Ethical Dilema - payback for a scammer or petty revenge?

Greetings dopers. I have lurked here for nearly 20 years and am finally stepping forward with a Dilema from my weekend.

I live on about two acres and have been looking for a riding mower on Craig’s list. This past Friday, after a big week at work, I saw a used mower for sale for $400. No pictures were included, but the man seemed pleasant enough by phone, so I said I would beautiful to see it in 20 minutes. I then called back to say that my bank would only let me take out $300 max per day from the ATM, and would he be okay with PayPal or a check for the remaining $100.

So I get there to see the mower and there were a few red flags. The mower was in the trailer already, he started it up the first time but it died, but he started it up the second time and it ran just fine. Mower is about five years old with average wear and tear, not a fastidious piece but not a wreck.

He said on the phone that the mower was loaded and that he could deliver it. When I decided I would buy it, he said that his friend with the truck wasn’t there yet, but I could hook the trailer to my car and tow it to my place. I write down my address, he says he will head out that night to pick trailer up.
Get home, roll mower out, go to start it… Nothing. It turns over, but the engine doesn’t catch. After 15 seconds of trying the battery is drained. I pull the spark plug, dry it off, wait 20’ and jump it. Engine turns. But still won’t catch.

I call his phone, no answer, leave message; mower won’t start, do you have some pointers?

Get up the next morning and try again, still the same. Now i am getting nervous. I email, say that this mower isn’t working, and I want to load it up in his trailer, bring it back, he can keep $50, tinker with it and resell it. Wait an hour, call the phone, no answer. Email. Call. Email again.

At 11, he replies that he can’t give me any money back but that he could give me a battery charger. We go back and forth once, each sticking to our take on the events.
Part two coming soon

He shows up at two in a pickup driven by a friend. He hops out and is initially a bit sharp, saying he sold me a working mower and he has no idea why it is not working now. We go back and forth. While we are doing this his friend unhooke the trailer from our car and starts to drag it to his truck. My wife approaches him to tell him to hold on while we talk about this, and his tone is definitely sharper, not threatening, but basically you bought the mower and I am taking my trailer back.

At this point I am trying to slow this down a bit. I say I just want a mower that works, and this one doesn’t. The seller says, look, I am sorry, I needed that money to pay my car insurance, but I want to do this right, I will come back tonight with tools, and fix this.

At this point I realize I should have been thinking two steps ahead, and if I had wanted to hold the trailer as some sort of leverage, I should have taken it to a friends house. Now, it’s hooked up to this guy’s friend’s truck, and I am staring at a dead mower in my driveway. My wife looks at the seller and says “you’ll come back tonight? Shake on it?”. And he does. He is adamant.

They drive away.

Saturday comes and goes.

Sunday comes and the sun begins to set.

Here I am, suddenly realizing that I paid him $330 in cash and I wrote a check for $70. My bank was closed on Saturday. I can call them first thing tomorrow and put a stop on the check.
My question is, should I?

On the one hand, I bought this used, buyer beware, take my lumps and leave it.

On the other hand, he said he would come back to help out.
Then again, am I opening myself up to sleeping with one eye open, waiting for the morning I go out and my tires are slashed? Is that with $70?

Or I am completely in the wrong here and shouldn’t even be considering this?

Sure you can do a stop payment, but it’s going to cost you another $15 or whatever the fee is for that. So, is it worth it? Maybe he doesn’t answer because he’s asleep and works the night shift. You should probably try calling him at night, maybe 1am or so. That way you’ll be sure to reach him. If not, keep trying. Also, you know where he lives. Pay him a visit or three.

You bought a used mower. The mower ran when you first saw it.
The dude didn’t scam you. You bought a used mower.

I’d vote most likely not scam either. I guess it could have been a different mower than the one you saw the first time, but then he would probably have made sure it started the first time, rather than some 5-dimensional chess of “well, let me make it seem like it’s old, but not too old, so I’ll make it look like it could barely start the first time!”

Why does this number keep changing?

Assuming this story is true, because the above sets off my BS meter…

The seller isn’t wrong, you bought a working mower, but sometimes engines can be finicky.

