*I’m gonna get you in my tent (tent tent tent tent)
Where we can both experiment (ment ment ment ment)
I hope that you won’t mind the stench (stench stench)
Of the sacrament.*
“Tent” - Bonzo Dog Band
Look on the bright side: if she’s that much of a klutz handling a simple sale, imagine how she treated/abused/stored the poor tent. In not doing business with her, there’s less potential for having a drip in your face when you least expect it.
It was a door I take it? 
Summons? Out there, beneath the same big sky
You’ll find all your subpoenas
And warrants t’seize and try…
I hate that shit. A woman in my building posted an ad where she was selling a portfolio and a drafting table for $25 each. I called her number. She was never in. I left messages. She never called back. Months later, her ad was still up. She kept marking the prices down, as she seemed pretty desperate to sell, but she couldn’t be bothered to actually complete a sale.
I finally got the portfolio for $5. 
Dang, that sucks. But my point would now be to just buy a new one from the people who make them. that way you have a guarantee and can trust the product. Peace of mind.
Which is why the OP told the seller (and I QUOTE from the initial post) “Can I pay you half up front as a down payment? You can hold onto the tent.”
Sheesh.
Sheesh yourself, he wanted to give the seller a CHECK for half the payment on Friday evening, then the rest (presumably with another check) during the week when he takes the tent home, leaving her with two checks of dubious worth. Not to mention the fact that he could renege on the deal, cancel the check, or whatever half way through the next week after she told Mr. Buyer Withcash that the tent was already sold. Or, the deadbeat decides he doesn’t have the money next week, can she wait another few days, or another few weeks, for his next paycheck when he’ll ask for his money back since he can’t actually afford it now, since his car broke down.
You want to buy, bring money, pay for the fucking thing, take it, and leave. This isn’t a complex financial transaction, you’re buying a tent. It’s not the seller’s job to finance it for you or offer layaway when they have buyers ready to pay full price on the spot.
Why should the seller want to put up with collecting and depositing two payments? One is easier than two, so even if the seller keeps the tent until the second payment, it is still less desirable. And what happens if the buyer decides to back out of the deal? Is the first payment non-refundable, or does the seller have to give it back? Sounds like the OP made themselves less attractive as a buyer, and the seller simply opted for the transaction with less potential for problems.
That wasn’t your complaint, though. You wondered why the seller should trust the OP’s check, you didn’t say anything about the “inconvenience”. The answer is, because if the check bounces, the seller still has the product.
The OP said nothing about the other guy paying “cash”, so the issue with bounced checks could easily still apply…and if the check of the guy paying all at once bounces, the seller DOESN’T have the product any more.
It’s better to take half the money now by check, hold on to the item, and wait for the check to clear. Which is what the OP was offering.
Total agreement. It sounded to me like the seller was not thrilled about being asked to cooperate with some kind of layaway plan and when someone else came up with the cash, that was that. That’s the way it goes. The seller was not a K-Mart. You either have the cash or you don’t. The OP did not.
By the way, from the OP’s descriptions, it sounds like the seller was dropping some pretty big hints that she wasn’t particularly interested in taking half a check but the OP wasn’t getting it.
Note to Ninja: If someone is selling something over the internet and you can’t come up with the cash, don’t expect them to take it off the market to accomodate your payment plan. They have nothing to gain by doing that. If you can’t come up with the jing, don’t bother responding.
No, it is better to take all the money, then hand over the tent. Simpler is always better.
If you get a check for half the money that bounces, and you still have the tent, you are out maybe the bounced check charges.
If you get a check for all the money that bounces, and you handed over the tent, you’re out bounced check charges AND you have no tent.
If you get cash, everybody is happy (except the guy who offered two payments including a check or checks). Why should the seller cater to the buyer’s demands, when there are several people interested in buying the tent? Simpler is easier.
We don’t know how the buyer paid. How often do you make $400 payments in cash?
But again, the issue wasn’t that the seller didn’t give in to the OP’s demands. It was that Cheesesteak wondered why the seller should trust the OP’s check.
The answer was that the seller would still have the tent, so if the OP handed over a bad check, there’s no way he or she could abscond with the merchandise.
The seller could be stuck with charges for a bounced check and could miss out on another buyer by taking it off the market. To me, asking the seller to take it off the market is kind of unreasonable. If someone else has the money today, why should I wait around for someone else to give it to me in a week?
By the way, I doubt the seller took a check from the person who did buy the tent unless she knew the buyer personally or had some way to verify that the check was good.
Exactly. Yet you created a false dillemma between one check payment or two. There are several other possibilities you omitted that would be easier than two payments.
How often do you accept $400 checks from strangers?
Because, if they ARE acting in good faith, they’ve already paid you money and will probably pay the rest because they don’t have the item yet and want it (else why pay money for it in the first place?). And if the check bounces, what’s to stop the seller from selling the tent to someone else, even the original prospective buyer?
If the seller turns around and tells the OP “the other guy’s check for the full amount bounced but for some strange reason I still have the tent, do you want the tent now?”, would the OP turn it down?
Easier, absolutely. But again, the issue wasn’t the convenience of this payment method, but its trustworthiness.
More often when I don’t have to give up what I’m selling to the buyer until the check clears.
Thing is, since the check is delivered Friday evening and the tent picked up the middle of the next week, there’s no guarantee that the seller would even know the check was good or bad until the tent is gone.
Plus, there are all of the other factors that enter into it when you take a simple transaction and make it complex. You take a transaction that has zero chance of failing to complete (cash on the barrelhead) and turn it into one where you have to wonder whether or not the buyer will come through, and you’ve taken it off the market so there are no other buyers.