and you’ll have a guilt-free conscience.

[Kh36]

Your reputation is build by one customer after the other. Honesty is still the best policy. He invited you into his store to help him liquidate his card stock. Your reputation got you into the store. Did you feel good about the deal?

[churlocker]

I was in this exact situation. I bought out a shop owner that closed up in 2005. At the end of us tallying, deal was apx. $36,000. He left off all the base set stuff and got a total ~$10K less.

I paid $36,000 because when we went item by item, he consented to that price. Boning him over on $10K because of a math error on his part isn’t magically consenting to the new price. We went over every item one by one and made an agreement. That’s what the deal was. Because it wasn’t just my two days of work that went into it all. It was his, too.

I think this is a no-brainer scenario if the end goal is to act morally right. This reminds me of the guy on Virbank that bought a bag of stuff from a child competitor and the kid left his trophy in the bag. He argued he bought the bag of stuff for the price he paid (knowing damn well the kids trophy wasn’t part of that deal). In the end, he literally had to leave the community because of the 100% loss of respect everyone had when he walked away with the card and flipped it for money.

[Alec]

@churlocker

I was in this exact situation. I bought out a shop owner that closed up in 2005. At the end of us tallying, deal was apx. $36,000. He left off all the base set stuff and got a total ~$10K less.

I paid $36,000 because when we went item by item, he consented to that price. Boning him over on $10K because of a math error on his part isn’t magically consenting to the new price. We went over every item one by one and made an agreement. That’s what the deal was. Because it wasn’t just my two days of work that went into it all. It was his, too.

I think this is a no-brainer scenario if the end goal is to act morally right. This reminds me of the guy on Virbank that bought a bag of stuff from a child competitor and the kid left his trophy in the bag. He argued he bought the bag of stuff for the price he paid (knowing damn well the kids trophy wasn’t part of that deal). In the end, he literally had to leave the community because of the 100% loss of respect everyone had when he walked away with the card and flipped it for money.

The guy knew 100% what he was getting. I knew him at the time and he told me a few hours after it happened that he was offered the bag for one price, and then the trophy for another, totaling $250. I remember talking with others that night about how bad we felt for the kid.

[churlocker]

@Alec

@churlocker

I was in this exact situation. I bought out a shop owner that closed up in 2005. At the end of us tallying, deal was apx. $36,000. He left off all the base set stuff and got a total ~$10K less.

I paid $36,000 because when we went item by item, he consented to that price. Boning him over on $10K because of a math error on his part isn’t magically consenting to the new price. We went over every item one by one and made an agreement. That’s what the deal was. Because it wasn’t just my two days of work that went into it all. It was his, too.

I think this is a no-brainer scenario if the end goal is to act morally right. This reminds me of the guy on Virbank that bought a bag of stuff from a child competitor and the kid left his trophy in the bag. He argued he bought the bag of stuff for the price he paid (knowing damn well the kids trophy wasn’t part of that deal). In the end, he literally had to leave the community because of the 100% loss of respect everyone had when he walked away with the card and flipped it for money.

The guy knew 100% what he was getting. I knew him at the time and he told me a few hours after it happened that he was offered the bag for one price, and then the trophy for another, totaling $250. I remember talking with others that night about how bad we felt for the kid.

I’ve heard a handful of versions of the story and none look good for the buyer.

[oldskoolpokemon]

Part 2 of Transaction…

I purposely omitted part of the story to make this scenario more-or-less a “moral dilemma” scenario to gauge what kind of response I would generate (LOVED the Responses from Everyone)! The seller is shutting-down his business and has to move-out by Wednesday the 2nd - so he was definitely a bit overwhelmed with everything that still needed to be done. There were boxes upon boxes EVERYWHERE and the seller was running back-and-forth grabbing stuff for me to browse through all while entertaining my offers / negotiating, “talking shop” with me about Pokemon, Retail vs. Online, Past Purchases… helping a few additional customers that were looking to make a purchase, and answering a few different phone calls from people who did not know the shop was closing. Meanwhile, I’m nice and comfortable sitting at a table browsing through everything with my iPad handy to look-up pricing and meticulously record everything for my records.

When the seller gave me that figure of $Y I was SHOCKED to say the least! It really didn’t occur to me the extent - and possible outcome - of this possible DEAL OF A LIFETIME until after the transaction was finalized and I was driving home. Hey, nobody said it was immoral to daydream about this possible outcome while driving home with nothing better to do! Haha

Honestly Though, when the seller told me $Y I immediately told him that we were WAY OFF in-terms of pricing and that the figure he provided would be very-much skewed in my favor. I proceeded to tell him that I thought the total would be closer to $X (my figure) and showed him everything that I had recorded on my iPad. We compared our notes and as it turns-out, the seller never recorded the two most expensive items that we had agreed upon. Just a slight miscalculation there! LOL

He ended-up knocking a couple hundred bucks off my final-figure and was SUPER GRATEFUL that I was able to correct this error and was completely up-front with him about the correct purchase-price! All-in-All, the seller was able to make a decent profit on everything and I will be able to flip everything for a decent profit as well - win-win for both of us!

