We had a deal with this man. I have sold him 4 good throws for amazing price, mad a discount of 75$ for them. There were 2 new yoyos, 1 near mint and one with damages. I said this information. He haven’t asked me about damages on them, haven’t asked to make pics of damages. Now he got yoyos and ask me to refund for one with damages. I don’t advice to have deals with this boy, he is too shady.
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Firstly I sent him pics of yoyos to show what I just have. It weren’t pics for showering condition or something else, just for showing. So there weren’t shown all of damages. After that he said, that he want this yoyo. I said, that it has damages., but he haven’t asked me to show them. If he asked, I would show him, but he didn’t.
“caveat emptor”
If you stated it was damaged and he choose not to ask for additional photos, that’s his problem, not your problem.
also…
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+++
I have made amazing deal for him, made 75$ discount for 4 yoyos and he is making a claim by paypal anyway
I think the usual style when using a latin phrase in an otherwise english text is to put it in italics and not in quotes. At least that is the the accepted norm for most legal docs.
The general application of the doctrine of caveat emptor over online trade is kinda iffy, as the doctrine was built up on the assumption that the purchasers normally CAN inspect the goods and do their due diligence, so they can have no one to blame when they voluntarily give up the rights to inspect or just did poor due diligence. Of course in this case, Yoyoman isn’t withholding pictures of damages, so those criticisms shouldn’t apply. But its not like general principles in law or fairness matters when you have arbiters like PayPal.
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Okay no he is wrong he showed me 2 pictures of this p2 I will post that shows 1 tiny little nick so when he said damages that’s what I seen but these are old pictures. He is scamming because the p2 I got from no angle can you get that picture with minimal damage it’s all beat from every angle and I have proof and when he starts this feedback just means when he isn’t the one who got burned means he’s insecure so he has to have a buddies back him up
Here are his pics he sent me
Here are mine straight out of the box
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I said that there was such angle. These pics weren’t intended for showing a condition. You weren’t interested in condition at all. I said, that there are damages. If it were close to mint I would say, that it is close to mint, as I said about another yoyo I sold you. You haven’t asked about it at all, there were the impression that you do not care about condition at all.
Actually I did ask for pictures and that’s what you sent me
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Hold up. You’re telling me that if you bought a yoyo listed as “damaged” with a pic that showed one minor scuff and you got one where the other side is all dinged up like this one, you’d be like “oh well it’s my fault for not asking for more pics”?
If we’re throwing around legal terms, let’s talk about the principle of “good faith.” In any dealing—transactions or otherwise—it’s expected and assumed that both parties are acting in good faith, i.e. with transparency and no intent to deceive. Most sellers I see here or the FB BST go out of their way to show, in pictures, all damage on their throws regardless of whether or not the buyer asked. If the defense is “it’s the angle of the photo’s fault” and “the seller didn’t ask for more pics” (which Joeboy77 has demonstrated that he did), then you can’t argue that the seller acted with 100% transparency and without intent to deceive. That’s not good faith, that’s shady AF.
In addition, the easiest and most fair way to resolve this is to simply reverse the sale—refund the buyer’s money and have them send it back. Has this option been offered to the buyer? If not, why not? If/when this goes to the mods, I can guarantee this is gonna be one of the first questions they ask.
I gotta go with @joeboy77 on this one.
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Copy pasted from the BST rules thread:
Your pictures should show any existing damage or flaws. That right there places the official BST rules in favor of @joeboy77.
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This seems to cover it as far as I can see. Why include a picture at all, if it isn’t going to show damage at that level? Any photo that doesn’t show that seems dishonest. (I of course don’t know the full conversation or situation.)
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If one or both parties aren’t happy with a trade/sale the easiest solution is to just send the yo-yos/money back. No need to drag it out.
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TLDR; Buyer Beware
I apologize for the long-winded rambling…
I’m not throwing around legal terms because I recognize the B/S/T forum isn’t a legal court, I am not a legal lawyer, and this isn’t a legal trial – hence my snarky Judge Judy meme. Any reference to actual legal terms or precedent is purely coincidental. I quoted caveat emptor because those were literally the words out of my mouth as I read through the post. Like it or not, the ultimate responsibility is on the buyer to do their due diligence. Sometimes you have recourse, sometimes you don’t. Be extra dilligent if it’s the latter.
Allow me to be crystal clear: I’m not taking sides by judging who is right or wrong, evil or saintly. I recognize that I don’t have the full story here and people sometimes lie on the internet – yes, it is shocking to me too – either through commission and/or omission to bolster their case. And when I say it’s so and so’s problem, it’s not an assignment of blame, but rather an assessment of who is at the bigger disadvantage. Here’s a cheeky hypothetical to illustrate:
If I owe you $5,000 then I have a problem. If I owe you $5,000,000 dollars then you have a problem.
