An issue of principle among friends..? (poll!)

What should Friend B & C do?

  • Just pony up $50, itā€™s only $8 and change each between 6 people
  • A deal is a deal, $350 it is, no matter how the deal came about.

0 voters

For the sake of privacy all names have become A/ B/ C :smiley:
Poll ends at 11pm today.

For those that think tl:dr here are cliff notes

Friend A gave friend B a discount on an item solely as a favor to friend B. Friend A communicated the basis for the discount to friend B, or it was strongly implied. Friend B passed on the discount by splitting the cost with multiple undisclosed parties that A did not know and he knew or should have known that Friend A might not have given the discount had he known of Friend Bā€™s plans. Should B pay the price without discount or should A just leave it as is.

Now the Long Version (numbers are made up. Donā€™t get caught up in it, I just put a number I thought people wouldnā€™t get swayed by. I thought wrong

So I have a friend A who recently bought a wine cabinet for his house. He paid $400 total to bring it into his house. He gets it into his house and realizes that the cabinet just doesnā€™t fit right anywhere in his house as itā€™s monstrous. So he thinks of posting it back on craigslist for the $400.

He tells me heā€™s going to sell it off via text message. Iā€™m with friend B who said that heā€™ll take it. Friend B contacts Friend A and tells him that Friend B and C are buying the cabinet as a house warming gift. So Friend A offers it to them for $350 since weā€™re all drinking buddies. Friend A hangs out with B quite often. In fact, weā€™re all going to **Aā€™**s house this week as heā€™s going to open wine and cook for us.

Friend C immediately emails 4 other people (that A doesnā€™t know at all) and says ā€œi have found a cabinet for the house warming gift, do you guys want to all split it, as the previous cabinet we were looking at fell through.ā€ Friend A doesnā€™t know any of these people and thought he was just selling it to his two friends and feels a bit dicked over by it. If it he knew it was people he didnā€™t know buying the majority of it, he would have tried to recapture his cost. I find out and tell Friend B to just pony up the $50 between the 6 people to cover friend Aā€™s cost. Friend B refuses saying that a deal was made for $350.

What say you guys? Should they pony up the extra $50 to cover the cost between the 6 people? Or a deal is a deal?

Ps. This isnā€™t a friendship deal breaker. Just a disagreement of principal and Iā€™m curious what ppl think. The poll will decide what happens.

A deal is a deal Charlie.

FYI the poll will decide what happens! Power of the board!!

Damn, weā€™re talking about $50 among friends A-Z. Actually a little confused with all the letters being used but in the end, itā€™s $50 on either side. We open wine that costs way more than that for each other all the time. Tell them to stop being so myopic.

Should be worth $50 to A to not to have to hassle and find another seller. B to G shouldnā€™t be haggling over $8 each. Either way it shouldnā€™t be a big deal to any of them.

A deal is a deal but if I were A, Iā€™d also discuss with B what I thought, shrug, then move on.

Making up numbers. Just ignore money cost. . Also no one is angry at anyone. Just a discussion and disagreement. A and B just had a big discussion about treating people how you want to be treated and this came up and thought it was applicable.

Having just recently tried selling some items on Craigslist, the $50 is well worth avoiding the hassle of having to deal with unknown potential buyers. We wasted more time dealing with such flaky people than the items were worth. We ended up donating the items and will take the tax deduction instead. I will never try to sell on Craigslist again.

Am I missing something? A paid $400 for a wine cabinet he doesnā€™t want and now heā€™s recouping nearly all of his money with little effort? Is there any reason to think he could even get all his money back even if he listed it on craigslist?

B didnā€™t lie to A. A should suck it up and be glad heā€™s getting the $350.

Yep. ā€œAā€ should be grateful to recover most of his money so easily after making such a boneheaded move (failing to measure the space available).

I feel like I put too many facts in this story. Should have limited it to

Friend a gave friend b a discount on something. Friend b actually bought it got others. A didnā€™t know.

All the other facts of Craigslist and what not just muddle it.

who cares, itā€™s $50.

seller should take the $350

Who is the house warming gift actually for, non-friend D?
I really donā€™t see why it makes any difference to A whether it is B/C or B/C plus 4.
A needs pop a cork and chill

Non friend d.

I voted for B. [snort.gif]

Do we get names after the poll closes? newhere

Does D = the sum of A + B/C?
:slight_smile:

A should be happy with $350.
Sell it for what youā€™re happy to sell it for, and does it matter who buys it or not? shouldnā€™t.
if he wasnā€™t happy with 350, he shouldnā€™t have offered it to B
if he was happy with 3500, then great, heā€™s happyā€¦ why let who ends up buying it change that?

B. A deal is a deal.

Regardless of price, I think B probably still did A a favor. A may or may not have recovered the price B paid.

Instead of a wine cabinet Charlie, you should have been even more vague and described it as ā€œBlack Acre.ā€ The whole fact pattern sounds like a law school test question.

I think A is being unreasonable. Having said that, if I were B, I would just get everybody to pony up in order to keep the peace. $50? Either way, itā€™s not worth getting panties in a wad overā€¦

I feel like I put too many facts in this story. Should have limited it to

Friend a gave friend b a discount on something. Friend b actually bought it got others. A didnā€™t know.

All the other facts of Craigslist and what not just muddle it.

Dealing with this purely in the abstract, Friend B is probably in the wrong if the following is true:

Friend A gave friend B a discount solely as a favor to friend B. Friend A communicated the basis for the discount to friend B, or it was strongly implied. Friend B substantially diluted the discount by splitting the cost with multiple undisclosed parties, and he knew or should have known that Friend A might not have given the discount had he known of Friend Bā€™s plans.