Can shop keep my deposit?

rustyboy21

unholyangel wrote: »

Wouldn't that make you the type of retailer this board is designed to combat? :rotfl:

Ha Ha !


No, I just sell my company, have many,many happy customers.


It just really annoys me that people think they can mess everyone else about just to suit themselves. The music shop owner is not going to be on the same scale as Sainsbury's, I would be amazed if he is in the 40% tax bracket on his wages. They are lucky if they get one sale a day most likely. Yes I own a business, but I live in a basic house, with a bog standard car and my fitters make more money than I do each week.


We are not all Richard Branson !

unholyangel

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Ha Ha !


No, I just sell my company, have many,many happy customers.


It just really annoys me that people think they can mess everyone else about just to suit themselves. The music shop owner is not going to be on the same scale as Sainsbury's, I would be amazed if he is in the 40% tax bracket on his wages. They are lucky if they get one sale a day most likely. Yes I own a business, but I live in a basic house, with a bog standard car and my fitters make more money than I do each week.


We are not all Richard Branson !

Oh I wasnt disputing that there are customers who are nightmares to deal with/take the mickey. The shop are perfectly entitled to any actual losses they suffer as a result of the breach.

I just couldn't resist pointing out the funny side of your comment

SpideressUK

agrinnall wrote: »

If the instrument is that rare why not buy both of them, keep the one you like, and resell the other one at a profit?

I had considered that but having allocated £1,200 to the shop purchase I do not have a surplus £500 for the other instrument. Plus, even if I did have the £500 there is no guarantee I would be able to sell it for profit - I have no idea about the reason for the private sale ie it might be someone none-musical inheriting an instrument and wanting to sell it asap so it is priced for a potentially quick sale. It could be someone who cannot travel the distance to the few shops in the country who would buy such a specialist instrument and therefore they have not been able to get an idea of what a shop would buy it for (or re-sell it for) as, logically, if the seller has any idea of how rare a sale it is and what the normal 2nd hand price would be I would think they would have set their sights a bit higher ie maybe £800-£1,000. There is still the question though of what actual condition the instrument is in. "Good playable condition" is what it listed but that does not mean it is "in tune" when it comes to playing it alongside other instruments etc.

SpideressUK

rustyboy21 wrote: »

If you need the £200 from the retailer to buy the other one for £500, then how the hell are you going to pay the £1200, you were happy in committing to when you agreed to accept the price in the first place?


It is not the matter that the cornet is , as you keep reiterating '' As rare as Hens teeth'' and obviously the music shop will be able to get rid of it, How do you know that? How many Millions of people play the Cornet? He may have turned someone else down, yes, but how do you think that he will get someone else to buy it quickly? It is not like an Iphone etc, which has a proven customer base. It is a rare, unusual item which is not to everyones taste/need.


IMO, you have made the fatal error after making a decision, in that you have then gone rooting around and found something that at first glance is cheaper, when you have already agreed to buy off someone else. If the shop owner has agreed to reserve the item for you and enable you to pay off as and when, then surely, this points to the fact that he hasn't and doesn't expect to sell it quickly, if he did, he would have said to you that he could easily get rid of it, I am not taking deposits, you pay for it and take it, before someone comes and bites his hands off for it.


You really are not being fair at all and as a retailer myself, you are the type of customer I hate. You would be getting short shrift from me and I would be chasing you for full payment immediately, by any means I could.


Put it this way, I would rather be buying from a reputable retailer than some wanabee possible Shyster I found off one of the many scam and dodgy websites.

I do not need the £200 in order to have £500 to pay for the one in the private sale. I have already saved up £1,200 in cash which I have put in the bank so that I can pay off the credit card transaction with the shop. I was more than happy to pay the full £1,200 to the shop on the day that I went in to view the instrument. It is the shop itself who only asked for a deposit as the instrument was not in a sale-able condition at the time of me viewing it as it needed to go to their workshop for repair. I will be paying the £1,000 balance the moment the shop tells me the instrument is ready.

