Have you guys ever been to a train show and things got heated between a customer and a vendor?

Only when I was a kid.  An old grump tried to rip me off, till Gramps showed up and "asked him nicely" for his money back.

If my Gramps "asked nice" it was sarcasm that couldn't be missed. Or shouldn't have been if you had sense.

My last train show for almost forty years.

Adriatic posted:

Only when I was a kid.  An old grump tried to rip me off, till Gramps showed up and "asked him nicely" for his money back.

If my Gramps "asked nice" it was sarcasm that couldn't be missed. Or shouldn't have been if you had sense.

My last train show for almost forty years.

I bet you got your money back.Which is good.

Some shows just bring out the "vulture carp" buyers. There is one particular person that always appears at our local shows. I remember him for starting a fist fight at the Lionel visitor store. 

He will hover and hound the seller for a deal and become extremely irate if the seller does not drop his price.

If he does swaggle a deal he will immediately race home and put it on the bay for 3 or 5 times the price... (just look for the pink ruler)

A real low life... and detracts from the hobby.. 

A private one with an old fart seller at York. He had something I had been looking for but when I picked it up he went into hyper tension. He had no do not touch signs and I told him I won't buy what I can't look at. His reply was you can look but do not touch. I walked away. April York it was still on his table.

April York it was still on his table.

Did you find another?

Many years ago at a Greenberg show with a dealer named Mel Price, may God rest his soul, who insisted a bum engine we were returning was not his. My friend had purchased the item a week before at another show. If anybody knew this guy you know he get quit loud and nasty. Fortunately and wisely �� he maintained his cool and they worked it out ...

Another Greenberg show years ago:  A prospective customer was flipping tags over to see the prices when the seller suddenly went off on him with some of the filthiest language I've ever heard (and I'm an old Sailor with a terminal case of sailor mouth myself). The customer very slowly reached over and took the seller by the throat and squeezed until his tongue stuck out and said "I just wanted to see if your tongue had turned black from those words" and left. On my second pass through the hall, the seller had packed and left.

"I remember him for starting a fist fight at the Lionel visitor store. "

He's real nasty . He's been kicked off Ebay and thinks he's a "player". Over-priced REJECTS ffrom the old Lionel store. A definite  loser and NOT representative of most in the hobby.

I've gotten into it with sellers twice. Both times while showing a newbie the ropes sellers overheard what I was telling them and didn't like it.  You know the type - the ones at every show selling PS1 and MPC era stuff at the same prices as 20 years ago.

Of course, it was a dumb move on their part as instead of just the person I was with hearing, everyone in a 30 foot radius heard.

-Greg

Never really had a problem with a vendor but when I was selling some engines on the ogr board around 6 years ago.

The buyer of one of the engines was very happy with the engine and the deal. Now forward about 5 years.

I received an email from the guy who bought the engine and wanted to return the engine to me. He told me he was tired of the engine and wanted me to refund what he paid. Of course I said no. I then got a obscene email accusing me of being a thief and many other names. 

I told him I don't lease model engines. You bought it, now you own it. You had it for 5 years! 

I then blocked him. Talk about balls. 

I never had a problem at a train show other then somebody giving me too low of a price on something and I told them NO Sale.

I have had more problems with selling things on the forum for sale list then at train shows. So I quit listing stuff for sale on here, "end of story."

Lee Fritz

artyoung posted:

The customer very slowly reached over and took the seller by the throat and squeezed until his tongue stuck out and said "I just wanted to see if your tongue had turned black from those words" and left.

I hate to say it, but I would like to have seen that.

Steven J. Serenska

david1 posted:

Never really had a problem with a vendor but when I was selling some engines on the ogr board around 6 years ago.

The buyer of one of the engines was very happy with the engine and the deal. Now forward about 5 years.

I received an email from the guy who bought the engine and wanted to return the engine to me. He told me he was tired of the engine and wanted me to refund what he paid. Of course I said no. I then got a obscene email accusing me of being a thief and many other names. 

I told him I don't lease model engines. You bought it, now you own it. You had it for 5 years! 

I then blocked him. Talk about balls. 

 

Amazing!! I like your lease comment. Lol. 

It's not really "getting into it", but one of my pet peeves is, after I politely say no to some seller's asking price, he immediately goes into hard-sell mode and/or starts questioning whether my expectations are realistic.

As an example, I purchased a postwar 415 Lionel Diesel Fueling station on an auction site 1-2 years ago for $47 plus, approx $13 for shipping. All in, I got it for around $60.

