Is my thinking unreasonable?

Gary,
What are you apologizing for if you have done no wrong? What I don't understand is during the day and a half before you e-mailed the other buyer, why couldn't you e-mail me to see if I was still interested? I don't know how I could have made it clearer. The whole deal could have been done Wed. but you had things to do and I respected that and was willing to wait on you to let me know when you had time. The last thing I said on the phone was to e-mail me if you couldn't reach me by phone and let me know a convenient time for me to pick up the snake. I e-mailed you on Monday letting you know I would be in your hometown again and you replied on Tuesday that the snake was sold. When was the day and a half period you didn't hear from me ? We initiated the whole deal via internet and I stressed that you could e-mail me letting me know what was good for you. I am sorry I didn't get the phone message but I was trying to give you the respect of not aggravating you to death with e-mails since you had some things to take care of and I didn't have your phone #. Anyway, needless to say, I don't have intentions of flaming anyone. I do wander what the guy who got the snake ( I can't remember his name) would be saying if he were on my end of the situation. Like was said before, let this be a lesson to all of us. I just was very frustrated at how things transpired and wanted reassurance that I had a reason to be. If I had been the seller in this situation, I would be watching the BOI for something like this to come about. If you are apologizing Gary, I accept your apology. You are probably a great guy. I just don't understand why you didn't make more of an effort to communicate with me before selling the snake. I was begging to buy it from you and figured our phone conversation made that more than clear.

Brandon Byers

Brandon the only reason I apologized is the situation did not work out. It was just common curtisy. Other than that I did nothing wrong and I feel like you are trying to drag my name in the mud for nothing. You need to call someone back that is what we agreed to the ONE TIME we spoke on the phone. I don't owe you anything else.

Gary Johnston

However, if I tried (mulitple times) to buy an animal from someone (offering him CASH), and the guy put me off but said we should get together over the weekend to actually fulfill the deal, and then he called me once (didn't get me, but left a message on my cell phone), and then he sold the animal to someone else, several things would be true for me.

He tried once there was no multiple about it and I had to go to Thanksgiving there was nothing I could do about that. You have personaly attacked me with the"flake" comment, you are upset about being called a "hillbilly" I really can't figure you out man. I think your intentions are good but step back and read how you are back and forth on this whole thing. I really did not ask Shaun, I told him about it when he emailed me that he recieved the animal, to come on here I think he just saw what most of the others who replied to this thread are seeing is a guy getting roasted by a few people on here for nothing. As long as you keep saying these things about me I have to keep defending myself on here. Brandon has not even replied to my Private email but he was able to come on here and reply to me publicly. So if that tells you anything. I would really like to let this one go I have just seen how things can get out of hand here before.
thanks
Gary Johnston

From reading your side

There are always 2 sides to a story like this, and after reading 1 side I formed an opinion based solely on the 1 post. I got the impression that the seller was hesitant to close the deal in person or at his residence, so maybe there was no snake at all. Obviously that was a wrong opinion, but it was valid because the same thing has happened to several different people who post here. I also believe the seller should have tried harder to contact Brandon before selling the snake to someone else, I know in the same situation, I would have.
I do not think Gary is a bad guy, just exersized some poor judgement.

Jason,

He offered to PayPal the money and Gary refused it.

Gary,

He offered to PayPal the money, to send a money order, AND to come to your town and pick up the animal, paying for it then. If that is not multiple attempts to pay for something, you and I must have a different definition of what "multiple" means.

Casey,

I agree with you 100%. That's all I am trying to say.

I'm afraid I am going to have to side with Gary on this one.

I've had my fill of people whom say they are going to buy something and then I never hear from them again. They are obviously floating multiple deals at the same time and they want to nail down everyone until they can make a decision. And they sound oh so sincere making the promise that they WILL get back to me and make the purchase.

I don't know how many times I have taken an animal off of a surplus list and then had to put it back on when funds or a followup call never materialized. Now I only comment out the code in the file and don't delete it, expecting this to happen.

The BOI is littered with situations like this.

Quite frankly, that animal was Gary's personal possession to do with as he pleased. He could sell it to anyone he wanted to and doesn't have to answer to anyone afterwards about his decision.

No money changed hands, no one got screwed over, and Gary did not need to clear it with Brandon before selling it to someone else.

This whole thread has been nothing more than crying over spilled milk.

Although I agree with Gary's side on many points, I also agree Brandon's frustration as well.

As Rich said, the snake was Gary's and he could sell it to whomever he pleased without having to ask anyone's permission. Also, in this internet world of super serious window shoppers, it's really hard to take anyone seriously until there is cash in hand. There have been times where I've taken ads down for a "serious" buyer only to have to repost them later when communication ceased and funds didn't arrive(this always looks kind of bad when you have take ads down then repost them later, IMO). I have even had people set up deals on the phone to meet in person at a show, the person shows up, looks at the animals, says he/she will be back, then I never see or hear from them again.
However, from Brandon's side of things, it looks like he made several attempts to pay for the snake(pay-pal, money order, meet in person)and for whatever reason, Gary didn't accept it at the time(nothing wrong with that). It was Thanksgiving and Gary's family stuff has to come first. No biggie. BUT, if I were in Gary's situation, I would have tried more than once to contact Brandon because he seemed like a pretty real buyer. Gary had time and ability to e-mail another buyer, why not Brandon as well? I know you guys agreed on a phone call, but if he wasn't available, he told you to e-mail him also. And knowing it was Thanksgiving weekend, I would have chalked not hearing back right away to Brandon being busy and tried contacting him again later.

But either way, I don't think anybody did ANYTHING wrong here. Noone lost money or ripped anyone off. I wouldn't write anyone involved off as people not to do business with. Nobody was in the wrong, there was just a communications break-down and some quick decision making.

Cheers!

I have a scenario like that happening right now.... I posted an 80% yellow Biak Chondro on KS the other day.... I had an email from a person inquiring about it.... after a bunch of emails, he proceeded to make me a VERY FAIR OFFER, which I accepted.... I have NOT heard from him since I emailed him back, which, granted, was only this morning, but, the fact remains... if I get an email from anyone else, saying that they want it and they are going to PayPal me immediately.... it's THEIRS!!
The point being.... as I've always said.... TALK IS CHEAP! ACTIONS!.... That's what it's all about!
If I do hear from this guy, telling me he definitely wants it, and is sending me an overnight MO, or he'll PayPal me as soon as he gets home from work, well, that's a different story.... I will hold the snake (NOT take it off-line), but, HOLD IT till tomorrow's mail.... if no MO, no harm done!

....Neil

If anything, I would hope the BOI's archives would be used as a learning resource for buyers and sellers.

I think the following thread should be considered as required reading for the study of buyer/seller relationships:

Gilbert Thompson Thread

OMG!
That's the exact same thread I was thinking of as I read all this.