According to the seller, he offered an “amazing deal”. It has been said, you get what you pay for. It has also been said that if it’s too good to be true it probably is. If you’re hunting for the cheapest deal – which joeboy77 implied in another post was his preferred buying strategy – sometimes it backfires in unexpected ways. He made some assumptions, took a calculated risk, and unfortunately it did not turn out how he expected. That doesn’t mean the seller’s entire motivation in the transaction was to scam someone. Buying items you cannot personally inspect, secondhand, directly from strangers, over the internet, whose English skills might be poor, comes with implied risk – like we’re seeing here. Could the seller have done more? Probably. Could the buyer have done more? Probably. (and I have enough experience on eBay to know first hand that buyers can be every bit as predatory as sellers – it cuts both ways.)
That said situations such as this seem like exceptions. I have had nothing but delightful transactions on this forum thus far!! But I also don’t go with the cheapest deal and buy from people with well established histories who I personally perceive as reputable. I have passed on deals solely because I didn’t get “a good feeling” from the seller after reading their posts. I have also completely “rolled the dice” on others. My level of due dillegence is proportional to the amount I’m spending and how risky I rate the transaction. Your situation may vary.
I just want to say, I think this is a very interesting and valuable discussion which I think should get a dedicated topic b/c this is the second time I’m aware of this type of situation arising in the span of a few months. Refer to Glenacius_K’s feedback for YoMurph where Glenacius_K basically got told by many in the community effectively “tough cookies!” So, I’m not surprised other sellers could see that and be emboldened by it.
Thank you for the question. I don’t like using words like “fault” in a situation like this as it implies you were the cause of something bad that happened. Instead I ask myself, what could I have done better to protect myself and avoid the problem in the first place. Suppose I left valuables in plain sight in a locked car. Later, someone broke in and stole them. It wouldn’t be my fault, but there are steps I could have taken to avoid the situation entirely.
From my own limited experience buying from BST, if I want to buy something damaged (I typically don’t), I “protect” myself by asking detailed questions like how many areas of damage in total then ask for pictures of the damage to confirm. I’ve asked for those pictures to be retaken because I didn’t like the quality.
But again, I tend to stick with people who I don’t think I’ll have any issues with from the get-go, like you!! 
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Not disclosing/showing ALL damage is wrong. Here’s an example of pics I literally took minutes ago to send to someone. The first pic didn’t show the damage well enough for me so I took the second pic. I didn’t even send the first pic.
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Lol he was the one who drug it out it should’ve just stayed between us be we decided to make a post about it
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Thanks for the detailed reply. I get where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree.
You’re right that the buyer could have been more diligent. I always ask for more pictures, and I wouldn’t have paid this person any money if I hadn’t received them. But that doesn’t mean that the buyer is ultimately responsible for the situation, nor does it absolve the seller of any responsibility. Rule 1 of the BST explicitly states that any damage should be pictured on a listing. The onus of disclosure is clearly placed on the seller regardless of whether or not the buyer asked for more pics (which the seller did in this case). Furthermore, it sets the precedent that what you see pictured is what you get, which is not the case in this transaction. Should you always confirm that what’s pictured is the full extent of the damage via PM? Definitely. But the responsibility of disclosing all damage via pictures explicitly is squarely on the seller regardless of whether or not further pictures were requested.
You’re right that the assumption shouldn’t be that the seller was meaning to scam the buyer. I don’t believe I’ve used the word “scam” anywhere here. It could have been simple negligence on the seller’s part, or the seller could have been unaware of the First Rule Of BST and believed the provided description and picture was sufficient. But in this case, intent is irrelevant. The seller has a responsibility to make sure the damage—via pictures no less—to make sure the buyer understands what they’re buying. If the buyer states that the item didn’t match the description and pictures provided, the burden of proof is on the seller. And while you’re right that buyers can also be super shady and predatory, per the letter of the BST rules (and the subsequent input in this thread from the moderators), benefit of the doubt isn’t conferred to the seller but the buyer.
You’re right that we can’t know that we have the full story. But by posting about this issue here publicly—in a feedback thread, no less—the seller has opened this up to public debate and scrutiny. And while we can’t know that we have all the details, we do have what was provided by both parties. Given what was laid out in front of us and the written rules of the BST, there’s nothing to establish that the seller made clear the extent of the damage. The seller even said “I said that there was such angle. These pics weren’t intended for showing a condition.” The seller freely admits to knowing that the picture included weren’t representative of the full extent of the damage and condition of the throw. The only benefit of the doubt that can be extended to the seller is assuming they were ignorant of the BST rules. But just as you said that the buyer has a responsibility to do their due diligence before shelling out money, the seller has a responsibility to be knowledgeable about the BST rules and abide by them.
Even giving the seller the benefit of the doubt that they were ignorant of the BST rules, it’s then the responsibility of the seller to rectify the situation once it’s been brought to their attention. In this case, there’s no evidence that the seller offered to refund and reverse the transaction or offer anything else to rectify the situation. What we do know is that the seller decided to publicly make this post, not the buyer. Even if the seller felt they weren’t at fault, they could have PMed the mods to help arbitrate privately. There’s no evidence that the seller is doing anything to meet their responsibility to rectify the situation.
