Aren't verbal agreements only binding up to $400 dollars? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere.

Fate smiles on fools, little children, and P-heads named Leland.

Hope the fleabay deal works out well.

That settles it. I'm posting on Pelican and buying Myself a Lottery Ticket!;)

Just checked this morning and its still at $18,850 with 8 hours to run. Bet it will go well over $19k...

Joe A

I only read the opening post (I'm busy), but I think you know the answer, Leland. The only real variable is whether there is confusion about your remarks to the local guy. If you feel you made a commitment to sell to him, I know you will sell to him. I have a strong impression that your integrity is worth a bit more than $500 to you.

Then again, if there is confusion.......

Talk to the local guy. Get his impression of whether there is a commitment.

You know, several threads here have this problem.

No one ACTUALLY READS THEM.

Sup..... The local guy actually DID have a problem with committment. Just not what you thought.

To the original quesiton:

You could have backed out of the deal if your word was worth less than $500 to you.

Another thought on the original question...
The ebayer was offering $500 more, but how much are you going to lose in sellers fees to ebay?

This whole thing has been more trouble than it was worth.
The winning bidder is not giving me a warm and fuzzy. They didn't ask for more info or pictures until after they placed their highest bid.
That was kind of weird.
I also didn't make the situation very clear in the intial post. The issue wasn't so much about the $500 as much as it was about my wife absolutely flipping her lid that I was going to hold to an agreement even though a higher offer had been made. Oddly enough the people at work also felt the same.
In the end it didn't seem to matter at all, but I appreciate the insight and comments.

:)

I lucked out in a way, but I am still out about $900. :( Oh well... the moral of this story???? Do NOT buy a boat in Montana.

Hope it all works out for you, Leland
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Your words above remind me of a time when I was ranting and ragging on the phone to my buddy who buys/sells foreclosures in Sacramento. My beef was about paying $210 to a guy for painting (using a special, thick industrial paint) a borderline antique, somewhat valuable, piece of machinery that I was fond of.
The agreement was that he'd also use a particular special primer - I later noticed that he used no primer at all. :mad:
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So there I was, going on/on about this for quite a while, intermixing Q's about what my buddy thought he would do about this and about the shyster painter guy.
Buddy listened quietly. I finally stopped...dead silence. Then he said...
"Don, two days ago I threw $5,000 at a problem to make it go away...because it was just slowing me down."
Is this primer deal a real biggie for you?"
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Point being...you hopefully have the boat out of your life.
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Best,
.
ps I was born/raised in that country.
Good air, good people, good hunting/fishing.

Bottom line for me is if I'm getting offers outside of an ebay auction I say, "if the price is right the first person to pay in full gets the item".

Eveybody is gung ho until it comes time to commit.

Some things, in the BIG picture, are too small to waste brain cells on.

Great story, Don.