I feel it necessary to respond to this issue at this point in time. I do not know Debbie, nor have I communicated with her in any way and I do not intend to do so regarding this issue. I try to never judge a company or person before hearing BOTH sides of the story. However, since you felt it necessary to weigh-in on Debbie's email. I will now act as judge on what appears to be the facts.
I do not know what country either your company or Debbie are operating in, however I can only quote United States UCC (Uniform Commercial Code) which applies to ALL transactions in ALL states, whether by private parties or public businesses. Only Three things must exists for a legal contract to exist: 1 - An Offer Debbie's submission of her $100 bid to your system. 2 - Acceptance Your email back to Debbie stating that her offer had been accepted 3 - Consideration When Debbie provided her credit card number to the Pay system, it is legally the same as placing cash in the hand of one of your company's employees. Based on the evidence above, you both continue to have a legally binding contract and in addition, you both have written evidence of that contract (in other words, not a verbal contract) which makes the case very strong. I am not a lawyer and this is based on my personal understanding of the law. If both parties operate in the United States, your company not only made a very poor decision by not fulfilling your obligation to Debbie, you have also broken US commercial tort law. John Squeo "Robert Davie" cc: Sent by: Subject: Re: Word of Caution [7:23363] nobody@groupst udy.com 10/18/01 10:43 AM Please respond to "Robert Davie" I would like to respond to a message (below) that went out over a GroupStudy mailing list regarding our company. When our system is functioning properly (99%) we have two mechanisms that work that were not working when Debbie placed her order: 1.. A guard against low-ball offers for items that have sale prices. This guard prevents offers of less than 80% of the sale price. (Debbie's offer was $100 for a $600 item.) 2.. Order Acceptance. This was malfunctioning and accepting orders that were being declined. After explaining this to Debbie, who appears to be a very knowledgeable and market savvy person, we felt that the system malfunction would garner her understanding. She threatened to send out an email to the GroupStudy mailing list if we did not fulfill the order, and we indicated that we would respond to her email message. Having been in sales all my life and career and with happy customers ranging from AT&T to Sun Microsystems, I feel this is a very unfortunate occurrence. Robert Davie EVP Ph: 919-388-9993 x3102 Fax: 919-388-9992 ITParade.com, Inc. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Debbie Westall Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 9:08 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: OT: A Word of Caution about Vendor [7:23244] Greetings, I wanted to give everyone a heads-up on the list about a vendor I recently dealt with over the Internet. The web site is www.itparade.com. They are a site that acts as a "middleman" for sellers of equipment. Last week I put an offer on a router (2501). I admit the offer was very low, but I had never used this site so I figured "why not". A couple of hours later I received an email from them saying that my offer was accepted by the seller and I was to log on to another site to make payment arrangements. I logged into PitNeyPay.com to add my credit card info as requested. The next day I received a phone call from a person at itparade, saying they have pulled my offer, that the seller actually rejected my offer but itparade's web site was "broken" so the email went out incorrectly. The person at itparade, also mentioned that the seller would be more than happy to sell me that piece of equipment for 600.00 rather than my offer. Which would have been more than double my initial offer. Needless to say, I rejected that. I spoke to the Executive VP and the CEO of the company to no avail. They will not stand behind the email that came to me that my offer was accepted. Just wanted to give everyone a heads-up to STAY AWAY from this site. If it sounds to good to be true, it probably is...... Has anyone used them before or heard of them. Thanks Debbie __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals. http://personals.yahoo.com Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=23404&t=23363 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]