I agree that the buyer was foolish to take part in the transaction. I’ve lived for 30 years in NYC—this city chews up overly trusting individuals—but that doesn’t mean the seller has no recourse. And in this case, on a moderated BST, the buyer does have recourse. The mods arbitrate disputes, and if a person ends up being a buyer or seller who doesn’t trade in good faith, they’re booted out. And again, the buyer didn’t start this thread. The seller did.
I haven’t looked at that thread in awhile but if I’m not mistaken, I think the reason why the community said “tough cookies” was because the issue was far in the past, not recent like this particular dispute. It’s possible I’m mixing it up with another thread, though.
I also find these discussions interesting, and that this discussion in the abstract might be more appropriate in a new thread, but I felt compelled to reply because this isn’t in the abstract. This is a specific, ongoing situation, and I don’t really think it’s fair or, more importantly, accurate per the BST rules to say that this is the buyer’s problem and that the seller isn’t at fault. I’m glad the mods chimed in as they are the appropriate arbiters of situations like this. I hope both parties can reach a resolution that satisfy them both and abide by the BST rules.
During a trade, both parties have expectation on what the trade would be like, including the condition on a object. Ideally, both parties’ expectation are the same, so no one get disappointed and both gets the deal they bargained for. Dispute arises when expectation differs, and usually who eats the loss depends on the reason for this divergent expectation. The express rules on the BST clearly demonstrates that pictures are worth a thousand words. “Damaged” can mean one thing for me while very different to another, which is why pictures helps reduce these variance in understanding significantly.
What I am reading Yoyoman13371337 to be saying is that he have warned the purchaser of the condition of the yoyo, ie that it is “damaged”. And honestly to me, if that was that, no further pictures were given or asked for, that seems a fair description of the yoyo sent. But the situation is complicated by further pictures sent by Yoyoman. Is that the same yoyo that was sent? Is it edited, or taken in a way to mislead the extent of the damage? Or just a blurry shot with no mind paid to show the actual damages?
I think the key issue is, what is the duty we put on sellers to draw to buyer’s attention of damaged yoyo, especially after they have specifically labelled it as “damaged”. Do we want all pics on BST threads to have a main aim of showing damage? Some could argue it was just to show you what the color way is, or just a glamour shot taken sometime ago for identification purposes. Look another way, we don’t go to McDonalds order a Big Mac and complain that it looks nothing like the burger on TV ads.
The BST rules seems to indicate that there is such a high burden on the seller. On the other hand I don’t think this is followed consistently in these forums.
Even if we don’t put such a burden on the seller, next we need to consider whether there was any misleading statements made. I think Joeboy77 is saying he was misled or tricked by yoyoman13371337’s subsequent picture. I don’t think from what i see so far this is made out. Even if the pictures seems to hide most of the damages, he straight up said it was damaged first thing, any purchasers that still buys a yoyo labelled as damaged can at best be said to be hoping that the seller is underestimating the extent of damages to be safe, if they actually cared about the condition, they should demand more pictures, since from the picture shown, it looks more like a “1 tiny little nick” yoyo and not a “damaged yoyo”. In fact, a simple “Hey that picture shows a really nice yoyo, is that all the damages it has?” could avoid this whole misunderstanding.
All that being said, there is plenty of blame to go around for both sides. If you buy a “damaged” yoyo, expect a damaged yoyo. If you expect a seller to sell a “1 tiny little nick” yoyo but labelled as damaged and at a price for a damaged yoyo, then you better ask for plenty of pictures before you make the payment.
On the other hand if you sell a “damaged” yoyo on these forums, then you better comply with BST rules and send pictures that SHOWS the damage.
Who is right and who is wrong? Since Joeboy77 said PayPal will be handling it, I don’t think it matters for us anymore. To be honest i have sympathy for both, break down in communication rarely arise because of ill intention, and losses caused by miscommunication are lose-lose for both side. There is no good guy here, there is no winners here. Just victims of miscommunications.
But i think this case shows that we may want to amend the BST forum rules. Because the problem is not resolved, and similar misunderstanding can happen. Especially since Yoyoman13371337 received two complaints in a short time, so clearly people are having different expectation on what the forum rules means.
Does the good peeps in this forum thinks that seller have a burden to send photos that high light damages versus just glamour shots for identification purposes. If so, I think spelling that out in the BST rules as a separate rule, not subsumed under just the general rules to include picture, may make that clearer, such as “You should include pictures showing existing damage or flaws that give a fair indication of the condition of the object”. If not, maybe add in a warning “Before agreeing to any purchases, if you have any doubt as to the condition of the object, you should ask the seller to confirm in writing such condition or by requesting more photos from the seller.”
I am a fan of if it aint broke don’t fix it. Purchasers have varying level of damage tolerance, and sellers may want to have the option to just be lazy and just sell to people who don’t care about damage, as well as people who are more picky. The purchaser is the person in best position to know how picky they are, and therefore know the condition, pictures, or vibe they need to ask about. Raising the bar, elevates the quality the BST posts, but may lower overall efficiencies of the trades, and even eliminate lazy sellers from selling here. This is why we have trader feedback threads. It is clear to me that yoyoman13371337 is a firm believer of caveat emptor, which is fair, i wouldn’t hesitate to do business with him, but i would ask for more pictures than an average member here.
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