Being the villain in trading...

[Cirrus]

Ever made any unfair trades? I did recently and I wondered how you guys felt.

[Kilik Kurosawa]

ORG says that he got a $5.00 game for $18.00. If he initiated the trade and both parties are happy with what they got...I wouldn't feel guilty

[Keir]

Since the other person was happy with the trade, no one can hold it against you. I don't think that you did anything wrong, and I know I wouldn’t hesitate to make a trade with you just because of this.

On the other hand, no one can tell you how to feel. It sounds like you really regret taking advantage of the other person, so my advice is in the future just be up front about what you think is a fair trade and you won’t have to worry about feeling guilty. I know I’m the same way and on more than one occasion have told someone that they were offering me too much. (However, I don’t feel at all bad paying $1 for a rare Atari game at a flea market. It doesn’t make sense but that’s the way I am!)

[Cirrus]

Since the other person was happy with the trade, no one can hold it against you. I don't think that you did anything wrong, and I know I wouldn’t hesitate to make a trade with you just because of this.

On the other hand, no one can tell you how to feel. It sounds like you really regret taking advantage of the other person, so my advice is in the future just be up front about what you think is a fair trade and you won’t have to worry about feeling guilty. I know I’m the same way and on more than one occasion have told someone that they were offering me too much. (However, I don’t feel at all bad paying $1 for a rare Atari game at a flea market. It doesn’t make sense but that’s the way I am!)

Yeah, I'm with you. I gave him a copy of Bonanza Brothers (another game he liked as a kid) to make it better.

Everybody should now post the trades where they most took the advantage of someone else!!

[jgenotte]

I took advantage of a stupid game stop employee once when I found out that he thought that tetris (NES) was the same as the Tengen version. I brought in like 6 copies and walked out with a ton of store credit. 8-)

Not ashamed in any way. :D

-james

[TheRedEye]

I once traded like twelve loose Famicom Sachen carts for $200 and Rodland for the NES. Then I sold Rodland for like $280, which means it was like $400 in profit. All parties seemed happy, so I don't feel guilty.

[WanganRunner]

Knowledge of the market IS an asset in and of itself, and it's not one anyone should be ashamed about using.

If someone sells me a NWC gold cart for $1 because they have no idea what it is, I'll buy it and not feel in the least bit bad about it.

If I make an auction on ebay for a copy of "Shaq Fu" and say that it's "RARE" or whatever, then I'm lying, and I'd feel bad about that (which is why I don't do it).

Lying and misleading people is wrong, but you're also not obligated to volunteer any information about a product that someone else is willing to trade/sell to you. Your only obligation is to be truthful regarding the items that you are selling/trading to other people.

Hopefully this makes sense without making me sound like an asshole.

There's nothing wrong with exploiting a mispricing, that's what bond traders do for a living every day, and that's what drives capitalism.

[Sothy]

If the snes version of home improvement has the theme song it was worth it.

[wufners]

Not a trade, but I still feel a bit guilty for a flea market purchase I made once.

The fella was super nice and obviously a collector. Well, WAS a collector as he was selling off much of it to make room in the house (his wife was so happy!)

He had so much stuff! I snagged a Jaguar, ROB, a 2600 ROM scanner, a couple of Pong clones, about 35 2600 games, a 32x game, some misc Saturn stuff, and probably a few things I'm forgetting (seems like there was one more big one, but I can't recall at the moment.)

After I had it all neatly piled up, I asked him how much to which he responded "What do you think is fair?"

Argh! I hate that. Well here was the deal. Money was a little tight at the time since I was going on vacation in a week. I had $100 in my pocket, $20 of which I needed to use for an oil change. So I have $80 to work with, and frankly I would have gladly paid $80 for all of that. But this is the swap meet--I say $80, he retorts with a $100 and we shake hands at $90. Well like I said, I capped out at $80, so I opened the bidding with the almost insulting price of $60.

Honestly, I offered that fully expecting him to ask for more. Just so long as I could get away with $80, I would be ecstatic. He rubbed his chin for a moment, and then replied. "Sure, I'll do that." X_x

And to top it off, his dad offered to help me carry everythign to the car!

I shouldn't feel too bad, I s'pose. As I sat there coneimplating if I had just insulted and ripped off a fellow collector (and a nice guy) he took me aside and said he had a secret stash of 2600 games that he hadn't planned on selling. He then produced a box of about 20+ R3 and R4 games, most of which I had never even heard of, let alone owned. As I prepared to offer him $20 for the lot, he spoke up and said "You can have it for $10."

[rbudrick]

Here's a story that I remember I told in this thread:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6404


I once sold two electric guitars for two NES games....one was a 52 in 1 pirate famicom cart with a US adapter, and the other game was a Japanese pirate of (I later found out) Ge GE GE no Kitarou. The game was labelled as "Satan Den." As far as I know, it is rarer than hell, cuz I've only spoke to one other person who owns one (we also both know of one other guy who may have one, but his email addy is no longer valid). The pawn store I traded it to was owned by a real couple of jerks, and they thought they got a steal...one guitar was pure shit...I barely got the strings on it to make it look legit...one turn of a tuning peg and one would see how crappy the guitar was....the other was an OK guitar, but needed new pickups and wiring...not worth it. Anyway, like I was saying, these guys were real total ripoff jerks, so when they were charging $110 or so for these two games (EACH!), I didn't feel at all bad about it. His eyes lit up like he was ripping ME off...he didn't even test the guitars, he was so psyched....dumbass. I later found out that these guys got strung up for being caught with over 100K worth of stolen goods. I kinda miss one of those guitars, but the other was really just firewood.

Oh yeah, the Satan Den cart was 72pin, had a converter inside it, and was a Japanese game...weird.

These guys were pretty notorious for being very sleazy in their dealings...I certainly didn't shed a tear. These guitars were useless. This was way before eBay, so it was pretty hard to find bizarro carts like this in the wild back then. :-)

-Rob

[Jibbajaba]

I traded someone here on DP an original gameboy, loose but with a new screen lens, for a complete and mint copy of dragon warrior 7. Maybe notthe most lop-sided trade in history, but I felt like I got the better end of that deal.

Chris

[ChronoTriggaFoo]

I've sold many things on eBay at really high prices (they bid em up high cause i always start my auctions at low prices like $1.00) and felt bad because they were so happy about winning the item. If they pay a really high price, I'll usually add an extra game with their item to make up for my guilt and so they can be even happier and justify their purchase. For example, I once sold Phantasy Star IV complete for the Sega Genesis for $76 on eBay, and felt really bad although it was a collectable piece. I ended up sticking a complete minty copy of Tecmo Super Bowl III for the Sega in his package. He was really happy then! Made me a whole lot better :)

[EnemyZero]

feeling guilty would be if you talked them into this , or tried to get him to think it was rare to further your cause, but since you didnt and he likes the trade...theres nothing wrong here


sorry double post

[EnemyZero]

feeling guilty would be if you talked them into this , or tried to get him to think it was rare to further your cause, but since you didnt and he likes the trade...theres nothing wrong here and by the way...im never trading with u ever! lol j/k

[Cirrus]

If the snes version of home improvement has the theme song it was worth it.

It does, in a terrible digitized way. It even has Al on the cover, and in the game. It's also terrible to the point of being nearly unplayable.

[PDorr3]

The guy should have known his stuff. If he thinks its rare let him. He should do more research before making a trade.