It took me a VERY long time to save up £1,200, what I cannot "afford" to do is just throw away £200 as if £200 means nothing to me. I would not make a decision to loose a £200 deposit - that £200 was too hard worked for/saved.

With regards to how many "millions of people play the cornet" consider this (and this is why not every music shop in the country will even buy a 2nd hand Eb Soprano cornet - particularly a Shilke) out of every brass band in the country (and I have no idea how many are left but there are certainly a lot who have disbanded) there are about 9 Bb cornets to every 1 Eb Soprano cornet so there is not *that* much demand for Eb Soprano and when there IS a demand it is normally for what is generally classed as the "gold standard instrument" which is Schilke. From what I have been reading on Schilke they make about 1000-1200 instruments a year and are based in USA so only a small % of their instruments ever get imported into our Country making it all the more rare to find one 2nd hand. The shop would not have bought it 2nd hand off the seller if they did not think they could sell it on (most music shops - as I found out by the extensive amount of phoning around I did when I was looking for this instrument - will not even buy such an instrument as it is too specialist) but they bought it knowing that they are one of only 2 or 3 shops in the Country who would trade in such an item and therefore if anyone is looking to buy a sop they are usually looking for a Schilke and so they have a high chance of re-selling it.

The shop owner has not agreed to reserve it for me so "I can pay it off as and when" - the deposit was paid as the shop owner did not have the instrument ready for me to pay for in full and take there an then.

You would be "chasing me for full payment as soon as you could" - I really fail to see why you assume that it is ME that has an issue with paying the full £1,200 upfront and not as it actually is that the shop did not have the instrument ready for sale at that time and it is the SHOP who asked for the £200 and not the full payment. I have been more than happy to pay the full £1,200 from the moment I viewed the instrument in the shop and agreed to buy it.

I agree that there is value from buying from a Shop rather than from a private sale which is one of the reasons I have decided not to pursue the private sale any further.

SpideressUK

rustyboy21 wrote: »

It just really annoys me that people think they can mess everyone else about just to suit themselves.

As someone else on this thread pointed out..........if someone had come to the shop owner and said they would pay £2,000 for the instrument he had told me he was selling for £1,200 the shop owner could have in effect have "gazumped" me even though I had paid a £200 deposit. This thread was started to find out what contractual arrangement a deposit made from a consumer rights/legal point of view not for a retailer to make personal and incorrect assumptions about me. If it really is the case that a shop has a legal right to keep the deposit providing they can prove loss then the consumer should also have a legal right which enforces the shop to sell the item at the originally agreed price to the person paying the deposit no matter now many "higher value financial offers" the shop gets.

frugal_mike

If the shop owner breached the contract by selling to someone else then you would be entitled to sue him for your losses. If you could not find an instrument in equivalent condition for the same price or less then you could buy the more expensive instrument and sue for the difference in price.

ShadowPuma

"It took me a VERY long time to save up £1,200, what I cannot "afford" to do is just throw away £200 as if £200 means nothing to me. I would not make a decision to loose a £200 deposit - that £200 was too hard worked for/saved."

So assuming you go to see the private sale and it IS in good condition? Even if you buy that and don't get the £200 back then you've only spent £700 and saved yourself £500 by buying that one over the shop one.

Your first port of call here is to decide if you can be bothered to spend the expense to potentially save £500-700!

SpideressUK

ShadowPuma wrote: »

"It took me a VERY long time to save up £1,200, what I cannot "afford" to do is just throw away £200 as if £200 means nothing to me. I would not make a decision to loose a £200 deposit - that £200 was too hard worked for/saved."

So assuming you go to see the private sale and it IS in good condition? Even if you buy that and don't get the £200 back then you've only spent £700 and saved yourself £500 by buying that one over the shop one.

Your first port of call here is to decide if you can be bothered to spend the expense to potentially save £500-700!

