Crazy Trade-In Story, Guy wants stuff back the next day?

[DreamTR]

So one of my guys does a buy of some systems, empty boxes, some garbage, boxed games, etc....it's about $50 he gives the guy last night. After putting half the stuff on the shelf and going through the eBay pile the guy (who is about 35 or so) calls me back and says he wants his stuff back saying his little brothers were "not ready to give it up" yet. Now, the guy is over 18, the systems are all classic and he offered me an extra $25 to come and get it back, and he's an hour and a half away.

My thinking is he thinks he could have gotten more elsewhere after looking on ebay or something, but he says that the $50 we gave him (which he negotiated after we originally said $44) was not the issue...

He then says something about some Tennessee law stating that we have to hold stuff for 24 hours before we sell it after buying? (WTF? Never heard of this) and I'm pretty certain that is for pawn shops and video game systems and serial numbers...


Anyone ever heard of someone trying to do this before?

[Vectorman0]

I know this has happened to Nick at Next Level Videogames, recently too.

[NPLgamer]

HAHAHA Laugh at him and tell him to get lost, espically since he pulled that it's a law crap. DO NOT GIVE HIM HIS STUFF BACK. Some dude that trades in old games for $50 bucks will not be calling anyone about laws.

[portnoyd]

Tell him store policy is no buybacks. He likely won't push the issue.

[DreamTR]

I already told the guy we don't do buybacks....I am positive it's a "whoops, that stuff goes for more on ebay" type of 180 he is trying to pull...

Oh, and this guy drove 90 minutes here to sell the stuff in the first place...

[Icarus Moonsight]

Argument by appeal to what probably amounts to a fictitious law huh? I am reminded: "No ma'am, we will not come to enforce your Western Bacon Cheeseburger."

If I documented everything he brought, I'd sell it back to him at resale price minus a certain percentage to try and make it all smooth (a quick volume turn around is worth something at least). Something tells me $75 wouldn't even be close though (the new information of a 90 minute drive confirms that). And I wouldn't eat any more because this guy changed his mind. If that didn't work, then I would not miss him as a customer.

[Bojay1997]

Argument by appeal to what probably amounts to a fictitious law huh? I am reminded: "No ma'am, we will not come to enforce your Western Bacon Cheeseburger."

If I documented everything he brought, I'd sell it back to him at resale price minus a certain percentage to try and make it all smooth (a quick volume turn around is worth something at least). Something tells me $75 wouldn't even be close though (the new information of a 90 minute drive confirms that). And I wouldn't eat any more because this guy changed his mind. If that didn't work, then I would not miss him as a customer.

Actually, all those stories about people calling the police on fast food places miss the point. Generally, the customer places an order and after they pay, is told they don't have the item they ordered available. So, the customer asks for a refund. The cashier refuses saying they will have to order something else because the transaction has already gone through. At that point, faced with not getting the food they ordered and being told they can't have their money back, the very frustrated customer calls 911. Now I agree that's the wrong approach and it isn't an emergency, but what is a customer supposed to do in that situation? Just walk away and let the fast food place steal their money? In this situation, if the items haven't been sold yet, I agree there is no legal reason to agree to the request, but it seems like good business to just return the items in exchange for the payment given that this guy could be telling the truth.

[jonebone]

Don't do it.

[Cloud121]

Argument by appeal to what probably amounts to a fictitious law huh? I am reminded: "No ma'am, we will not come to enforce your Western Bacon Cheeseburger."

A bit off-topic:

As soon as I read that quote, I immediately did a search on that.

Wow....

[jbjabroni]

Probably best to just give it back to him. Def not worth the potential headaches it could cause. While I don't think he would take legal action def best just to CYA if you know what I mean.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

This would occasionally happen at the Funcoland I used to manage.

And while I'm sure that from a legal standpoint the signature required on the trade-in slip would be "legally binding", if the matter ever did escalate to corporate they would typically just cave and let the person have their stuff back, especially since we didn't give cash, only store credit.

Sounds like it's going to be a headache to fight the guy over the stuff. If it's worth the time to fight it out, nobody can stop you, but I'd be more inclined to just give the stuff back, especially if you're going to make some small profit on the deal.

[bangtango]

Tell the dude he can buy whatever stuff he wants back.

At the going rate you normally charge other customers.

[bangtango]

I have a friend who runs a small game store who has a couple of regular customers (unrelated to one another) who have the "seller's regret" syndrome.

Both of these guys trade in regularly and eventually buy back about 20-30% of the stuff they trade in, sometimes a few days later and sometimes a few months later.

However, they at least pay the going price for the games they are buying back and don't demand their stuff back for whatever pittance they traded in for. So they've never given my friend any trouble.

If anything, they amuse him because he tends to keep mental notes of what games those two customers trade in just to see how quickly they show up to rebuy them at full price.

In fact one of these guys tries to cover up the fact he is buying back his own games by implying he's "never played this one before" to save a little face.

[JSoup]

This is why we used to make customers selling/trading in over $50 in merchandise sign a waiver saying that we aren't responsible if they decide they want to go back on a deal. Anytime someone came in looking for their stuff, we'd generally be accommodating, provided they weren't being cocks. The cocks got a quick 'already sold, sorry' and that was that.