Offended! What would you do?

It's highly unusual for buyers to ask for a written statement that a second hand electrical item being sold has "no faults". The seller can and would be sensible to decline to offer such a written guarantee as "no faults" is almost impossible to guarantee. The buyer can always take someone with some electrical knowledge with them to help with the inspection of said item should they choose.

The process is quite straightforward-
1) Seller advertises item,
2) potential buyer declares interest
3) buyer's responsibility to check the item in person and ensure that they are satisfied with the item as they see it on inspection, ie "sold as seen" is the term most frequently used
4) buyer brings up any matters they wish to negotiate- e.g. if I buy can you help me get it into the car? If I buy will you provide a warranty/statement guaranteeing item has no faults?
5) seller confirms their terms of sale- price, yes/no help into car etc
6) Buyer, with full understanding of sellers terms makes an offer to buy or declines to purchase
7) Seller decides whether to accept buyer's offer and agrees price if so
8) money changes hands- purchase made.

Following such a straightforward process cuts down risk of the problems OP faced.

Not sure why any buyer should have a problem with a seller's terms 'sold as seen'. The onus is on the buyer to be satisfied the item meets their requirements on viewing. If they don't like such terms don't buy- simple. Find another seller or shop that offers the terms that you're looking for. That can be sorted out on the phone at an early stage.

If you find a book in a charity shop with a missing page- kindly point it out to one of the shop assistants as that may not have been obvious when the book was donated - and decline to make a purchase.

I must admit I'm surprised at that viewpoint that goes "sold as seen" being expressed - as obviously something works unless we're told specifically that it doesnt work. Meaning = how can one tell something does really work if all we're told is "sold as seen"? Just because something doesn't look visibly broken doesn't necessarily mean = "Yep it works and I the seller am responsible if it doesnt work".

Yep....you can tell someone who has done volunteer work in a couple of charity shops in my time - and most of the time the donated goods are in sufficiently okay condition to donate them. But "there's always a few" and I was gobsmacked that there are people who do donate goods to charity shops that are only fit to be binned instantly and wonder why the heck they do it. There's books with missing pages. There's books with notes on (some of them even get sold on Amazon). There's clothing that is stained.

So yep there are people who will move goods on to other people when they aren't actually fit to sell or donate.....

Some people don't think logically and don't care. I've had that one in my own home before now - ie back when I took lodgers in my last house to start with and the main lodger room included a light I had acquired the normal way (ie bought it new) sitting in the room that was absolutely fine of course when I let it out to a particular lodger. Cue for some months later she left - and I checked the room and my own darn light electrocuted me!!!!! She'd obviously damaged it in some non-visible way and not admitted it to me - ie as I'd have obviously charged her for its replacement. Goodness knows it was only a cheap desk light and it was owned by me - but she'd "passed it back to me" damaged without saying a word (and her a chapel-going "Christian" according to her too).

Then there was the lodger who passed my bought new for the lodgers single bed back to me on leaving his tenancy. I gave up taking in lodgers at that point and had arranged to sell the bed to someone - cue for me taking my mattress cover off the mattress and yep...."sold as seen" would have meant they'd bought a bed not fit for use off me. I had morals - and so I told them "Very sorry - but that lodger was even worse than I thought he was and he owes me a new bed...because he's 'gone to the loo' on that bed and should have paid me for it - but didnt admit he was a dirty lout and owed me".

So - yep...no-one should take anything as "sold as seen" - because of the number of people without morals there are out there and the buyer has no way of knowing if the seller is actually trying to sell them something that is unsaleable.

I am afraid I am more robust. if someone did that to me, I would have told her, that as she had loaded the car without money even being meentioned and as I didn't know her, How was I to know that she wasn't about to do runner

Like others I would have actually brought the matter up earlier and not have loaded the cooker into the car until I was paid.

As for signing a piece of paper to say it had no faults, never do that. Supposing something got broken in the journey back to her house or because it was badly handled when she got home. You would soon have had her banging on the door demanding her money back. I doubt she would have returned the cooker.

Agree... Money before goods.. A while ago my chum sold quite a substantial piece of furniture, she was given a Cheque, but did ask for Name and Address by the couple who bought it. Cheque bounce, plus not known at address given. Bank unable to help or trace.

Maybe when you say culture, are ypu saying maybe she wasnt a native English speaker..or that she is from a different cultural background..? I have a couple of friends who come from other countries, where people tend to be more direct. I know they dont mean to be rude so I just smile.

You are lucky, when I advertised mine, it said in the advert it would not be available till a set day, they initially wanted to come that day to collect, then agreed that the specified day was ok, I messaged the day before to confirm they still wanted it and they confirmed, did they turn up did they heck🙄
Never heard another peep from them.
The scrappy took it.

Silly woman. Forget her.

LizH13 I don't think you have to do anything.
Don't sweat the small stuff ! Life's too short! Clichés I know but they have some sense.
" Don't give it another thought" as a delightful ex-boyfriend of mine used to say when I was worrying unnecessarily about something.

Surely, it does not matter whether you pay before putting the article you have arranged to buy into your car or afterwards, when buying from a private home?