I had thought about that too but the private one is already 26-30 years old whereas the shop one is about 10 years old. £700 for a 26-30 year old instrument even if it is in good condition is rather a high price plus it's later re-sale value is likely to be massively reduced whereas if I buy the £1,200 one and keep it 5-10 years or so I am likely to be able to re-sell that for maybe £800 so will have in effect only spent £400

rustyboy21

SpideressUK wrote: »

As someone else on this thread pointed out..........if someone had come to the shop owner and said they would pay £2,000 for the instrument he had told me he was selling for £1,200 the shop owner could have in effect have "gazumped" me even though I had paid a £200 deposit. This thread was started to find out what contractual arrangement a deposit made from a consumer rights/legal point of view not for a retailer to make personal and incorrect assumptions about me. If it really is the case that a shop has a legal right to keep the deposit providing they can prove loss then the consumer should also have a legal right which enforces the shop to sell the item at the originally agreed price to the person paying the deposit no matter now many "higher value financial offers" the shop gets.

As already quoted above, If the retailer would have sold it and in effect Gazumped you, then yes you would have a case, but the chances of that are slim.


The retailer seems to be a fair minded one, who was prepared to reserve the instrument for you , get it repaired and hold it for you, until you paid the remainder.


What you are not taking into account is that even though he is good on his word and doing what he says he will do, you seem quite happy to shaft him and pull out of the sale, without a care in the world for him or the contract made between you both.


You can carry on about specifics about the instrument, but face the facts, there is not a demand for such a product, not like an Iphone, Ipad, top of the range highly consumable product, so he would most likely be sitting on it for a while before he got much interest.


Face up to it, you made a mistake looking for cheaper after you had agreed to buy from him and move on. I have done the same, have thought at the time '' Darn it, pity I didn't check it out first'' But have NEVER pulled out of a deal made. Perhaps it is because I have morals and that I don't like to back out of anything I have agreed to. I do the legwork first and then commit to it. Something that a lot of people on here seem to forget and then come on here bleating about it, demanding their so called 'Rights'


Pay up and get on with your new Instrument, the chances of the other one being any good are slim and anyway who would you get to repair it? Not the retailer you have shafted would it?

SpideressUK

rustyboy21 wrote: »

Face up to it, you made a mistake looking for cheaper after you had agreed to buy from him and move on. I have done the same, have thought at the time '' Darn it, pity I didn't check it out first'' But have NEVER pulled out of a deal made. Perhaps it is because I have morals and that I don't like to back out of anything I have agreed to. I do the legwork first and then commit to it. Something that a lot of people on here seem to forget and then come on here bleating about it, demanding their so called 'Rights'


Pay up and get on with your new Instrument, the chances of the other one being any good are slim and anyway who would you get to repair it? Not the retailer you have shafted would it?

Once again you make incorrect personal assumptions about me:

Assumption Number 1: "I do the legwork first and then commit to it" - Assumption that I have not "done the legwork first". I actually spent a great deal of time researching the instrument, speaking to players, phoning around music shops etc and the private sale item was only listed a few days ago so not even available as an option when I paid the deposit to the shop. Had it been available at that time I would have gone to see the private sale one first.

Assumption Number 2: "Perhaps it is because I have morals and that I don't like to back out of anything I have agreed to" - Assumption that I do not have any morals and that I would have pulled out of the deal. This is incorrect, even if I was guaranteed to get my deposit back it is not necessarily true that I would have pulled out of the deal. In fact, at the time I first saw the advert for the private sale I phoned the shop to tell them about it in case they wanted to buy that instrument, clean it up and sell it on for a profit and at that time of speaking to them I said to them that I was still buying their instrument as I had agreed to with them.

You remind me of one of those doctors who is writing your prescription out before you have even got through their door.

With regards to your "and anyway who would you get to repair it? Not the retailer you have shafted would it?" Firstly I would not be buying the private sale instrument if it was in need of repair. Secondly any music shop would take an instrument for repair and send it off to their workshop, I would not be traveling the length and breadth of the Country again just to get a repair done via the shop from whom I am buying the £1,200 instrument.