TenGrainBread

I think this is the pertinent point here. Would be pretty scummy to ignore this possibility just to get a good deal. If your hobby would cause you to overlook human decency then it's time to get a new hobby.

I also think bulldog has a point. Calling out a racial caricature isn't "political" or "thin-skinned" - it's the right thing to do, especially considering this forum makes a point of being welcoming. I would not feel welcome if I read a thread with a Jewish caricature in it, as I am Jewish, so I think it is reasonable to avoid these things altogether.

non-fixie 

In my country the law says that if an item is priced at $5.95 the seller is obligated to sell it to you at that price. Even if he had meant it to be €15.95. That is, unless the mistake is very obvious, which would seem to be the case in your example.

I once went to buy a table lamp at a department store that was priced at $295. Nice lamp, fair price. Or so I thought. After having paid the cashier, and while the lamp was being wrapped up, the floor manager stepped up and said: "sorry, there's been a mistake. The tag should have read $1,295. I'm afraid you'll have to pay another $1,000 or give back the lamp and we'll reimburse the $295."

TenGrainBread

The woman working in the shop is not "the vendor," per se. She is an employee who most likely is not making much money and would most likely have to pay for the mistake.

I worked in an upscale pizza restaurant as a server and more than once was on the receiving end of a tirade by an angry customer about the restaurant's menu, policies, a mistake the kitchen made, etc... Every once in a while people even yelled over the phone because they were outside of our delivery area. You could tell these people never worked in the service industry because they viewed the restaurant as a monolithic entity and every employee as responsible for every element and mistake of the restaurant. In reality I was a server making minimum wage with no control over the things these people got irrationally angry over.

Taking advantage of this woman embodies the same sort of viewpoint - it is the mistake of "the business" and "the business" has to deal with it. In reality, the person who really gets punished is a person making very little money to support themselves. Only turning a blind eye to that reality would lead you to be ok with this.

rowebr

Thank you for this. I was thinking the same thing but you said it much better than I could have done.

Bandera

Having owned and operated retail businesses it is the responsibility of the retailer to maintain an accurate database of item pricing for scanning at the point of sale. The customer gets the item for what is loaded into the system, error or not.

In the old days, or in current very small businesses w/o scan-able point of sale, it's the responsibility of the retailer to accurately mark selling price. As the OP noted the selling price was correctly re-identified as $350 not $35 by the retailer. Take it or leave it.

How one one would assume the person on the selling side of the transaction was not an owner/operator as is most common in very small retail operations lacks any evidence from the OP. It is against the law to "dock" employees for selling an item at the price that is an error on the part of the retailer, the retail operation takes the hit.

That's reailty in retail.

-Bandera

mstateglfr 

Heh, there is something funny about a stereotype being perpetuated by an admin right after another admin says to keep it civil for others complaining about a different stereotype.


Not that I disagree about the assumed financial situation of the shop's owners, its just funny given the context of the thread.

mstateglfr 

So the law is the pricetag is followed unless its obviously wrong? And I thought I lived in the land of murky and vague laws.
Yours is so drastically open to interpretation that it effectively has no meaning.

Andy_K 

I think this is a good point, and it gets at an idea I was trying to explore in my previous response. At what point does it become "OK" to rip someone off? My perception of the culture (in the U.S.) is this:

Faceless corporation? OK.
Individual not selling for business purposes? OK.
Business owner? Depends on the perception of how small the business is.
Shop employee? No way.

I could be wrong, but I truly believe this is the way most people behave. However, by any reasonable system of ethics the answer should be the same for all of these questions in the case of a luxury item like a vintage bicycle frame. The gradation from corporation to shop employee, I think, reflects a sort of "Robin Hood" mentality that it's OK to take from those who can afford the loss, and if it were a matter of genuine need on the part of the person doing the taking I could accept that but for something like a Basso frame that's clearly not the case.

I'm not sure what's behind the perception that it's OK to take advantage of the individual who isn't selling for business purposes. Perhaps it's a sort of game mentality where each individual is responsible for his/her own actions and is expected to seek their own best interest. Perhaps it's just a "no harm, no foul" attitude with a lot of assumptions made. There have been a few stories shared on this forum where people chose to disclose the true value of an item to a seller before buying at a low price and I admire that.

