Buyer made offer then dissappeared!

[OgieOgalthorpe]

I'm selling a developed website and I had an offer at my "buy now" price to purchase the site instantly.

Well I had a few PMs with the buyer through DNForum and talked over a few things, he decided he wanted to use PayPal and asked for my address. Well I gave him the address Wednesday at around 3:38 PM Eastern.. and haven't heard from him since or recieved payment. Have sent numerous PMs, emails via the board and even tracked down a domain he may own to get the contact info and the phone # is dead. He's been on the board atleast 3 times since his last PM to me for over an hour total. It's very clear that he isn't paying and is avoiding responding to me.

Now that I'm out all the advertising that I cancelled and wasted stickies that I purchased and told people that the site was sold (lost other possible buyers) I still don't have the money and am in an even worse position from losing all this advertising money as well.

I guess my question is, at what point do you mark your threads sold or pending sale on various forums? If it's a complete stranger you never dealt with do you wait a certain amount of time? Or till you get the payment? I guess I just want to avoid this in the future as this lesson cost me a lot of money.

The really funny part is that through a few of the lookups and traces I did on this guy, I realized he lives in a town under 45 miles from me, which I visit frequently ;-)

 

[Togoodhlth]

Kinda strange. Wonder why he didnt just email/PM you and say he changed his mind so at least you wouldnt have to keep it off the market.

Some people will continue to take offers even after someone has committed to buying just in case they reneg.
I would say 95% of the sales I have made here have gone through without a hitch.

Give the buyer a few more chances and if he doesn't come through or at the very least respond with a good reason for stringing you along I would be sure and let everyone know so it doesnt happen to them.

Good luck!

John

 

[Mr Webname]

I guess my question is, at what point do you mark your threads sold or pending sale on various forums? If it's a complete stranger you never dealt with do you wait a certain amount of time? Or till you get the payment? I guess I just want to avoid this in the future as this lesson cost me a lot of money.

Well the sale is never made until money and domain have deen transferred!
There is no obligation to post "Pending Sale" but there is an implied obligation to accept the first buyer at the price stated and post sold when completed - you could maybe post "offer received" which would allow for follow-up offers in case of a failed sale.
A "rule of thumb" is that this type of "straight" sale should be completed within 72 hours.

 

[OgieOgalthorpe]

Thanks!

I guess it's sort of my fault for assuming somoene would pay after making a direct offer on a buy now price, anyways I'll give this buyer another 48 hours to respond! I think it's very rude that people would just make an offer and lead you on that they were buying and then just flat out not respond to your messages for days. There's really no excuse seeing as to how this member has been on the board for hours at this point since he last responded to one of my messages, it eliminates the emergency situation possibility that he doesn't have access to a computer. Otherwise I'll post his userid, information and our PM's so it doesn't happen to anyone else!