Bad Trader: Zacmac26

Ahhh, then I misunderstood that part. Thank you for pointing that out. Then my comment about 'bad trader' having to pay for the OPs shipping may not even be applicable.

 

You're making a lot of assumptions that are hurting whatever minor case you may have had.

A humble suggestion: contact a mod & have this whole thread nuked. Nothing about this is making you look good, & after reading it, I'd still happily trade with @Zacmac26.

 

Him offering Ground State doesn't sound like balking at that idea to me. I realize Ground State and FO aren't exactly the same, but they are pretty close. Not that you should be obligated to take that swap out--but it does speak to OP's mindset and intentions.

Others have said it already, but I find your position on this matter to involve unreasonable expectations as to how much one side of a trade is owed after the initial agreement is made. Yes, a deal is a deal, but in my mind that simply means that both parties have agreed to complete the specified trade in good faith to the best of their ability. Not that the trade must be completed at any cost whatsoever.

Seems unfair to me that @Zacmac26 may have to live with neutral feedback and this thread when it seems like he did everything we would expect a Good Trader to do except keep his bottles under lock and key until shipping them.

For what it's worth, I think you'd be best off letting the trade die by skipping over leaving feedback. Part of being a good trader is showing some understanding--especially in a situation where the only real harm you've suffered is the disappointment of not completing the trade and the hassle of having to get your box back before it shipped out.

 

Good afternoon-

In reading this over and taking everyone's comments/feedback into consideration....here are my thoughts as both a trader & moderator.

(1) when you agree to a trade, make sure the bottles are *secured* in your possession. This includes from the time the trade is accepted, boxed up, and tracking sent to your trade partner. I realize things can happen...BUT....if you have a bachelor party where drinks are consumed (typically)....make sure your bottle or bottles that you agreed to trade are NOT available for someone to drink accidentally or break. That seems like the biggest *mistake* here and is NOT the first time someone has used that as a reason for not fulfilling a trade (bottle got drank).

(2) This thread is a good learning tool for all traders. My suggestion would be to *edit* the thread title appropriately and move to the trading forum and lock-up. Deleting this doesn't make traders aware of situations like this that they can learn from.

(3) As far as feedback.... that is the decision of the traders. They can certainly work that out amongst themselves to NOT leave any for each other and let it purge. If one leaves feedback and the other does not....the person who does not leave feedback will be nudged by a moderator to complete their feedback before the purge.

My envision for feedback in this situation if left:
OP gets positive, trader in question gets nuetral. This of course, if they can not complete the trade or alter the original trade.

@John_M

This sound good to you?

 

In the past it was stated that - at least positive feedback - could not be left if a trade was not competed. This came up with someone that got banned who only had like 3 trades. The first was something like "Did not even exchange bottles. Super cool guy!"

Am I misunderstanding the rules/regulations?

If we allow (positive) feedback when no bottles were exchanged, seems like we are staying that it is OK in some instances, but on a case by case basis, which still creates a loop hole. Seems like a bad idea.

Also, it's not clear to me that I would want to leave "positive" feedback if I was the "BT" in question. From anyone's perspective, no one seems to think the OP was an angel in his response. Is it absolute that "positive" feedback would be required?

 

I did not know this. Assuming this is true for all open trades, I have learned something today.

 

These types of threads always confuse me, but I seem to be in the minority based on others saying they've seen it happen........... By this, I mean rare beers just happening to get drank or broken. Am I really the only one that doesn't just leave their best beers right out in the open, or in the kitchen fridge for others to have free dibs on??? If I have people coming over or some big party then bottles of FO wouldn't be left where other might potentially drink or break them. I'd pick up local stuff for the people who aren't big into the beer game and drink whatever is there. Normally with my craft friends we will have a few things we decided on splitting for that party and have them set and ready to go. I'm sure this stuff happens, but it seems like a ton of these threads all list a broken bottle or a bottle being drank as the reason and I just have never seen it before.

 

All around the world, craft beer fans are drinking beers and hosting social events. Doesn’t seem far fetched to me that when you mix alcohol and a crowd, mistakes can sometimes happen, even if they don’t happen to you.

I’ve had friends over and have had bottles get cracked that I wasn’t planning on cracking. Stuff happens.

 

Yes this could totally happen. I at one time had so many wine fridges in my house I ran out of room and had one in the corner of the kitchen. We had a wine dinner with people over and the random couple got invited along with someone. The dude got shitfaced and then started looking for more wine. Next thing I know he has opened a $70 bottle of wine from the fridge in the corner and had already slammed half of it down. Shit happens, and we all feel like idiots when it happens to us.

 

I am confused. He offered Ground State? What happened with that? Did you say no to that offer? That seems like a really good offer to fix this.

 

Yes, I'm aware these things can happen, however it's been a common response on BT threads in the past along with the in-laws drank it one that @4truth mentioned. Maybe I'm just OCD or old school, but as soon as I agree to a trade the stuff is completely set aside to avoid issues.

 

I agree that is a very dilligent way to go about it. I do that myself so I certainly understand your approach. However, not everyone does things this way, no matter how much we think they should.

There are probably hundreds of trades that get completed smoothly all the time before something goes wrong. Usually when something does go wrong, it comes down to one of two things: shitty trader (stole your beer and/or no communication) or something out of the norm had to have happened. When something does occur out of the norm, it’s perfectly reasonable to have a level of skepticism at the explanation (and we should!) whether it be broken bottle while handling and/or shipping, accidentally drinking by whoever, etc etc. That’s when the community ends up debating whether this is a reasonable explanation and whether the trader in question merits benefit of the doubt (by offering substitute beers, how and what he/she communicates, among other things). I would argue that Beer Advocate community gets accused far more often than not of NOT giving the benefit of the doubt and coming down on an alleged bad trader with pitchforks and torches too easily. So in this case, where alleged BT has no prior trend of doing this, offered a (quality, in my opinion) substitute bottle, communicated promptly and clearly what happened, agreed to the OPs sequence of events, tried to work out another path forward,... I don’t know, but I tend to give him tha benefit of the doubt.

 

This. Plus I would also chop off a nut (I have two kids so really more of a strong gesture than a full sacrifice) and place it front and center in the box - that way my trade partner could rest assured that I fully understood the extent to which I had let myself down

 

Yeah you're right, my goodwill gesture (though maybe reciprocated in kind and might lead to an actual trade with the OP) is clearly not enough