If I'm honest with myself, I think I might behave similarly to the OP, caught up in the moment and excited about a good deal but later taking a very critical look at myself.

rumrunn6

at 1st I thought it read: "would you have done it" "there is this hole in the wall at the local bike shop" so I kept reading w 1 eye closed. quite relieved

Bikerider007

No, I answer to a higher power...Karma.

non-fixie 

No, it's not that bad. As far as I know it works fairly well in practice. From a legal standpoint it works as follows. Basically, the very moment a customer accepts a seller's asking price, a legally binding agreement is reached and the deal is done. However, if there is reason to doubt the sales price is correct (read: is way below what one would expect) the buyer has an obligation to investigate whether the price on the tag, or in the ad, or on the website, is correct. The law also states that in such cases, even if the buyer does not investigate, he is expected to know the outcome of such an investigation. In short: the buyer is expected to be reasonably well informed about the FMV of the stuff he is buying.

Every once in a while a case ends up in court, though. Most famously a case from ten years ago where an online retailer advertised a new model LCD TV for €99, about one-tenth of what they normally sold for at the time. By the time the retailer had realized its mistake and corrected the website, 11,490 people had ordered 14,000 TVs and demanded delivery for that price. The court ruled, in my words, "C'mon guys, it was an honest mistake. You knew, or should have known that. So, no deal." The seller's and buyer's minds were not ad idem, I think it's called.

base2 

I think the issue we are wrestling with is: "How do our own personal morals square against moral and amoral entities?"

I take your keen observation and offer this:

A corporation or business entity is by definition amoral. It's only obligation is to make money. At any cost if necessary. Confusing the matter is some business entities take on the moral character of the owner, but that clouds the issue on emotional grounds. Appeal to emotion is a logical fallicy, and as such, in any argument interested in finding consistancy of fact, any claim to appeal to emotion should be disregarded. The that business owner has moral is character is not in dispute. They are 2 seperate entities, operating under 2 seperate rules, that often times overlap in the same space.

Ripping off a corporation and not "feeling" anything about it is permissable. By definition it has no moral compass, it has no "feelings" and as such given any opportunity would do the same to me. My amorality in the transaction matches that of the other party. Both being on equal ground, the transaction stands.

Dealings with owners directly, that is a seperate catagory of transaction. Morality both being on equal ground, be a decent human. The shop is the setting of the scene, not the entity being dealt with.

As for the other things, it's not my place to question motives. Sometimes money isn't the persons motivation or the most important thing. I've sold many things in a "fire-sale" fashion and always had my reasons for letting something go at a discount. I've also intentionally bought things grossly overpriced by the same code. Having a buyer question my motives in that case would be a huge breach of protocol. In any transaction it should be assumed you operate in your best interest by metrics that matter to you and I'll operate in mine.

As far as the employees, it comes down to how does the amoral entity treat the members of my community? Does it pay them well? Is it honest, fair, respect their dignity? Does that entity improve or invest in my community...it's employees? If so, I'll treat the employee as a human member of my community and apply human morals to the transaction. If not, then I'll switch back to amoral. Treat them as their employer treats them seems to be the best way to achieve moral parity.

nickw

Edit: wrote a few things, deleted it, we all have different moral values, right, wrong or indifferent.

I personally believe in treating every situation the same and taking the subjectivity out of it. If I think a business/corp is amoral, I tend to no do business with them. If I decide to, I point out the mistake if there was one, or purchase it with the hefty margin attached.

nickw

OP - you did the right thing, I would have done the same.

dunrobin

So it seems this topic has gone in a few directions. Yes I would have bought that frame for $350...the other I guess is left to whatever a person can justify to themselves, and apparently to others.

base2 

I read it. I don't disagree with you. I think in actual practice we are much on the same page. Though the nuances of personal behaviour are hard to convey on an internet message board. Suffice to say I intentionally choose not to deal with mega-corps wherever practicable, but still do so, like everyone else. The disparity in value systems is too great for me to do so with out reservations. But when I do, it's under the rules they operate by. I also deliberately chose those that invest with the good of my community. My wallet treats them and their employees accordingly. Which ones those are take time to figure out. Little League plaques, long time employees, grants/scholarships, presence at events, owner on-site, etc...go a long way.

All this being said, whoever is offering an item for 1/10 it's perceived market value ought to at least have it brought to their attention.

I would not have taken the OP's deal from this shop, as presented, at $35. From a faceless mega-corp, I would've asked someone in authority, then snatched it up.

