Bad Trader: Zacmac26

Not the most egregious of threads I have seen. If he is telling the truth, would have been nice if he secured the bottles better. Not sure if this situation is worthy of a bad trader thread unless his explanation is bogus.

 

I completely disagree with this assessment.

When I agree to a trade, I set those bottles aside immediately. Not saying everyone should do this, just what I personally do.

If you are the guy in question here and you didn’t set them aside, and one of them gets broken or drank, how long before you inform your trade partner. According to the OP (I am assuming he is being truthful) he wasn’t told about it until after he sent tracking on the specified date.

Not to mention OP had to go through a the trouble or tracking down a box already dropped off. Or that this trader has other open trades, so maybe he just got a better deal. Also if I was the BT in question I would be doing everything to track down another FO. Which is not that hard currently if you live in CA.

Until the BT in question explains what exactly happen to the bottle, why he doesn’t want to make good by finding another FO or reworking the trade, I think this is exactly the kind of thing that deserves a BT thread. Just my opinion though.

 

Agree with both points above. However, I just dislike shirking the responsibility for the bottles. Pack them up the day of the trade agreement or the next day. Eliminate any chance of someone drinking or breaking the bottles before they get shipped like they apparently were. I wouldn't leave it to chance by even saying to buddies, don't drink these since they are for a trade.

 

Absolutely best practice. I know stuff happens though, hopefully the trader will hop in and explain what happened/when he realized it.

As an aside, a friend of mine spent years trying to get a bottle of KtG, ran into the guy who brewed it who sent him one, went on his honeymoon and his housesitter popped the bottle and drank it one night (randomly selected from a pretty large cellar). So bizarre stuff definitely happens. But it'd be great to take some precautions and let a trade partner know before, not after, they ship.

 

I am the original trading partner of OP @SaucerfulOfSecrets. He basically has everything correct in his original post. We had agreed to ship after the holiday weekend and when he sent me his tracking, I went to package up my bottles to him and noticed one of bottles was missing. I reached out to my friends that came over Saturday to Monday for the bachelor party to see if anyone knew anything about the beer (none of them are that interested in craft beer) and no one was sure so I still don't know if someone broke it on accident or drank it on accident.

So I messaged OP back within about a half hour after he sent tracking. Agreed with everyone here, I wish I had noticed sooner, wish I had been able to message OP sooner, wish I had set the bottles aside/pre-packed them. We had been messaging back and forth more throughout the day and I offered to ship his bottles back with apology beers for the inconvenience if they made it on a truck and created a Pacific Region IP ISO:FT for another bottle (plenty of views and 1 like but no bites yet). I had mentioned to OP before I created the ISO:FT that I would attempt to get another bottle but that it would be tough to get as what I have and have access to is the same as what many others in Socal have and have access to. That was yesterday and here we are today.

The situation sucks and I have apologized to OP for the inconvenience/stress/waste of his time, he obviously has no fault in any of this.

 

Reading back what I said earlier, it felt a little accusatory, not my goal. My main point was that when something like this happens, it’s good if the community as a whole can get an explanation.

In this case I feel the above explanation is a great example of how someone who makes a mistake should handle it. Basically take responsibility and say sorry. This response would be a great lesson to a lot of other bad traders who just throw blame at everyone else.

It sucks the OP had to go through the hassle, but I don’t think an honest mistake should make @Zacmac26 a bad trader.

 

If the original trade was for 3:2 SP fruits/FOb4 then perhaps OP would settle for 1+:1 or 2:1+ (the pluses could be fresh hops or just a light +)

 

How does $1,000 apply here though?

 

1,000 was just an arbitrarily large number to show that the OPs statement that someone should ALWAYS make it right is too blanketed of a statement. There always have to be exceptions.

 

Ok, would this thread be going in the same direction if the bottle was KBBS instead of FO?

 

This bad trader thread is a bit too much and not appropriate in my view. The OP is not out of his beer and there was no communication issues. Unfortunate things happen to beer and in trading, and if this happened to me and I was the OP, the route that alleged bad trader took would be the scenario I would hope for. About the only thing he could have done more would be to reimburse OP for shipping costs. Otherwise the most extreme feedback that should be left is ‘neutral’ and not bad. Beyond that, I think the accused bad trader did a reasonable amount to try and recrify the situation.

 

To be honest, if we (all) accept that this was an honest mistake/isolated incident, and there is no BT, I think no feedback should be left for either party. And I think that should be mandated.

No trade, no feedback. I can't really find a way to justify a neutral response when we are saying that we think the trader in question "did everything they should." Isn't that a "good" trader? Wasn't the experience with the trader what we would want?

The irony is that I think that neutral normally does not get used enough. But if we think someone did everything right, i just can't really see a reason for them to get a demerit.