Is this reasonable?

Seems odd for a BA to want Pliny that badly not to know what the fair price is to not get scammed in the first place. I'm going to guess The Bay was involved at some point.

 

A ten second Google search will tell you the retail of PtE. Being scammed yourself (if you really did get scammed) is no excuse for trying to pass it on to the next guy.

 

My roommate brings that stuff back with him from RI every time he visits home and it makes me gag. Sending it to him for free would have been punishment enough.

 

This thread makes me happy that I can go buy bottles of PTE for $4.99 a pop whenever I want.

 

Unless the beer has the words Black and Tuesday somewhere on the bottle, then it's probably not worth it.

 

I hope that 40 bucks got you about 12-13 cans of Heady!

 

just four cans..i know im a idiot..just wanted to try it once will never buy it again..

 

If you purchased from Ebay or something, you cant verify that it was a fresh batch. Seek it out again, trade for it, and I'd be willing to bet that you enjoy a little more the next time.

 

Seriously. I facepalm every time I hear somebody say they bought something off of Ebay and didn't feel it lived up to the hype.

There's no dating on HT cans. They could have been 6 months old.

Then there's the question of storage. For all you know the seller kept his cans laying around in a hot garage for 3 months.

Then while not an issue with a cheap canned beer like HT, who knows if that rare bottle you're buying was refilled...

 

aren't all of those complaints valid with trading as well?

 

It always confuses me when people don't seem to think about this. Obviously we'd all like to believe that all BAs are good, honest people with trades, but I've seen too many bad trader threads to still think that's the case.

Sure, there's probably a slightly higher chance that someone on eBay is more willing to sell you some old cans either out of ignorance or spite, but I don't think it's such a huge difference as many seem to believe.

 

exactly. several traders have outed themselves (or been outed) as ebayers, so my feeling is that you can expect the same level of quality regardless of how you obtain your beer.

 

Sure, except traders have an awful lot to lose by screwing someone over. Your reputation in the BA community would be irreparable if you tried to pawn off a 6 month old can as fresh, or refilled a more expensive bottle with something cheaper. And it takes way too long to build up a reputation under a new account to justify that.

Ebay sellers have no such problem. Hell, you're not even supposed to be drinking the contents of the bottles anyway, so what's the real recourse here? Even if you were able to somehow get an Ebay seller in trouble, they just go and open a new account. The bottles will sell just the same even without a long seller history.

 

i think you're downplaying the importance of ebay feedback, and overselling the importance of ba reputation, to a large extent.

 

Well, it's supposed to be unopened, that's what makes it collectable. If it turns out it's been opened, then it's no longer collectable. So you would have recourse if you could someone prove that it had been opened, but I'm not totally sure how you'd do that.

 

I don't think so. Poke around the Ebay completed listings - there are plenty of sales from users with less than 10 transactions. Some people care, but most don't. Also, like I said, I don't even know how you'd get negative feedback to stick. If you buy an auction where the value is in the bottle, and the contents are not for consumption, your negative feedback/dispute would be invalid if the reason for it were the contents inside the bottle.

As for BA reputation - there's plenty of people out there who are hesitant to even trade with new-ish user accounts. Plus trading partner relationships, and getting blind offers from other vets, etc. It's just not worth it.

 

You couldn't possibly prove it without saying that you tasted the contents.

 

" bottle was opened - not as advertised "

ebay actually sides with the buyer for the most part. you don't even have to prove it, just leave negative feedback and the seller can't do much. i'd actually be afraid of selling on ebay just for that reason.

true. i have stumped on that point recently. but given how many obvious " bad trader " alerts crop up lately, i gather such judgment is limited, and it isn't stopping most people. i wonder how many even check references.

there are more than a handful of people who give me very bad vibes and are on my list of potential bad traders (plus some vets that i think are likely to go out in a blaze of glory). my friends and i even started a deadpool on the topic.

 

I do with someone I've never traded with before. Fortunately this happens about once every 4 months or so at this point.

And cbeer, I don't really know how eBay feedback works, but it seems like you could probably find something if you suspected it was bad. "The cap didn't look right so I opened it to test", or whatever.