Vintage Karting ethics

[steveohara]

I see that REAR decided to lock the thread started by Matt regarding the Caretta on ebay so I'm starting a new thread on a different but similar subject for the purpose of soliciting opinions about the standards we might reasonably expect form people in our small community of Vintage Karting.

A while back I received my first negative feedback on ebay after doing nearly 300 transactions without a problem. Oddly, I was the Buyer in the transaction and received the following intelligent post to my account...

" Thanks for the neg feedback jerk! didn't know a part was missing never opened it"

The above feedback was in response to my complaint that the Seller sold me a Dyna Drive gearbox through ebay and did not disclose that the box was missing the drive gear which of course rendered the box unusable. After I received the box and discovered the gear was missing I wrote the Seller several messages asking if he might look around his shop to see if he could locate the gear and I received no reply. I finally gave up and posted the following feedback on his account..

"Item missing an internal part making it useless, not disclosed by seller,BEWARE!"

So, this leads to the questions I pose today for members of our Vintage Karting community.....

Are we a community of ruthless traders that live by the standard "let the buyer/seller beware" where we stand behind excuses such as "I didn't look at the item I was selling" or should we expect a higher standard of behavior? Will our hobby grow and welcome new members if we become known as a community of "savvy" people that seek to take advantage of others with less knowledge or experience? Is our definition of a "good deal" one where we scoop the other party in the transaction and secure a financial gain through deceit or exploitation of anothers lack of information or would we be better served as a community by adopting a standard where we would be proud of our behavior regardless of which side of the deal we are on?


Comments please.

Steve O'Hara

[matt cowley]

True its my fault for not looking in the gear box. but One email to ask me to look for it, Not for a refund because you got it dirt cheep then three days later a Neg feedback. 600 transactions on ebay this was a first. I spent hours looking through a bunch of boxes for that damn thing too then you give a neg feedback because I didn't get back to you quick enough. What did you expect me to say on your neg. feedback Have a nice day!

[Darvin Jahnke]

Steve, I touched on this in the previous thread but will expand on my thoughts. The true collector gathers up these machines and parts to restore them out of a passion for the old machines and to preserve history. There is no profit motive to cloud the issue. If I sell someone a part they need because I have an extra,the price is usually what I have in it or a fair price if I don't remember where I got it or what I paid for it. The deal is as between friends and if the item is not what the other person expected,send it back and I'll return your money. Then there are the parts jockeys that are only in it for the money. Now some of these people provide a service to collectors by making the parts available and are ethical to deal with. However others are only motivated by profit and aren't too particular about how they arrive at it. These could be the people that try to undercut someone else's deal or use cut throat tactics. If you are dealing on something,you could give me all the information,name,price,location etc. and I guarantee you the only way I would get involved is if you specifically told me you were no longer interested. That is the ethical thing to do and the way I would like to be known. Although I'm fairly new to vintage karts,I've been into vintage snowmobiles for years(I live in MN) and many people will vouch for my integrity.

[Tom Luttenbacher]

I don't see much difference between this thread and the Caretta thread and should be locked or whatever it is that R.E.A.R. Moderators did. TL

[Frank Payne]

It is irresponsible to not post complete pics of the item in the auction listing. It is also irresponsible to not ask pertinent questions before close of auction. The thing I hate most about Ebay is sellers expect the buyer to post pos feedback first. This is not only stupid but it allows poor sellers to hold a buyer hostage with the threat of giving them neg feedback if the buyer is honest about a bad transaction. My premise here is, once a buyer gives a proper shipping address and pays for the item according to the sellers instructions, the buyer has completed his portion of the contract and should be given prompt positive feedback. This almost never happens, instead I am forced to give feedback as soon as I receive an item, then more often than not have to remind a seller to give me feedback. Most of these morons take their sweet time and it makes me furious! If you two guys are really bothered by the negatives, I think you can petition ebay to withdraw both of the feedbacks. I hate Ebay but it is the easiest way to find the parts.

[Dominic Salvato]

Come on Matt, you admit you made a mistake, then you made another one by posting bad feedback on a person that trusted you. You have to pay him back and you have to eat the shipping. It's the only right thing to do and you know it. It was a MISTAKE thats all, don't make it worse. Simple fix!

