Standard business practice with antiques and collectibles, a business in which I’ve been a part-time dealer for more years than I care to count. I, being the cautious and legalistic type, always specify “non-refundable” when dealing with deposits and lay out a specific time frame within which the balance must be paid, but most dealers I know don’t even bother outlining the specifics - it’s such a standard and accepted part of doing business that no one involved would question it. I know of people who lost their deposits that way, too, and none of them moaned about it.
I would send it back, minus the listing and final value fees (which, if the reserve price was that high, are probably substantial), and rounded up to the next five-dollar increment, for your trouble (because it IS trouble to go through all this). Of course, I wouldn’t feel the need to hop to it or anything. Just tell her that you’ll have it to her eventually and set aside five dollars a month. You know you’d like having it back if you were in her shoes.
Personally, I dislike the idea of deposit payments because they seem like a license to screw somebody over (not that you did so in this case, just that it’s happened in other cases–I lost a $400 deposit on my last apartment over circumstances that were only partially my fault and I’m still steamed about it). Yeah, she screwed up by not emailing you, but I also don’t think you should have spent the money until the deal was finalized and you had all the money (and she had the books). There are just too many things that can go wrong in Ebay transactions to go off spending the money as soon as you get it.
Deposits are not in any way automatically refundable. When I sold my apartment, the buyer put down a 10% deposit. My first set of buyers made a good faith effort to complete the transaction, but my board declined their application, they got their deposit back. If they had chosen to cancel the contract, I would most certainly have kept the deposit and told them to pound salt.
If the deposit is not at risk, then the deposit is valueless. In this case, I don’t believe your buyer made a good faith effort. They sent you a deposit, you held the goods for them, they never got back to you.
Holmes, the OP DID try to call and email the buyer, but got no response. Should she have hired a private eye to track the buyer down? The buyer is the one who sent the money, the buyer can exert a tiny bit of effort to contact her.
Yes but you have a policy that says that. If your buyers disappeared, would your board just spend the money?They wouldn’t have mailed in back to last address, or to the bank or the lawyer? They would have spent it?
How did she get the money? In the mail, paypal? It didn’t just appear on her doorstep. Once she couldn’t reach the buyer her first move should’ve been to return the money, not spend it.
One would hope they would escheat the money instead of pocketing it.
The whole point of a deposit is to test the good faith of the persons making the contract. The buyer (in this case) risks the deposit and the seller rejects any offers made while the deposit is in effect.
But the OP isn’t asking what’s required, but what’s right. Big difference.
That letter, by the way, sound’s like something a lawyer might advise as a precursor to civil action.
Do you know how real estate transactions work? One word - escrow.
holmes, it’s been almost a YEAR. She put down a deposit so that dragongirl would hold the books for TWO WEEKS. Then she would pay the rest. She didn’t keep her end of the bargain.
As for not being able to contact dragongirl, bullshit. There are libraries, she could have gone to. She chose not to. She loses her deposit. That’s not fraud-that’s just standard business practices. The girl was also banned from eBay for pulling crap like this before. (And the fact that she kept bidding only to find out the reserve, then tried to cancel).
She pulls this kind of shit, she loses. Tough shit.
In real estate, if the would-be buyer forfiets, the seller gets the money.
Right so the money’s in escrow and everyone agrees to terms. Your board doesn’t decide that they didn’t hear from your buyer for 3 days and spends the money. There is a policy in place, without that policy; your board has no legal standing to that money, especially if it’s being held in the buyer’s lawyer’s escrow account…even if your buyers cancel the deal. Unless the contact you sign says that.
In my case, the deposit was held in escrow by my lawyer. If they vanished, all that money, less lawyer’s fees, would have gone to me. At least, that’s how it was explained to me. This was of particular concern at the time because the transaction was troubled. If the transaction fell through, I would have given up an opportunity to sell via one of the other interested buyers. It did fall through, but since they made the good faith effort, it was just tough luck on both our parts. If it fell through because they chose to not buy, then they should take the hit, not me.
Deposits are not just an advance payment, they are there to ensure that the buyer is going to complete the transaction. Without a deposit at risk, buyers can put deposits down on items, shop around for better or cheaper items, without risk of losing the original item, and without penalty if they happen to find a better deal elsewhere, and only having to put down a small percentage of the dough up front.
Sellers who accept deposits are then holding inventory for people who have no incentive to complete the transaction.
So you’re telling me. We have no contract, I give you a deposit and disappear, you spend the money. 9 months later, I reappear asking for my deposit back, I have legality forfieted my right to reclaim that money? Even though you have sold the property?
That’ll stand up in court?
You give the deposit when you sign the contract. That’s the only way to decide for certain whether or not you’ve upheld your end of the deal.
If you find a lawyer willing to take it to trial, yes.
I don’t see why you don’t understand the concept of “deposit”. I don’t mean that in a nasty way. 
Read Cheesesteak’s explanation.
Pay the $100 back on a $5 per month basis. That will teach her a lesson. And do so by paypal if you can. Thus avoiding " it got lost in the mail" and she gets to incur fees…hooray!
I am sorry that you are in a bad financial way. Out of curiosity, what kind of books are they and are they up for auction now for us to goggle at?
Given your circumstances, I would send her a warm response telling her that I would be happy to return her deposit in time and that I was enclosing a $1.00 deposit toward that repayment.
I might enclose a copy of the explanation the ebay gave for why this buyer was banned – just so that the buyer knows that I know.
I would send it through the U.S. Postal Service and indicate that if further contact is necessary, it must be made through the postal system. (That might discourage would-be frauds.)
This comment indicates that the buyer is continues to be dishonest:
This person’s dishonesty has nothing to do with your standard for personal integrity, however. You are the only one who can decide what is right for you to do.
You might want to consider that there is the possibility that this buyer is trying to perpetrate a fraud against several sellers by setting you up for lawsuits. I’m not an attorney, so I have no idea. But I certainly would save a copy of the email.
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Shirley, you are faster at being devious than I, but not as punitive.
I understand the concept of deposit, I just perfer the concept ‘get it in writing’ better.
Cheesesteak’s explaination includes a contract, clearly stating the terms. There’s no place for, “well you didn’t contact me and I needed the money…”
To be fair, in real estate you’re putting many thousands of dollars at risk, not one Benjamin. They did not have a contract, but they did have an agreement, $100 deposit and complete the transaction in 2 weeks. The buyer didn’t hold up her end of the bargain, and was not available when dragongirl tried to contact her.
Now, it would be nice if dragongirl gave back the deposit, or a substantial portion of it, I just don’t think there is a requirement.
Curious, though, that dragongirl should get this note from a long vanished buyer just a few weeks after selling the very books that had been in limbo for 8 months.
YAY! If I knew what punative meant. I’m just a humble doper.
Errata: Since it took her 9 months to have the balls to contact you to ask for the money back, I say it should take you 9 months at $11.11 x 9 to pay her back.
Minus your time , effort, hassle, worry, depecriation, re-stocking and paypal fees and internet hook up so you can repeatedly try to contact her.
So, in the end, send her one payment of something like $12 total. Send her $1.33 every month over 9 month.
In the real world, it would take this woman about 2 years to get this money back.
Close the letter of with the name and number of your attorney to contact for further inquiries into this matter mentioning it is your dad, even if it is a made up name and number. You won’t hear from this deadbeat again.
Bwahahahahahahahha.