Breach of Contact?

[r1rb]

NC, KY
I wrote an ebay seller asking him how much he would sale an item for and end the auction early. He said he would sell it for $2500 plus $30 shipping. He then sent me the following msg:

"Send a copy of the auction page to verify item being sold for a sum of $2500 US plus $30 shipping and insurance with signature confirmation. This constitutes our written agreement and purpose of funds. Next day payment and I will pay half and I will end the auction Monday on delivery confirmation of check. Here is another item you may be interested in attached to this email."

I wrote him back saying I agreed to his terms and that we had a deal. The next morning (Saturday) I receive an email where I am one of many addressees saying the item is not longer for sale because he wants to do more research on the value. I wrote him back and he told me to hold off because he wanted to look into the value. I replied that we had an agreement and his message was a contract. He wrote back that it was not a contract because money had not changed hands.

Do I have any recourse here??

 

[dallas702]

Nope.

No payment, no contract. You should have Paypal'd him a deposit. Apparently, others made him equal or better offers.

 

[r1rb]

Does money have to be exchanged? I understood that it would be a contract if there was a promise or agreement to exhange money.

"In addition to both parties' agreeing to the terms, a contract isn't valid unless both parties exchange something of value -- in anticipation of the completion of the contract. The "thing of value" being exchanged -- which every law student who ever lived has been taught to call "consideration" -- is most often a promise to do something in the future, such as a promise to perform a certain job or a promise to pay a fee for that job.

or this,
Where the terms of an offer permit, the contract is created
by a promise in exchange for the offeror's problem. It is called a
bilateral contract, and both parties are bound as soon as the mutual
promises are exchanged. For example, if A says "I'll sell you my car for
$400." B can accept by promising, "Okay, I'll buy your car for $400." The
contract for sale is immediately formed, and both parties are bound to
perform as mutually promised.

Since I agreed to his price and said I would send him the money the next day, wouldn't that meet the promised to do something criteria?

 

[dallas702]

There may be an "agreement" at that point, but it doesn't stop the seller from changing his mind. Since he hasn't received anything of value from you he doesn't have to reciprocate. You could sue for "performance", but I doubt you'd get very far. You really have no damages to claim at this point. If you had made a contract with another buyer (to resell the item at a profit) you might be able to ask for damages equalling your profit, but you still have the problem of the rather weak contract with the seller. Ebay sure isn't going to help you, and the seller only has to say he never had a "meeting of the minds" because he misunderstood the value of the item he was selling. IE, it would be tough to win.

 

[Jypsy]

Don't forget, it goes both ways. What if the seller held you to a verbal agreement but you had researched the item and found that the price was over-inflated? Would you want to be held accountable to pay for the item, and possibly threatened with a lawsuit?

I'm just curious where you found your contract snippets from. Thanks.

 

[ablessin]

Nope.

No payment, no contract. You should have Paypal'd him a deposit. Apparently, others made him equal or better offers.

I tend to agree - however, the seller should have researched item value PRIOR to listing it on e-bay.
It annoys me when I hear about stuff like that. The seller should have all his ducks in a row (so to speak) when the auction is listed.

He sounds like a jerk, find someone else to do business with.

 

[r1rb]

Quote Sources

The first quote came from here,
http://cobrands.business.findlaw.com/business_commercial/legal/nolo/ency/EEF92280-11CF-4910-8DECF67369130844.html
The car example came from here, http://www.lectlaw.com/files/bul02.htm