Quote:
Originally Posted by mooseman
Look, what did the guy lose? Did they take a deposit and hold it for 6 months before failing to complete the transaction? No, they called immediately and said they couldn't honor the price that it was a mistake.
So, he was out absolutely nothing other than time spent putting together financing. Do I think they oughta offer the guy a discount off of MSRP for wasting his time with financing? Sure. But the expectation that they should eat several thousands of $$$ because they are a big evil car dealer corporation is the stuff of 200 level Sociology majors at San Francisco State.
All I'm asking is that people give other people the benefit of the doubt and treat them how they would want to be treated.
And, I apologize here and now for using words like "spoiled brat." I should have refrained from such ad hominem attacks. It was puerile and I owe the original poster a big apology. I'm sorry.
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He lost the opportunity to get a great deal on a car. It is important to keep in mind that he did nothing wrong to get this deal. He played both fairly and by the eBay rules.
Legally speaking, he is most likely entitled to purchase the car at $60k. The reason why I say "most likely" is that "mistake" is a legally valid contract defense. With that being said, the "mistake" cannot be subjective. Rather, it has to be clear to a reasonable person (i.e., the jury) standing in the offeree's shoes (i.e., the buyer) that the offeror's (i.e., the dealership) offer was clearly a mistake
at the time the offer was made. The fact that a mistake was made is wholly irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is whether it would've been clear to the buyer at the time the offer was made that the seller made a mistake. The law will not allow a buyer to capitalize on a deal that he or she clearly should have known was too good to be true.
Turning to these facts, can it be said that the buyer should have known that the dealership's initial offer of $60k with no reserve was a mistake? In my humble opinion, no. This dealership has done a ton of eBay transactions and, as such, cannot claim ignorance as to how the auction process works. It should have put a reserve on (and, in all likelihood, knew that it didn't put on a reserve). Also, the dealership toyed with the auction several times while it was still open for bidding. These actions allow one to infer that the dealership was fully aware of the terms of its offer (no reserve) while the bidding was occurring. Further, the dealership set the initial offer price at $60k (not one penny like a lot of sellers do). To me, $60k is a pretty high price and suggests to a potential buyer that the dealership was willing to sell at $60k if it absolutely had to. At the end of the day, the dealership simply took a gamble that didn't work out and is now trying to get out of it. Unfortunately for the dealership, seller's remorse is not a legally cognizable defense to contract formation.