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The women probably didn't have the money, and really wasn't trying to scam the guy, she probably genuinely made a mistake.

Yes, she made a mistake. But it was her mistake. And that mistake would have cost the seller ~$700, because the item she agreed to buy had a shelf-life. And her mistake prevents any other bidders, who presumably would have paid had they won the auction, from attending the event.

And the seller made a mistake by spending $700 on a product that he wouldn't be able to use.

They were both wrong.

Unpredictable events happen.

He didn't go to the ticket booth and say: "Hey sorry, I can't go, so give me a full refund."

People make mistakes, but they have to be responsible for them.

But the seller made a mistake whereas her actions were fraudulent. The world is not black and white, for example, as your comment is downvoted you will be able to witness a variety of shades of grey.

What the seller then turned around and did is an incredibly well known scam that is discussed at length in the comments.

You're missing the lesson here.

It's not fraud, it's promissory estoppel.

Weeeelll ... we don't know what the seller paid for the tickets. And yeah, the claim that none of the losing bidders was at all interested makes this whole thing, while an entertaining story, a little dubious in terms of believability.

Having a friend bid up your items is a well-known (eBay) scam. There's also just 24 hours before the game, so some people will already have found something, and this kind of "side deal" means that the buyer loses all protection.

In short, I can imagine the redditor having trouble selling these tickets.

Telling a salesman you'd like to buy a product doesn't contractually oblige you to buy, submitting an order for a product does.

Try calling an airline after you've ordered a ticket online to explain you can't afford it and want a refund. Just because it's ebay doesn't mean it's any different.

She never actually got to the point of paying for it. Call a hotel, make a reservation, then don't show up. Does the hotel come after you for the money?

If they do, they would use the court system, they wouldn't use a well known con to recoup their loss.

A lot of hotels i've used in the last few years in the US and Europe won't let you book a room unless you give them credit/debit card details (certainly online anyway). Generally if you don't cancel 24hrs before, you either pay the full amount or a no show amount (varies hotel to hotel).

Certainly that's been true for every hotel I've booked. It's also true of some busy restaurants (they normally charge a fixed fee per head for no-shows).

Actually, most hotels have a policy that if you don't cancel your reservation at least 24 hours in advance, you will be charged for at least one night.

> Telling a salesman you'd like to buy a product doesn't contractually oblige you to buy, submitting an order for a product does.

When the order is binding, has much to do with how the ToS of the site/store is written. Some sites take the attitude that an order is not binding (on the buyer or seller) until payment is made. Some sites take the opposite view.

In some cases it gets rather squirrelly when you have a seller with a limited quantity of the item (like 1 or 2) and a buyer who wants to use a very slow payment method (check, MO, etc). What do you do if the buyer wants the last one, in a hot market, but also wants you to wait week +/- for payment ?

Actually, as far as airlines go, as long as you let them know within 24 hours you'll usually get a full refund no strings attached. Different airlines have slightly different policies. For some, you need to request the refund strictly within 24 hrs. For others, you can get the refund anytime before the next day ends. This is the case for all of the airlines I've had to get a refund with in both Canada and the USA.

Beyond that grace period they'll usually charge a fee of some sort, and the refund might be in the form of a voucher or credit.

The major difference is that a ticket is a perishable item. She entered a binding agreement that, in exchange for her money, she can have the tickets. Had she not bid, and won the tickets, he could have sold them to one of the other apparent bidders and he, himself, would not be out any money. She was wrong. This was a mistake on her part, not his.

However, with that being said, had this guy not been a douche he would have sold the tickets to her at face value (maybe + gas) but nothing more. In the end, they are both in the wrong.

She didn't say that she didn't have the money.

Quote: "I overbid and my husband won't let me buy these. Sorry and enjoy the game! :)"

Yes, I do agree that it was wrong to scam her on it, but her attitude over the whole situation wasn't the best either.

When she got the offer for 1,000$, she raised it to 1,100$. Then that e-mail that she sent in response isn't so good either.

If she didn't have the money, then why did she bid? She broke EBay's TOS - he did not.

Well. He did when he used a fake account to arrange an outside deal.