As for holding the trailer, I wouldn’t do that. If I were the seller, the very second I couldn’t retrieve the trailer, I’d be on the phone with police reporting you for theft. While I’d assume you’d unhitch it while I was making the call, it’s uncanny how many people double down and say things like ‘fine, call the police’. Of course, ignoring the CL sale, that’s civil, the trailer clearly is owned by the seller and you’d have to give it back or risk arrest right then and there.

As the buyer, however, I’d probably do everything in my power to get the mower back up on the trailer and tell the seller I want to return it and want my money back. He can say that he sold me ‘a working mower’ but we all saw that it took multiple attempt to start and “I’ve already left a message with my banker to stop payment on the check”.

At least that’s my take on it.

That’s the only hand you got on this dude. You should have insisted that the mower be taken off the trailer driven around with and without the blade engaged. Shut it off and restarted it, BEFORE you ever paid him a dime.

This is your fault for paying him up front.

We have a lawn tractor, riding mower, several push mowers, a weed wacker, brush hog, two chainsaws, etc. Each has its own peculiarities wrt starting. I can start any of them with one or two tries, anyone else would probably not be able to get them started.

I don’t think he was deliberately scamming you because he let you drive off with his trailer. A scammer would not want to be tied to you after he got the money. He wouldn’t meet you at his house, either, since you could come after him. I’m guessing he hadn’t used the mower in a while and it worked fine back then. Now after sitting for a while it’s having some issues.

I’m sorry this happened, but I agree that it’s your mower now to deal with. CL isn’t a retail store where they have new merchandise and you can return it if it doesn’t work out. It’s going to be used and have some amount of problems associated with it being used. For anyone buying stuff on CL, be sure to examine it as much as possible before handing over money. Once the transaction is complete, the seller has no obligation to fix any problems. This can suck sometimes, but it’s one of the reasons you can find good deals on CL. If CL only had perfect merchandise with support for returns, the prices would be much higher.

“Payback” and “revenge” are so passe. The new paradigm is “closure”, which covers them both.

Hate to say it, but there is no return policy on stuff you buy off craigslist. You should consider any such item sold “as is” and do as thorough an inspection as you deem necessary when you go to check it.

I do not believe the guy was scamming you because no one in their right mind would let you take his trailer while he was deliberately pulling one over on you. Or accept a check as partial payment. Sounds like maybe just bad luck. I don’t recommend cancelling the check.

Thanks all for this. My title was lousy because I was trying to type this quickly, late last night, get some direction before our bank opened this morning.

You are all right; this was not a scam. The mower worked, and stopped working the moment it hit our driveway. Thems the breaks. The whole notion of keeping the trailer and hiding it and blah blah blah was also fever-speak, induced by just being pissed off at the situation, but really ridiculous. Clearly this would be theft and drag this into a whole new stratta of family-feud type behavior.

My number changed in my narrative because I was just trying to be quicker with my narrative. I asked if a check for $100 would be okay, he said yes. I got $300 from an ATM and then realized I had another $30 in my wallet, so I just wrote the check for the difference. When I said I’d give him $50 back, that was an attempt at a gesture of saying “look, you are going to relist this, it’s a hassle, so here, I give you $50, you sell it for $350 and you’re even, or you relist it for $400 and you’re ahead”. That $50 number was pulled from thin air and didn’t have anything to do with a check, so sorry for that.
I just had a crap weekend.

So, now I have two scenarios. I pull this apart with my son and learn the nuts and bolts of how a mower works, and rebuild it, which could be fun.

Or, I relist it on CL for $300, say it doesn’t work, take my lumps and move on.

Thanks for the virtual reality slap, everyone.

And, no, I’m not cancelling the check. Deal’s done, and it’s mine to deal with now.

Where’s the missing dollar?

Buy a battery and a new plug and see what happens.

Also, there could be moisture in the gas. You might want to drain the tank and put fresh gas in. Oil should be changed if applicable, but that likely wouldn’t cause the mower to die.

Spray start.