When is it alright to crap on someone's parade?

squall280

Active member
Joined
Mar 19, 2010
Messages
1,382
Reaction score
19
Location
Pennsylvania
Ok we all been thru this at one point or another. You find a machine or a piece your interested in and the seller wants hundreds if not thousands for a piece(cause they are ill informed or just don't know). I was curious how people approach this. for example i recently picked up ghosts and goblins from a real nice guy locally. he told me it was in really beautiful condition and he had a price set in his mind. when i went in person i noticed signs that something was up. the cab had spray foam in it. so without much hesitance i made an offer which he took me up on. when we go to move it the spray foam proved to be correct in my assumptions somethign was wrong. the whoel side of the cab that was up against a wall was soaked. now the game played fine and everything worked but i felt liek a complete jerk asking him if he would go lower. under the circumstances he said yeah. he truthfully didn;t know. he moved into a house and they were left there and he ust wanted to make some money on them.

another experience was when someone had an auction a year or two back. i drove over two hours to the auction and remembered the guy who was selling. he had weeks before bought alot of machines at the coney island aracde auction all for about 50 bucks. he kinda stuck out in the auction. anyways i guess his theory was to buy cheap and resell. but before the auction i overheard the story. he bought them but never took into consideration the reloacting fee it woudl cost to transport about 50 machines over 100 miles.

anyways the auction starts and the first machien was a coors light dart board. went for 75 buck. the seller was livid. absolutely outraged. the second machine went off was a send virtual tenns for once again 75 bucks. the seller screamed out to the auctioneer and had a communication breakdown.....after about 5 minutes of arguing it was decided that for the remainder of the auction all potential buyers were bidding to negotiate......yeah really depressing. so i stick around cause i was interested inthe one machine and he wanted 600 for something i know for a fact he paid for 50 dollars for. i told him i seen him at the previous auction buying them that cheap. he told me he would do 400. not only did i waste my time driving there but having to deal with this guy was a joke. the only reason i wasn;t able to get it at the original auction was cause i bought two machines and thats all i could have traveled with. 6 player x-men sure does take a bulk of the space up.

thats just one of a few situations i dealt with. anyone wish to share their experiences.
 
The price someone else paid for a game should not factor into anything unless you are close friends and trying to help someone out. He bought the games and had to transport them. If the price is fair, buy it, if not, don't. Maybe the seller bought a ton of games he didn't want and couldn't move to get a few that he did want and could sell for more. Maybe that was one of those games, you just don't know. Personally, I don't mind if people make money off me as long as I am getting the deal I want. It's a win, win in my book.

I guess I am not sure what you mean by "crap on someone's parade." Do you mean tell them they are nuts for asking what they are asking for a game? Normally that doesn't get you anywhere. Being polite is the best way to do it. People don't respond well to insults. Leave your name and number and tell them if they change their mind, contact you and you will pick up with cash, no questions asked.
 
Last edited:
the problem with the arcade auctionwas i drove 2 hours and the real auction last all of 2 minutes and turned into a mess.

i just mean stories where you dealt with sellers that were nuts with prices or just had a really bad attitude.

when i buy i am very polite myself and i try to inform sellers. last pick up i informed the seller what to list his ms pacman for. since i already have one i didn;t need an extra.

one time i drove out to buy a machine and when i got the the seller told me he had a better offer and that he wasn;t selling unless i at least matched the "offer" he received. as i drove away he called and said the other seller backed out. i kept driving.
 
I have had a few Craigslist jerk arounds. The first was a deal I had made over the phone to buy some crappy Bubble Bobble conversion in a Joust cabinet for $60. I only wanted the cabinet. When I got there, somebody had called and told him the cabinet was worth $600 alone. When I tried to explain that a fully working Joust with side art in excellent shape might be worth $600, he went off. After I let him finish his rant. I just casually asked if the caller was coming over with the $600 because I was right there and I have the $60, truck and a dolly. I left with the machine in my truck (for $60) and he even helped load it. After replacing the op amp on the BB board and fixing a cracked trace, I sold it on eBay for $175 (I started the auction at $10 at the time I didn't realize how crazy people go for BB). I ended up selling the Joust for $400 after I converted it back to Joust. It was just missing the sideart and I sold it after I got a better looking one with intact sideart.

It has gotten to the point where I rarely bother with Craigslist anymore. With all the auction/picker shows everybody thinks there's gold in those cabinets that is makeing them so heavy.

ken
 
I can see what you're getting at, just remember if you're going to source games from operators and auctions, you're going to have to develop a pretty tough skin. Even dealing with the public via Craigslist requires a fairly tough hide.

You've got a mix of money, opinion, and emotion in just about any coin-op buying setting, that's a recipe for some heated confrontations, stick around long enough though, and you'll see them all and get used to it.
 
You've got a mix of money, opinion, and emotion in just about any coin-op buying setting, that's a recipe for some heated confrontations, stick around long enough though, and you'll see them all and get used to it.

Sounds like the stock market :)
 
If you crap on someone's parade you have to live with results of that.

I use to run a surplus eletronic store. I had people making all these rude comments about the store. Excuse me this is a surplus eletronic store where half the store have no prices. It is not a retail store it will always look like a bit of a straighten up junk yard.

Well they wanted to buy some items and I refused to sell it to them. They got mad and wanted to speak to the owner. I gave them corperate number. I hold people accountable for being rude plain and simple.

So if you crap on someone parade don't get mad or upset when they don't want to deal with you.
 
Back
Top Bottom