I totally agree with the whole "two wrongs don't make a right". But I think that the very essence of the scam the OP pulled on the woman prooves that she did have the $700 dollars. If she didn't have $700 to spare on those tickets then she would have told the Payback user that she actually didn't buy the tickets and that he should contact the OP. Instead she decided that it was ok to pay $700 to get a $400 cut...

Remember the saying: "You can't cheat an honest man"

If Best Buy had to remove that TV from inventory such that they would never be able to sell it to anyone else, they would probably pursue finishing the deal more vigorously.

Good point but this did happen on eBay with the auction clearly stating the terms.

Guys, we teach children that two wrongs don't make a right, don't we? Is there a reason we teach them this or do we just like the phrase because it rhymes?

Well, she may have made an "honest mistake." Or she may not. We can debate whether she should lose $600 or the author should lose the tickets, but that debate can only happen if the author made a decent attempt to prevent the loss, for example by offering the tickets second chance to other bidders or by driving down to the game and trying to sell the tickets for cash. He then could have pursued her for the difference between the $600 she promised to pay and whatever he managed to obtain for them using reasonable means to sell the tickets.

However, the author took it upon himself to defraud her out of the $600. He changed the situation from getting her to pay for the tickets she bought for herself into getting her to attempt to make money from arbitrage based on a false and fraudulent promise of his.

This is absolutely wrong, and it makes no difference whether she had originally backed out of the transaction or not. The story sets her up as a "bad woman" to play upon some of the most vile behaviours social animals have, namely believing that there are two classes of people, "good" and "bad," and the bad people don't deserve any decency or protection under the law.

I see defrauding her into paying for the tickets exactly the same way that I see bullying visible minorities or depriving persons we think are guilty of a crime of their legal rights. It stems from the same "They're a bad person, they don't deserve consideration" beliefs.

It may seem like a horrible Godwin-esque comparison, but how is this different from torturing a petty thief into making a confession? I don't mean to suggest that this is bad because "They might be innocent," I mean even if they're actually guilty, don't we as a society still want to treat them with decency?

This woman may have acted badly. But we should still treat her with decency, lest we as a society become vile ourselves.

In my judgment, both parties should be investigated by eBay. I don't know her side of the story, so I can't say what eBay ought to do about the choice she made initially. But if the author acted as described here, I would expect eBay to condemn his choice.

Mostly agree, but after the woman agreed to buy the tickets, I think the onus is on her to resell them in an effort to reduce her loss.

Another solution would be for them both to negotiate a lower price.

How would they negotiate? They already tried and failed to negotiate a price. Why would it work next time?

Contracts are frequently renegotiated because it's better for both parties than bringing in the big guns. He would rather sell the tickets now than deal with recouping the loss later, and she would rather get the tickets for her money than be forced to pay up for nothing.

Basically, he says, "You can pay now and get the tickets or you can pay up in small claims court after the tickets are expired." Knocking a hundred or two off the price saves him the paperwork involved.

It's still a bad idea to agree to contracts with the intention of renegotiating under the threat that it'll be easier than suing, but that doesn't change the fact that a new contract is easier to make than enforcing the old one.

I don't disagree with you, but that's an issue for the seller, the woman, and eBay to sort out through their dispute resolution process and/or small claims court.

Nothing about her obligations makes lying to her right, just as nothing about breaking the law gives a police officer the right to beat a confession out of a suspect.

> Another solution would be for them both to negotiate a lower price.

I disagree. If you want to get something for less than the offered price (i.e. OBO) you should talk to the seller before you place a binding order. Taking a valuable commodity out of play, to force a negotiation, is plain wrong.

I think you've just hit on two schools of thought.

One school of thought is due unto others as you would have them due unto you. I believe PG once told a startup that they should pay back all other investors first. This is an example of this. PG didn't come out ahead, but maybe the startup founders got to save face. Reputation is more valuable than currency anyway.

The other school of though is that we are to make the world a better place (more fair and just). This view of the world justifies almost any end. This seems to be the approach that the Redditor took.

sorry, but I strongly disagree with your logic here. an auction is way different from a verbal agreement to buy something with no signed contract like in your best buy example.

what if your scenario was an auction for a high value item like a painting instead? would it be ok for her to back out then?