I’ve always been taught / believed that everything in life has consequences and while these consequences may not “come to light” immediately, they’ll always catch-up to you eventually! Plus I’ve always been an honest / upfront person, and while the seller may not have ever realized his error, I’d certainly never be able to forget about that - and that would make me feel AWFUL! I know how stressful running a retail-shop can be sometimes (especially during a time like this) and wasn’t that surprised he forgot to record two items out of everything I purchased.

Honesty is always the BEST Policy!

[smpratte]

One of my buyers accidentally wired me $32,000. It was in my account free and clear, there was nothing they could do to get it back.

I returned the money and have done many deals since. In fact if someone took that 32k “free money”, which would naturally sever that relationship, they would have lost over a million in business.

Integrity leads you to where you need to go, not always to where you want to go.

[oldskoolpokemon]

@charizandrew

"Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching”

Integrity > $$$

LOVE This! Could not agree more!

@spinch

I would tell him about his mistake and go through the errors he may have made. In life it’s easy to profiteer on other peoples’ mistakes. Regardless of whether you just met him or he is your best mate i couldn’t walk away from a dealing knowing that it was made by me being dishonest.

If you start justifying things by saying that oh well he’s still making a profit so it’s all right then where do you draw the line? I have a mate that ‘steals’ things at the supermarket by passing more expensive items as cheaper ones at the self serve. His reasoning is that they have enough money so it’s no big deal. Are the rest of us punished somewhat by supermarkets who are trying to recoup costs from people stealing? I think from a holistic view that every action that we have with each other affects society in some way. If this was a 10year old child who made the mistake would you have told him/her? What about someone who was struggling financially?

I would also think about the other person. If that was you and you realised your mistake down the line how would you feel? How would that affect your future dealings with anyone? Conversely, if you tell him about his mistake he will definitely remember it when he faces a similar moral dilemma and the one good deed can be passed on and on

That sounds like something I’d have written myself - spot-on with my thought process!

@churlocker

I was in this exact situation. I bought out a shop owner that closed up in 2005. At the end of us tallying, deal was apx. $36,000. He left off all the base set stuff and got a total ~$10K less.

I paid $36,000 because when we went item by item, he consented to that price. Boning him over on $10K because of a math error on his part isn’t magically consenting to the new price. We went over every item one by one and made an agreement. That’s what the deal was. Because it wasn’t just my two days of work that went into it all. It was his, too.

I think this is a no-brainer scenario if the end goal is to act morally right.

That’s exactly how our transaction occurred - we agreed upon a lot by lot price-point which was fair to both of us and he simply forgot to record the two most expensive items! Glad to hear you did the right thing as well in your situation!

[spinch]

@oldskoolpokemon

Part 2 of Transaction…

I purposely omitted part of the story to make this scenario more-or-less a “moral dilemma” scenario to gauge what kind of response I would generate (LOVED the Responses from Everyone)! The seller is shutting-down his business and has to move-out by Wednesday the 2nd - so he was definitely a bit overwhelmed with everything that still needed to be done. There were boxes upon boxes EVERYWHERE and the seller was running back-and-forth grabbing stuff for me to browse through all while entertaining my offers / negotiating, “talking shop” with me about Pokemon, Retail vs. Online, Past Purchases… helping a few additional customers that were looking to make a purchase, and answering a few different phone calls from people who did not know the shop was closing. Meanwhile, I’m nice and comfortable sitting at a table browsing through everything with my iPad handy to look-up pricing and meticulously record everything for my records.

When the seller gave me that figure of $Y I was SHOCKED to say the least! It really didn’t occur to me the extent - and possible outcome - of this possible DEAL OF A LIFETIME until after the transaction was finalized and I was driving home. Hey, nobody said it was immoral to daydream about this possible outcome while driving home with nothing better to do! Haha

Honestly Though, when the seller told me $Y I immediately told him that we were WAY OFF in-terms of pricing and that the figure he provided would be very-much skewed in my favor. I proceeded to tell him that I thought the total would be closer to $X (my figure) and showed him everything that I had recorded on my iPad. We compared our notes and as it turns-out, the seller never recorded the two most expensive items that we had agreed upon. Just a slight miscalculation there! LOL

He ended-up knocking a couple hundred bucks off my final-figure and was SUPER GRATEFUL that I was able to correct this error and was completely up-front with him about the correct purchase-price! All-in-All, the seller was able to make a decent profit on everything and I will be able to flip everything for a decent profit as well - win-win for both of us!

I’ve always been taught / believed that everything in life has consequences and while these consequences may not “come to light” immediately, they’ll always catch-up to you eventually! Plus I’ve always been an honest / upfront person, and while the seller may not have ever realized his error, I’d certainly never be able to forget about that - and that would make me feel AWFUL! I know how stressful running a retail-shop can be sometimes (especially during a time like this) and wasn’t that surprised he forgot to record two items out of everything I purchased.

Honesty is always the BEST Policy!

You’re a good man! I’m glad this worked out the way it did.