Say you are at a yard sale and see an item you know for a fact is valuable but is being sold like it is junk, is it dishonest to just buy it for peanuts?
Would the circumstances of the seller matter (say an old women vs. a young man)? Would offering a little bit more but still far less than the true value make things square? Would it matter if you were buying the undervalued item because you wanted the item vs. just buying it to resell it later?
Just curious what people think.
it would be honest to pay the asking price.
if it is ethical or not depends on your ethics.
Information is valuable and you aren’t required to share what you know with others. The missed value the seller doesn’t receive is the price they pay for not doing more research on the items they’re selling. It’s moral to buy the item at whatever price it’s being sold for. Now if someone commits fraud to purchase the item (“I’m pretty sure that’s a fake Rolex” when they know it’s real) that’s unacceptable, but its perfectly fine to snag a good deal.
Seems to me that a large portion of thrifters and yardsalers are on the hunt purposefully for things that the sellers don’t know are valuable.
It’s certainly a large part of the fun for me, on the rare occasions I actually manage it.
This bit perfectly sums up what I was going to say. If someone doesn’t take the time to figure out what something is worth and charge a bit more, that is their choice. As for me, I really appreciate the $300 food dehydrator that my friend gave me. He paid $5 for it at an estate sale.
I think that in extreme cases it becomes unethical… a family is starving, undernourishing their children, desperately trying to make ends meet, and is selling off everything they own in a last-ditch attempt to stay afloat for even a month more. And you see that they’re selling their dead son’s collection of Magic: The Gathering cards for $5 when it’s easily worth $50,000. Is it ethical to pay them $5 for it?
I think there’s a difference between “valuable” and “worth more to me than you”
IN the case of the dehydrator mentioned below - I would be ok with something like that in a yard sale - it’s (seems) that the time taken to get a “good” price is more hassle to the seller than what it’s worth.
In the case of, say, a rare stamp, currency, or similar that is being sold as junk but is really worth 4 or 5 figures - I do think it’s wrong (unethical) not to say something to the seller - not to say you have to give them full market value, but maybe do offer a price that is still “very good” for the buyer but “somewhat fair” to the seller.
There is nothing immoral in buying something for the asking price.
Buy the cards for $5, sell for $50,000, send an anonymous check for $10,000 to the family.
I’d say in 99% of cases, if the seller doesn’t know, the buyer doesn’t have to tell.
If someone wants to buy my land, and I ask for $400,000 (but don’t know the land contains ten tons of gold,) he doesn’t have to inform me about the gold.
Talking them down to $3.50 would be unethical.
Honest? Sure. But I’ve been there and usually I try to clue the person in and once or twice I’ve paid more than the asking price. I was picking up some old tools once at a yard sale/estate sell and quite a few were “branded” (Ford, Packard, Harley etc marked on them). The marked/asked for price was $10 and I gave $40 - and then sold them for about $120 after a little effort. No I didn’t have to but I slept better for it.
I picked up a Griswold Chicken Pan with self-basting lid at a garage sale for $40. They sell on eBay for about $200. I paid $40 because that’s what I could afford and because I wanted to use it, not sell it. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.
This thread reminds me of an episode of Mr. Belvedere where they have a yard sale and Wesley sells Mr. Belvedere’s Faberge egg for $3. The woman who bought it took it back because her conscience got the better of her.
If I knew the seller, or if I knew the seller was really struggling, and assuming it is something I intend to resell, I would give the seller a cut. How much depends on too many variables to say hypothetically. Otherwise, the seller should have done the research on what they were selling but they didn’t and I got a bargain that I can make a nice profit on. Which presumably would have been the whole point of me buying it in the first place.
This. Take your profit, which you probably used time at least to get to (knowing that that item was worth a lot probably took an education which cost money), but give some money to the person selling it. They might well be selling off their family heirlooms and I’d feel terrible cashing in on that. But the next person down the line might well have given them nothing.
True. Several years ago I bought a hand carved trunk from a yard sale for about $50. I took it home and didn’t think much of it until a friend of mine came over and noticed it. Him being a long time antiquer, told me the piece was probably worth about $500 or $600 dollars. (I had no idea)
I took it to a dealer to have it appraised and sure enough he was right!
I’ve heard many stories from people who found a “treasure” at a yard/garage sale, purchased it for a fraction of its true value, then sold it for a huge profit. I’ve never heard one of these stories that included giving the original seller a cut.
When these type of questions come up, the easiest way to answer is simply, “Would you want someone to do that with you?”
We all say “Yeah we’d deserve it,” but in reality few if any would accept it that calmly. If it would bother you, then you are doing something dishonest.
Honesty isn’t about teaching people a lesson. Any more than taking candy from a baby. Hey the baby didn’t want it. Well the baby didn’t know any better. The seller didn’t know either.
This is why we have minimum wage and other safe guards because people will be taken advantage of for whatever reason.
Remember the episode of “the Simpsons” where the old lady is cleaning out her son’s rooms and Comic Book Guy tries to buy all her stuff for peanuts only to have Bart intervene and tell the old lady her stuff is worth a lot more? Bart’s reward, banned from the Comic Book Store.
I know I sound like I’m on my high horse, and I apologize for that. Everyone, including myself, has done dishonest or unethical things. Bottom line is, don’t do to others things you wouldn’t (really wouldn’t) want done to you.
I could take the sale price, and make a profit…or I could let the seller know what’s what, and make new friend. Friends are worth more to me.