I don’t know if this qualifies as a clear black and white bad trader, but I wanted to get fellow BA’ers thoughts. The trader posts a simple 1:1 (BA Snowbirds for FOb4) in person trade. I make contact and we agree on the trade this past Monday as stated. Since I was traveling back from the holidays we agree to set up the meet up time and place later. We did not use the BA trade request feature and that’s on me. Given that I have over 60 completed trades on BA and the person has over 25 I felt comfortable especially since it was an in person trade. I reach back out on Wednesday to set up the exchange and get no response. I reach out again yesterday and finally get this response: This is super awkward, I’m looking at my cellar right now, and thought I had another BASB, but I don’t seem to have one. I’m really sorry about this. I get that stuff happens, but this is the first time this type of situation has come up in my time in trading. I am also not sure why it took five days to check his cellar (it’s fairly obvious he should have checked prior to posting the trade offer). In my opinion I feel the trader should at least make an attempt to make it right.
Sketchy and poor form, but not sure if worthy of Bad Trader™️ The one recurring theme with this stuff is people not using trade requests.
Always use trade request system. I don’t care how many trades each person has. I appreciate you owning it, but it limits recourse in instances exactly like this. As for the trade and potential bad trader, I don’t know how on earth he makes the trade post for a bottle he actually doesn’t have. Not sure how someone makes that mistake. That said, could also just be an easy out to not wanting to do the trade anymore. Purely speculation on my part. Was typing as @rozzom posted, totally agree with his statements.
If the OP had opened up a trade request with the trader on the other side and he backs out because he can't find his bottle does that warrant him as a bad trader? Like you said, the OP owns up to it that he didn't open up a ticket since it's an IP trade and I sympathize with that too since I typically don't open up trade tickets for IP trades. Fortunately they've all worked out for me. But IMO regardless of whether a trade ticket was opened or not, it sounds like there was a written agreement about the trade that both parties will uphold it and one party cancels last minute with a weak excuse. I would like to be made aware of people like that in this trading community so I know to avoid them.
This guy changed his mind, he probably got a better trade and went with that. BA snowbirds was trading higher than fob4 so probably had second thoughts and just said f' it. I made a trade on IG already and someone finally got back to me with a better offer but I had already committed to the other one. I could have and wanted to forget the other trade but I wouldn't want that to happen to me. But back to your post, if you had something in writing that's good enough for me to consider someone a bad trader. I wouldn't want to trade with that person. Tough one, maybe there should be a flip flopper page for traders like this.
Yes. Trade agreement sent accepted and someone backs out, then bad trader. That said, if they work to make it right then I’d be more lenient and leave neutral feedback over someone who backs out with a shitty attitude then ghosts on you. Just me, I use the trade system no matter what type of trade it is-IP or ship. I still don’t understand how someone posts a trade for a bottle they don’t end up having. I don’t go off of memory for my cellar. I personally get that bottle(s) in hand before I post and or reply to a posted trade. Agree. I’ve had a few instances of verbal trade agreements, trade request planned on, but not completed, then the other person flakes and the trade never happens. Never started a bad trader thread, but they go on my personal Do Not Trade With list.
I just want to state the obvious again and something that should be done every time a beer trade is being coordinated as a result of being on Beer Advocate: open an official trade. It’s very easy and simple. Even if opening a trade among parties with 200+ completed trades each, just do it to get your stats up if nothing else. No one should be upset or offended an official trade is being opened and it takes 5 seconds of effort. I have a descent amount of completed trades and I would NEVER be offended if a repeat, IP, or otherwise trade partner sends over a trade request.
Thanks everyone for the comments and feedback. I have certainly learned my lesson to go through the BA trading feature for every single trade going forward. For those who don’t want to run into this situation with this trader, here is the link to the trade post. The post was edited within the last two days to “CLOSED”. It’s not clear what that means since it was certainly not closed with me. https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/iso-fob4-ft-ba-snowbirds-closed.600827/
Yeah for sure. It was a mistake by me, I was almost positive I had an extra BASB, wanted to trade it, so made the post. It was to be an easy 1:1, he said he was out of town for the weekend and we would meet up the following week and work our the timing later. I had a crazy busy week at work, and missed his message, but when I went to follow up, I decided I should look through to make sure I had the beer (yes something I should have done before I offered the trade). When I realized I didn’t have the beer I had wanted to trade I immediately messaged him about my mistake. I did not close this trade elsewhere. As for the closed edit, I was getting other messages about the trade from BAers so wanted to let people know it was not open. Again this was my silly mistake on my part, and something I’ll learn from in the future. @beerwhalehunter I apologize for the inconvience, and if I can get another BASB, I’ll close the trade, but I currently simply don’t have the bottle.
As others have said, opening up a formal trade request is essential to have a deterrent for any trader to pull any shenanigans. In this instance, seems like an honest mistake was made. But of course people can come up with any excuse to mask bad behavior, hence the trade request and feedback at least gives people the ability to mitigate this or give feedback so other people know.