I was at a NETCA show a short while later and a guy had one on his table.  Because I am still an interested observer of the market, I flipped over his tag and saw he wanted $125.  I didn't say anything and continued to look at his other items.  He was staring at me like a hawk and said, "I can work with you on that fueling station."  I replied, "Sorry, no thanks.  It's ok."

He persisted with a trace of aggression, and said, "Well? Make me an offer."  I went with my standard second round of polite responses and said, "I'm sorry, that's a little over my budget for today."  I usually take this tack because many sellers will understand that it's nobody's business how much money I have to spend on trains.

Not this guy.  He said, "What's your budget?"  I said, "Sorry, I'm just not interested."  He then went into complete hard-sell mode and told me I wasn't going to find another one at the show, he hasn't seen one that nice for years, the rubber hose was still pliable and they often aren't, all the window inserts are there, it's got the box and instructions, George Washington slept in it, etc., etc., etc.

I didn't say anything else and just walked on to the next table, whereupon he said to no one in particular, but nice and loud, "And this guy just walks away?" He said it like I had been wasting *his* time.  I could hear him the rest of the way down the aisle with other assorted blather I didn't feel like responding to.

I can be a bad, snappish New Yorker and, believe me, it was all I could do to not say "I'm not interested because I just bought one for half your asking price, you moron.  Sheesh, take a hint." But this guy just wasn't worth the effort.

So it goes.  I find it helps to keep a quote often attributed to George Bernard Shaw in the back of my mind about why it's not a good idea to wrestle with a pig.

Steven J. Serenska

I recall one time years ago I went to a local show and saw an item I was interested in.  This particular item happened to be an uncatalogued item that ended up being produced in comparably low numbers once it was made, though that was not probably obvious to the hobby until it became "hot" and people were clamoring over it.

I saw this item on a vendor's table with what would have been a "normal" price for such an item of a similar rolling stock type.

When I expressed my interest, he claimed that that couldn't possibly be the right price for the piece and told me that "kids must have switched his price tags around". 

Now, these were not price tags that are simple to remove, like a post it that many sellers sometimes use at meets/shows to price their items.  This was a small label that would have at the least required some picking with a finger nail to lift up an edge to get a handle on a corner before you could remove it.

I always suspected the more likely scenario is that he priced it when he received it (before it became "hot") and didn't remember to modify the pricing to the level he really wanted to mark it up to before putting it on his table for that show.

To this day (probably almost 10 years later), I remember who that seller was and I refuse to enter his booth to look for anything when shopping.

-Dave

I've been attending train shows for almost 30 years, and I don't believe I have witnessed a major altercation between buyers and sellers. I have heard a lot of comments to third parties by both, however: sellers to the effect that "some people" don't want to pay what an item is really worth, and buyers to the effect that "some people" don't want to sell for what an item is really worth. I can never determine whether the "some people" refers to the same people or to different people. 

Most of the meets I go to are the NETCA meets.  I have both bought and sold at many meets.  I have never witnessed or heard a squabble.  However, as a seller, I had a very pleasant experience at one show.  An older gentleman picked up a car on my table that I had marked at $50.00.  He told me he would like to purchase it at $50.00, but he would feel like a thief if he did at he was sure it was worth at least 3 times as much.  I checked my price sheet and found I had marked the car incorrectly and the tag should have read $150.00 not $50.00.  I told him since he had been so honest, I would sell it to him for $135.00.  He said nope, it is well worth $150.00 so that is what I am going to give you for it.

A very honest gentleman, indeed.

Jim Lawson

artyoung posted:

Another Greenberg show years ago:  A prospective customer was flipping tags over to see the prices when the seller suddenly went off on him with some of the filthiest language I've ever heard (and I'm an old Sailor with a terminal case of sailor mouth myself). The customer very slowly reached over and took the seller by the throat and squeezed until his tongue stuck out and said "I just wanted to see if your tongue had turned black from those words" and left. On my second pass through the hall, the seller had packed and left.

That is because this person saw his life flash before his eyes.Not every body is gonna take stuff like that.

dgauss posted:

"I remember him for starting a fist fight at the Lionel visitor store. "

He's real nasty . He's been kicked off Ebay and thinks he's a "player". Over-priced REJECTS ffrom the old Lionel store. A definite  loser and NOT representative of most in the hobby.

Sad to hear he gonna find himself all alone.Because no one will want to be around.At most he could find himself band from venders.