Why would that be “unreasonable?” Not every seller is educated on the true market value of their items. A masterpiece by an obscure artist could very well be severely undervalued by the seller, especially in a garage sale scenario. A buyer who recognizes the value is under no obligation to correct the seller. It is not immoral to pay what the owner asks for an item.
This is, of course, entirely different than a knowledgeable buyer making a ridiculously low-balled offer, or a dealer undervaluing an item on an appraisal. In those cases the person with the knowledge is unfairly taking advantage of the ignorant person.
When I worked in retail, the lower of the two prices was indeed the one the customer got.
Usually the problem was something like an item was on sale and the price had gone up when the sale finished and the computer hadn’t adjusted, so the customer got the item at the (cheaper) sale price. Happened all the time, not a huge issue, easily fixed and not hard to explain to head office either. And it goes without saying the process of verifying the customer’s claimed price also involved correcting it for future sales (by changing the price on the shelf to what it was supposed to be).
Sometimes - rarely, but not completely unknown - an item would scan way below what it’s marked price was, despite not being on sale And the first person who came up with the item would usually get it at that price, then the rest of them when be taken off the shelves so quickly there’d be metaphorical item-shaped cartoon clouds of dust where they were before. The reasoning was the bad will generated by not selling someone a seat of speakers for $84 instead of $179 far outweighed the profit hit from the (way below cost) sale.
Sometimes (extremely rarely) there was clearly something wrong - like a $379 GPS scanning for $67 - and in those cases I’d have to invoke the merchant’s right to remove the item from sale. It was an extremely rare occurrence, largely because we scanned the prices of a random selection of goods in the store every day with a pricing gun or PDA to confirm it and our focus was always on the high-cost, low margin goods to avoid that sort of issue.
In the uk the store must by law sell and item for the price on the label attached to the item. Not only that it’s illegal to change the label. (If the label is not attached to the item this is not the case)
I remember a case dealing with incorrect pricing on the old People’s Court TV show. A woman had pre-ordered a VHS copy of Gone with the Wind and paid in advance. When she showed up at the store to pick it up, the owner informed her that the price he had charged her was too low and she’d have to pay the difference to get her tape.
The woman showed Judge Wapner her receipt for the pre-order; the owner had written “Paid in Full” on it. The store owner launched into an impassioned defense, claiming that the customer was, in effect, trying to steal from him. Crusty old Wapner cut him off and curtly informed him that “paid in full” meant just that; he banged his gavel and that was it. The woman got her videotape.
I realize, of course, that a TV show does not establish any kind of legal precedent.
The first sentence is completely untrue (see When is the contract made?). Many retailers will as a point of principle say that the price you see is the price you pay, but the law does allow them to correct the price at the point of sale provided they do so before money has been offered and accepted.
Stores are always fucking around with prices. Sears gets clothing in with a pre-printed price tag and then puts up a sign 50% off…not an actual sale, just trying to make you think it’s on sale. Grocery stores shift prices around all the time. I got home owners insurance for a great price only to have it double the next year. The excuse given with I called was, “that’s more or less an introductory price that lures customers in”. Being some places purposely have their pricing all over the map, I’m not going to feel to bad for them when something is accidentally under priced.
Because it is pretty clear that an owner of a painting with a market value of $20 million who sells the painting at a garage sale for $20 is operating under a mistake of fact as to the origin of the painting. The outcome is so grossly disproportionate to the seller that it is hard to say that he meant to roll the dice and let it go for such a pittance.
The $450/$5000 example is more in line with the risk of mistake that a garage sale proprietor takes in valuing his items.
How about a different scenario. Let’s say that I was able to convince some little old lady to pay me $5000 to mow her postage stamp yard. There is no evidence presented that she is suffering from dementia or that I lied to her in any way.
She doesn’t pay so I sue her. If you are on the jury, do you award her $5000? Or do you just know that the contract was crap from the beginning because she was clearly operating under a mistake of fact?
Again, the hypothetical Little Old Lady di dnot ask you to mow her lawn for $5000. You offered to do so for that price. You set the price. You are trying to take advantage of her.
If, however, she has come up to you and offered you $5000 to mow her lawn, then you can accept it is good conscience, despite your opinion that the work is not worth $5000.
If the “unreasonable” price is tendered by the ignorant party there is no fault to the knowledgeable party for accepting it. if the “unreasonable” price is offerend by the knowledgeable party, then that party is taking unfair advantage of the ignorant party.
It is not our duty to educate persons about the curretn value of the tems or services they offer for sale. Would the $20 painting sale still be morally questionable if sold to an equally ignorant person who hung it in their basement rec room and never had it appraised?