Send her a very wordy 12 page (legal paper), handwritten manifesto about all your problems real and perceived and how you wish you could give her the money back but you spent it on insulin already…blah blah blah. And how Jesus is your Personal Lord and Savior and How His Divine Light Graces Your Every Decision, like the color of your shag carpeting in your double wide and Oh-by the way - here is a pamphlet about the evils of homersexuality and Have You Been Saved Jack Chick would be perfect in this case.
Remember, have fun with this! You can blame the Govment for your problems and how Mr. Twiddle flunked you in the 10 grade and married Mr. Wrong and was beaten black and blue too many times and gave you several STD’s before you dun lef him…to how The Man Is Keeping You Down But Jesus Is My Rock and I belong to the 23rd Fire & Brimstone Baptist Church of Fartknockleville, and how the minister helps pay for my insulin in exchange for backrubs…
Think of the fun!
Think of the fun dopers would have with it helping you!
Extra points for speling erors and scribbles. Dotting your ‘i’'s with little hearts puts you into the winner’s circle with me!
You’ll never hear from her again and it will be very theraputic for her. And you need to send it certified, so you will know she has to sign for this WAD of an envelope thinking it is cash.
No offense is intended for those members of society who are baptists or live in a double wide. But if you have shag carpeting…that is just sad.
They were a lot of old out of print books from the 80’s. They were called Sunfire Romances and they were written for teenage girls. I had all 32 of them. I was saving them for my daughter, when she got older, but they were the only thing I had worth selling.
If you enter into an agreement that you put $1000 down on a car, and you’ll pay the remaining $10,000 is two weeks then you miss that payment, there is likely a legally defined term of limitations to the time you have to request your money back. That being from a business with a written contract that likely specifies all this.
In the case of a car, you, the buyer, usually get the car upon making your downpayment, in which case the recourse of the seller is reposession of that car and I, the seller, still keep your $1000 down payment and any further payments made before you broke the agreement.
In this instance we have a verbal agreement, which, as we can most likely guess is worth exactly as much as the paper it’s not written on.
So from a legal standpoint, I believe the buyer doesn’t have a single leg to stand on.
From an ethical standpoint I find the timing of their letter, later in the same month after DragonGirl finally had to relist and sell the books, to be suspicious enough that I’m not willing to give the failed buyer the benefit of the doubt.
They made a deposit with promise of remaining payment two weeks later. They disappeared without giving me any way of contacting them for that remaining payment. They don’t contact me for a total of 8 months.
You know, if the person was an honest buyer and had a plausable story for not being in contact for that long, I would refund the money. But someone who was banned from E-bay for being a non-paying bidder and abandons my transaction? Tough crapola.
On second thought, I would disregard that e-mail and just block her address and forget about it. You’ve spend enough time thinking about it and it’s not your problem anymore.
Once again, I’m reminded “Don’t ever, ever piss off Shirley Ujest.”
Back to the OP:
I don’t think that comparing this to a real estate deal makes any sense; real estate law is quite different than normal buying and selling, plus comparing a $200 item to real estate, which typically runs in the six figures or higher, is a clear case of apples and oranges.
$100 isn’t enough to go to small claims court over, so I don’t see a legal issue. I don’t even see an ethical issue; dragongirl waited eight months before reselling the books, and made a good faith effort to contact the person who put down the deposit. The real money she spent to list the items, plus her time spent attempting to contact the buyer and the cost of storing the books for an extra eight months is worth $100, IMO. The buyer could have easily resolved the issue by contacting her in a timely maner. She didn’t, so she’s got to cough up the dough.
Do not reply, save everything, and forget about until you hear from the person again.
And if you are contacted again, most communities have free initial legal advice. Check with, I think, the local bar association.
That’s right dearie, cause one time when my old man, Freddie, came home late one night, drunk as usual, smelling of liquor and smoke, I knew he wasn’t going to be saved by the Eternal Light of Jesus cause he was fucking that skanky ho Clarice, but through His Love and Strenth, I kicked him out of my doublewide all the way back to that slut’s hamhocked arms. Everybody in the trailer park knew all about it and when my trailer mysteriously burned down the next night…I had alot of witnesses…but no proof. Cause Freddie, that peice of shit, disappeared…and so did Clarice.
Wow, to me the answer is simple and obvious-- she’s SOL. If it makes you feel better, write her a letter telling her you’re sorry and you’re glad she understands you won’t be returning her money.
I was going to say to be a straight-up sort and to do the right thing. Try to work out some sort of arrangement with this person that is mutually satisfactory.
Because, there seems to be both legal and ethical questions involved here.
I just wanted to chime in to give the advice that you not reply to this woman. You did nothing wrong and should keep her deposit with a clear conscience.
When people sell stuff, they sometimes rely on that money. They need to know if they can write that check, or if they need to list Grandma’s wedding ring ASAP to make the rent. The penalties for bouncing checks, missing payments and other things that can happen when the money you are relying on isn’t there can get pretty big.
A deposit exists so that the seller can take the item off the market, and can reasonably begin to count on that money being there. If the buyer doesn’t deliver that money as promised, the seller certainly has no obligation to return the deposit. Presumably the deposit will take care of the financial blows that come from not having the money promised to you when you need it.
In practice, all of this could have been avoided by the buyer
A: not laying down a deposit on something she couldn’t buy and saying something like “I’m terribly sorry, but I have run in to some difficulties and cannot buy this item. Is it possible for me to pay the fees I’ve cost you for making this frivilous bid? Also, if it is still availible in June, let me know as I will have money then.”
B: Hopping on a library computer within a week or so and dropping a note saying “I really apoligize for this, but I am not going to be able to purchase the items. If it is possible to re-list the item and repay my deposit, minus the ebay listing fees of course, I’d greatly appriciate it. If not, maybe we can work something out. Thank you.”
Instead the buyer disappeared without a trace, leaving the seller in quite a bind. There is absolutely no moral obligation to return the deposit.
No internet access, eh? Not anywhere? No net at school, or work, or the library, or a friend’s house, or Kinko’s? Wow, that’s impressive. Even more impressive is the lack of snail mail service that prevented her sending you old-fashioned correspondance. No, wait, I’m sure she didn’t write you because she couldn’t afford to blow 37 cents on a stamp. I just don’t know how the poor dear’s managed to soldier on in the face of such adversity. I think I could have begged, borrowed, or stolen a stamp to get that hundred bucks back, though, if I were in such dire financial straits.
You acted in good faith and then some. Keep the money.
Are those the ones with the girls’ names? They’re usually historical novels? I loved those! Damn, if I had the cash, and I had known about that, I’d have bought them. They were so cheesy, but oh so good!
The kids loved them.