EU. I thought that the 2nd amendment was the Right to keep and bear arms, more of a gun issue than a trading and selling issue ? Maybe I’m wrong !
Yes, but they are very much "anti-gun" , whereas we, for the most part, prefer the right to bear arms. which was one of the "cultural differences".
Since this post, I just had a transaction with a person who is sending me a very expensive piece of test equipment " for my evaluation and eventual purchase, if it meets my approval" While I appreciate the trust he has placed in me, I think this is a poor way to conduct business in the "real world". I had offered to PayPal him.
It was offered it to me at a price a week, prior, but I took some time to "think about it". Had he sold it to someone else in the mean time for a better price would have been on me.
Anyway, the point is that people see the world through their own cultural and experiential lens. It's hard to say what is the "right way" or "wrong way" as long as no one gets ripped off. The seller left the OP in no worse shape than when they started.
Has anyone considered that the OP may have been taking advantage of the seller's ignorance of the value? Perhaps he was going to re-sell it for a profit?
There are always AT LEAST two side to the story...did we get all the FACTS?
Well, perhaps as one of those strange, not to be named, "others" I'll have one more go.
Regarding the original post, no-one is arguing there was any illegality. The seller and buyer engaged in a sale and offer (not auction) process, which was in progress. No consideration, financial or other, had changed hands so in terms of a contract, there was no breach, at least in the law as it applies here. In that sense the buyer was no worse off but he asserts, and I agree, that the purchaser unilaterally accepting a third party offer constitutes unethical behaviour. Just as the seller could technically shut down the process, the buyer has a right to honestly report what he sees as a breach of ethics. It's for the greater good that he did so.
There are many red herrings that can be introduced but there are enough different viewpoints arising from the facts as reported, without seeking to re-write the OP's post for him.
I didn't miss the original reference to the US 2nd amendment but regarded it as an attempt to introduce unwarranted prejudice to a simple discussion of ethics. But on gun violence, you're probably more familiar than I am with comparative studies such as one published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (
https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier). I won't comment on the US situation but would note that many Australians regard the numbers for this country as still too high and look to more effective restrictions and law enforcement. While there's no room for complacency I observe that gun advocates, local and imported, see their cause do badly at the ballot box. In the obligatory, preferential, rigorously conducted elections any occasional success they have is more often than not the result of quirks in preference distribution. Which is, as the larger results consistently show, a good thing in the minds of the overwhelming majority.