Oh please… I believe in courtesy and respect, during these transactions, but in regard to promises… this is the real world. Craigslist sales and promises are mutually exclusive terms. It’s up to each individual to assess the situation and do as they see fit. There is nothing immoral about changing your mind, trusting your intuition, or simply taking the faster buyer or higher offer for your item.

Also? Didn’t you just sell these chairs at the Hoard Sale?? Lol!

Craigslist sellers aren’t really held to that standard. For the most part, they’re just one-off deals with the only real cost to sellers being that they have the item, will or won’t make a profit off of it, and they may have to wait a long time to do so if the price is not right. So these sellers have just the issues of possession, potential for profit, and time/convenience. These instances, it’s the seller who makes the rules and can afford to be flaky or rude in favor of the logical business decision. All they need is to succeed once in a deal and get their money, not make friends.

In this case, the specific seller did the logical thing by taking the offer with more money. Whether or not they were fair or professional, is another matter and I think that reflects directly on that particular sellers values and attitudes. I’d say most CL buyers should be aware that they are not owed anything beyond common courtesy such as being informed that an item has been sold or that there is another offer on the table and can they match that? After all, between sellers and buyers, who sets the rules and has the better bargaining power (i.e. the item) in hand?

In as far as I’ve read, CL has rules merely about postings, harassment, malicious adverts, “phishing”, etc. Nothing about how people should run their personal deals and business decisions.