Here everyone puts the thing they have agreed to buy in the car, or bag, then pays for it, not the other way around.

Like your customer I would have been offended if you had ask for the payment before I had even got into my car!

I think you should have held your hand out before loading it.

How it works for me is they get to look at the item I m selling, they say yes or no, I hold my hand out for the money and say thank you, then, and only then I give them the item.

I think the cultural sentence is an unnecessary add on.
I don’t think either of you should be offended she obviously felt you didn’t trust her and you felt upset that she felt that !!!

I would have sent it to Emmaus or the BHF, or any other local charity who would come to collect it, check it sell it.
That she messed you about before she even came to pick it up was a clue to her mindset.
So she was offended ?! so what! pay up, lady! Sold as seen.

She knew you where selling and agreed to buy it so why would she be offended you asked for the money.
When you buy from an individual you take it on trust it's what they say it is. If she wanted guarantees then she should have brought it from a shop.

I haven't sold anything but given things to charity or advertised things on can't remember if it was called buy nothing or pay nothing local site . The freezer and separate fridge worked that I gave to a charity even had the manuals which I taped to them. I had new kitchen so they wouldn't fit . Things on the pay nothing site where old but still in good condition. And people where happy with them.

What does “culture” have to do with it?

The buyer had no reason to be offended. She should have paid before loading. She would have had no help with loading from me either.
On one occasion I did let a buyer load the item before paying. It was a fold-up mobility scooter and they wanted to see how well it would fit into their car. I did have its keys in my hand though!

Thank you everyone who replied. I’m glad that the majority feel she had nothing to be offended about. I was just taken aback when she said it, and it played on my mind all night. But today I feel much better having read your wisdom. Thanks

LemonJam

You didn't want the cooker any more, a lady conveniently took it away but sadly you forgot to ask for payment..

Your post asks what would you do? I would have taken payment at stage of agreed sale and advertised sold as seen, then none of this would have happened. But a useful lesson learned for anything you decide to sell in the future? Fairly pointless her or yourself getting offended I would have thought, it's not the end of the world.

I suggest you re-read the OP.

She did get paid, no one said she didn’t, but the buyer only gave the money over after the cooker had been loaded into the car, and the sellers were a bit concerned she might drive off without paying.

There are so many incidences like that, you need to be careful.

How often do we read about unscrupulous folk filling up the car at a garage and driving off without paying?

You didn't want the cooker any more, a lady conveniently took it away but sadly you forgot to ask for payment..

Your post asks what would you do? I would have taken payment at stage of agreed sale and advertised sold as seen, then none of this would have happened. But a useful lesson learned for anything you decide to sell in the future? Fairly pointless her or yourself getting offended I would have thought, it's not the end of the world.

keepcalmandcavachon

"Nowt as queer as folk" or so they say! Don't quite understand the 'cultural' thing? I thought the British were well known for being reserved, happy to stand in line and loving animals

I suspect the lady was of a different ethnic background. Still no need for her to be offended.

Stop being offended, you won’t be able to see her will you?
You were kind enough to help put the cooker in her car.In future ask for the money before they take anything out of the house.So what if they take offence.

Re the asking if it's working okay before paying for it = I'd probably have asked myself just in case.

Then I'd be entitled to put up a post on a local Facebook page warning people if I'd found it wasnt working after all - and that's probably what would happen in the area I'm in now - where I've certainly seen a noticeable number of people putting up a "warning" notice if someone has let them down.

AGAA4

She, probably, had every intention of paying but how could you know that?
She may have been making sure she had help getting the cooker into the car before paying.

She wasnt entitled automatically to have help in getting her cooker in her car.

If I'm offering something either free or for sale = I won't be the one lifting it if it's heavy (though obviously they can see looking at me that I'm single/older/female and that all adds up to "Highly unlikely to do any of someone else's lifting for them").

Paying for it could have been either before or after it went in her car and I'd say there's no manners dictating either way on that one - though I'd guess I'd probably be expecting payment before it went in the car myself - but wouldnt regard it as wrong to pay after it had gone in the car. That one could go either way.

There are so many stories of dishonesty nowadays, your husband had every right to be cautious. She could well have let you load it into the car and just driven off without paying, she wouldn't be the first. We've had enough of being messed about with selling things that we now just donate everything to charity.

I work as a volunteer on the till of our local community store.
At least once per shift I have to run after someone who has forgotten to pay!
I also take and write down orders for the café and put out the cakes for the kitchen to serve, so the whole transaction takes a while. There's often a queue and a conversation.

I also sell things on line as part of decluttering.
eBay takes the money first.
Other platforms don't but there's often messages discussing size, condition and price before I tell them where I live.

Sometimes they try it on and say can they have it for less. Depends how I feel about the item. I let a gorgeous pram go for almost half price but I had to think that it might be hard to sell.
So many TV programmes encourage people not to pay full price.

I can't think why your cooker customer was offended.
Maybe she had a guilty conscience!

Well, it she started loading a cooker from Curry’s into her car before paying, security would apprehend her.
It was her fault for not paying you before loading it into her car.
Don’t even think about it any more.

‘Sold as seen’ is how I have advertised goods previously.