Boy thanks for all the responses in such a short period of time. With a couple of exceptions (unfortunately including the one from Audiogon) that fact that others were equally as troubled sure makes me feel better about using this site - it's just going to take time to find the straight shooters. I think Macm nailed it, and I am pretty troubled by the Audiogon response in that it indicates a "verifiable agreement had not been reached" as either no payment had been sent or the product had not been shipped. I am no lawyer, but I have spent enough time with lawyers to be confident that an agreement can be reached (both written and verbally) prior to payment for or shipment of of the product. Under the proposed Audiogon guidelines an individual could agree to purchase something via money order, then spend the next several days looking for a better deal before sending payment. If they find a better deal take it, drop the first deal, and have no risk of bad feedback. There are obviously a multitude of scenarios that can create problems under these existing criteria. I can assure you I have a sequence of time-stamped e-mails that would constitute a "verifiable agreement" by almost any standard. I came to this site assuming the feedback system was an effective form of self-policeing (policing?). Seems like there is still some work left to turn this into a reliable system. The good news is they are focused on it. I thought I was doing the users of this site a favor by giving this guy negative feedback to alert others to be careful when dealing with him. Question now is whether under the current rules of the game I am obligated to go back to Audiogon and request that they remove this negative feedback - I think this is the case based on the Audiogon commentary above.
Conduct on Audiogon
I am relatively new to Audiogon and have a question about how business is conducted on this site. This morning I made an offer to purchase an interconnect at a certain price and if the seller responded within the day. I received an e-mail from the seller indicating "I'll accept your offer" and notifying me that he would accept paypal or a money order as payment. At this point I have made an offer, he has accepted, and I am thinking we have a deal. 42 minutes later he sends me an e-mail saying he needs me to reconfirm within 10 minutes or he is going to sell to someone else. Of course I am not monitoring e-mail on a minute by minute basis since I have to keep my day job in order to support this expensive habit, and the guy turns around and sells this thing to someone else. In the regular, non-internet, world where I operate this type of conduct would be total b.s. But when I ask this guy how he can agree than simply back out he tells me this happens all the time on Audiogon. Is this really the case? Does this type of conduct merit negative feedback or am I overreacting?