[SEL] Low Rent Bastard

[Arnie Fero]

Hi Curt,

My I offer an opinion?  I think you're comparing apples and oranges in
your example below.  AFAIK, no one has complained about any eBay auctions
EXCEPT the new Wendel books being offered by one guy at triple Wendel's
price.  If you look at his other auctions, you'll see that he is a
prolific seller of old engine parts.  No one has made an issue of his
prices on anything else.

The thrust of the complaints has been that experienced engine
folks, GEM subscribers, etc. know what the book costs when ordered from
Wendel.  There is no way they'll spend $150 for the book.  Wendel has not
been offering it on eBay.  The "comparables" one might see on eBay have
all been (up to now) the older, more expensive, originals.

The Low Rent Bastard was taking advantage of the fact that the newbies
didn't know that they were available from Wendel.  To a great many engine
folks, that didn't seem like fair play.  They pointed out to the newbies
that they were being had.  The Low Rent Bastard was clever, and used the
Private Bidder dodge to get around that.  In return, engine folks are now
offering the books at Wendel's price.  At this point, the newbies will
have a clear and honest choice on eBay.  If they choose to spend $150
instead of $50, that's a legitimate choice and no one would mind.

So to use your "perfect capitalism" example of happy buyers & sellers, in
this case the buyer is happy only as a result of carefully cultivated
ignorance perpetuated by the seller.

You want an example of "perfect capitalism" with happy buyers & sellers,
consider the practices of many large stores.  They sell you an item.
Within the next 30 days if you find that item offered for sale at a lower
price somewhere else and you bring that proof into the store, they refund
the price difference.  That's "perfect capitalism" working with fully
informed buyers & sellers.

You might better compare Low Rent Bastard's behavior to the scam artists
who target the elderly because they are often easily confused & ill
informed and thus are an "easy mark."  It happens all the time.

The reality is that there are folks, new to the engine hobby, whose first
experience might have been to be ripped off for $100 on a new BYB.  Some
(perhaps including you) would say, "Tough titty, that's just good
business."  For my part, I call it shoddy greed at the expense of a
newbie.  The bottom line is the bloke made at least $600 profit in the
last 30 days.  For me, he's also CLEARLY established exactly what sort of
character he has.  And I've decided that I want nothing to do with him.

So much of what's important in this hobby is based on trust.  Knowing how
he works, would you trust him to give you an honest assessment of the
condition of an item he's selling?  Or is he more likely to conceal or
misrepresent an item?

There are a few other sellers out there who I regard in the same way.
They conceal defects and they misrepresent what they sell.  Knowing
that, I refuse to deal with them too.

The old adage is "Buyer beware."  And in the case of the guy selling
Wendle's books for $150, he's clearly announced what sort of person he
is.  Would YOU trust him in the future to deal with you honestly?  I
wouldn't.  But the loss of any future business from folks like me will
certainly be more than offset by folks like you who will actually prefer
to deal with this paragon of capitalistic virtue.  8-))

See ya,  Arnie

Arnie Fero
Pittsburgh, PA
fero_ah at city-net.com

On Wed, 28 Dec 2005, Curt wrote:

> Luke,
> Have a question for you.
>  From what I've seen of eBay the vast majority of stuff on there is new
> items. People buying new pillows, towels and craft stuff and reselling
> it to the highest bidder. The reasoning behind the ill feeling over
> Wendels book seem to be based on taking advantagous of "newbies".
> But what is the difference between the buying and selling of the book
> vs. buying and selling of pillows and towels? I see no one suggesting
> that we contact the bidders of these pillows and towels to tell them
> where they can buy it for less.
> This is an excellent example of capitalism at work. The bidders are
> apparently happy (or they wouldn't be bidding), the seller is happy, and
> when both parties are happy this is perfect capitalism.
> Unless we are all prepared to sell our engines and literature for
> exactly what we paid for them, none of us should be complaining about
> the resale price of a book.
> Just my 2 cents worth.
> Curt Holland
> Gastonia, NC
> P.S. I hope you sold your Rumley for a profit. I don't think you are
> dishonest for doing so either.