[steveohara]

Gentlemen,

I intentionally avoided using any ID in my example as I did not intend my post to be a public opinion poll on a specific event or individual. I'm satisfied that my transaction with Matt was an honest mistake and better communication could have avoided the negative feelings on both sides. It's just an example of the kind of interaction that can be a negative for vintage karting.
I raised the issue because I have seen so many cases of people new to vintage karting getting screwed by others that know exactly what they were doing. Although I am not in the business of building motors I have agreed to assist about a half dozen newcomers to the hobby over the last few years and I have been really disappointed with what I've seen. In each case I was contacted by someone new to the sport that had recently purchased a Mac engine and asked if I would take a look at it to see if it was safe to run. Some of the transactions were ebay and others were generated off this board. In every case, the motors were not as advertised and the flaws were clearly visable and it did not take an expert or special tools to know they were bad. I've seen engines sold as "rebuilt" and "test fired", "freshly honed", etc and the sellers are people active in the sport for years yet the deficiencies in the motors included things like connecting rods with mismatched rod caps (the seller took the mismatched parts to a belt sander to eliminate the unique break pattern from each part so they would bolt together), pistons that had broken ring lands, bores that were twenty thou bigger than the piston, cranks with giant chunks broken out around the flywheel key, heads with no spark plug threads, motors sold with a header where one exhaust bolt was good and the other was a 1/2" diameter hole, etc. etc. etc. In other cases I've seen motors sold as one model but they were obviously not.... I bought one once advertised as a fresh 101A/A and when I got it the motor was a Mac 92 block with a 45 crank and 101 shrouds. It was a beautiful motor clearly assembled by a knowledgable person that had to know it was not what it was advertised to be. In at least five cases, the motors I was asked to look at would have self destructed in a very short time without major repairs. My real concern here is this..... there must be hundreds of stories out there like the handful I have seen and I wonder how many good people have tasted the sour side of vintage karting and walked away thinking that they had just been screwed and don't want to stick around for a second helping? I wonder if the sellers of these junk piles realize that they damage the sport and undermine the value of all of the equipment when they elect to make a few extra bucks while they drive away another participant/customer?
Maybe I'm being naive here but I think the sport and all who want to be a part of it would be better served by more honest and careful disclosure of the things offered for sale. Obviously, there are going to be sellers who simply don't know since they are not part of the sport but we can even help in those cases. When I look at a listing on ebay and see that a seller has identified his item incorrectly I will send a message to let him know what he has. Most, but not all, appreciate the information and revise their listing. Some are obviously intent on misleading the buyer in order to get a better price even when they have been informed of the discrepancy.
I agree with Frank, the ebay system is bad in that it holds the buyer hostage to retaliatory negative feedback but we are fortunate to have places like this board to alert vintage karters to potential abusers. Unfortunately, I find that most are afraid to air their grievances in any forum and they just accept that they have been hosed. I have been involved in karting for over 40 years now and I have to say that the people I've met in the vintage karting scene over the last 5 years are as a group the nicest, most generous and enjoyable people I've ever encountered. It's just a shame there always has to be a tiny minority out there that have a different agenda but we can reduce the effect by looking out for each other and sharing information.

Steve O'Hara

[REAR]

Tom, and all others.

We are watching this very closely and if it becomes another crybaby entitlement bitch fest we will pull it and throw the whiners off this forum.

Keep in mind also that if this type of behavior continues we may be forced to bring back the dreaded 'Holiday Facts' segment to occupy your time.

Now, Darvin summed this whole deal up very nicely and everybody should go back and read his post and remember it for next time you make a purchase or sell something. Then ask yourself , how would you feel if you where on the wrong end of a deal ?

Merry Christmas...R.E.A.R.

[Frank Payne]

Amen to the last posts. 99% of the people if have personally met in vintage karting are very honest. We who have had experience with the 1%ers need to let as many as we can know lest any one else be taken advantage of. I always remember the words "BE VERY CAREFUL"
Frank Payne