AlexCyclistRoch

Pensé que eras muy grosera con la señora que trabajaba en la tienda. Espero que se burlara de tu acento cuando te fuiste!

T-Mar

You forgot the one at the very top of the list - government agencies, be it federal, state or municipal.

DMC707 

A little more infor on the BAsso would help too

I don't think you would bat an eye if the frame was TreTubi, or maybe even Cromor --- yes - a smoking deal still, --- but a midrange frame that you still have to source the parts for

A premium tubeset ? SL, SLX, TSX etc. ? --- still not up to me how a person prices their wares, --- perhaps the seller found it in a junk pile while cleaning drywall dust and asbestos tile out of a basement --- is it still then my duty to educate the seller on the ins and outs of a bicycle frame that he is selling for the same price as a Huffy?


Not really

But as others have said, the shopkeep noted the mistake early so, -- no harm, no foul

Andy_K 

I have a tendency to shoot from the hip when discussing ethics, and so I may not be as systematic and consistent as you have been, but I'll offer a few observations.

1. Corporations have share holders or some equivalent thereof and so anything I do to deprive a corporation of value ultimately deprives some individual human being or group thereof of value. To put it more basely, cheating Walmart (for example) is just an indirect way of cheating the various Walmart share holders.

2. I think a case could be made that precisely because corporations operate in a profit maximizing way as you describe depriving a corporation of some value will directly impact either the employees of that corporation or myself and other customers. This is far afield from the OP's scenario, but to illustrate the point I'll observe that a company such as Walmart almost certainly assumes a certain amount of loss due to shoplifting in its financial planning. This loss is likely offset by either prices or employee wages or both. Buying items at below intended price is analogous.

3. The corporation I work for explicitly sets moral standards for itself, and all its employees are required to take an annual training course to verify that they are familiar with these values. I suspect that the corporation does this at least partly for business/financial reasons, but nevertheless it does not behave as an amoral entity. Also, regardless of official corporate policies all corporations act through individual people and those individuals are subjects of moral behavior regardless of how the corporation instructs them to behave.

4. While I can see how the "feelings" of the other party in a transaction might inform my own moral/ethical judgment, I don't think it determines it. I believe it's wrong for me to defraud another party even if they are and always will be unaware that I have done so. This is the primary reason I don't think it matters who the other party in the transaction is or what the impact on that person will be. This is, of course, a manifestation of my own personal morality and I do not intend to impose it on anyone else.

Note that I said in my earlier response "by any reasonable system of ethics the answer should be the same for all of these questions." I'm actually open to the idea that there are reasonable systems of ethics in which an individual seeks his/her best interest regardless of the seller. I even have some respect for those who believe that all property is theft and the behavior that would follow. I suppose what my broad claim overlooks is nuances such as you mention in reply to nickw wherein an individual makes purchasing decisions with the intention of benefitting their local community.

Having said all this (mostly out of intellectual interest in the topic), I would say that if the seller understands the value of the item being sold and nevertheless intends to sell it for the stated price then I see no reason I shouldn't buy it for the stated price regardless of what I perceive the value to be. I would also admit that there are many circumstance in which I wouldn't feel it necessary to confirm explicitly the seller's understanding and intention. I really only see it as a moral dilemma if I have reason to suspect that one of these two conditions is lacking.

Andy_K 

True, and that one is probably a bit more polarizing. I think that what I said above about corporations and stakeholders applies to government entities as well, at least in a representative democracy.

nickw

Much better said than I.

old's'cool

First thread I've read in this forum that's ever put me in danger of getting a headache. ...thanks friends!

DIMcyclist

I wouldn't have done it either.

While I can understand the forces of desperation (say- someone who steals bread because they're starving or has mouths to feed), I really can't understand why anyone not in dire straits would be so unfeeling or just plain greedy as to take advantage of such a situation. Fwiw, I've always found it better to err on the side of The Other in such transactions; that's to say, broadly, that potlatch has its own value.

I also find interesting how many of my fellow Cascadians have weighed in on this discussion.

Bandera

What there was to do was either pay the $350 price as the retailer to corrected to or not.
What moral dilemma is presented here when a shopkeeper inaccurately reads a price tag from a distance and again accurately close up?
It's $350 take it or leave it now that it was hauled out of rafters for closer observation.

Pay up or move on window shopper.

-Bandera