weird text from lady on facebook marketplace. Now I don't know if I was U?

[Sneezecakesmama]

I couldn't find my umbrella so decided on buying one off FB marketplace.
Found a nice Joules one for £15 and asked to buy it.
At 09.12 am had the conversation via messenger and agreed to buy. She said it would be on the doorstep and put the money through the letterbox. Fine by me.

I asked what time was convenient and she replied no later than 12.15 as she was going out and gave me the address. I said I would be there at 12.
At 11am I found my umbrella (DH had it) so messaged her at 11.12 am to apologise and say I didn't need it after all, but thank you very much.
She replied
Is this a joke I have changed my plans plus taken item off eBay!!!?
I am fuming reported and informed police as you have our address plus our plans!! Very odd

It was literally 2 hours so why take it off eBay? She hadn't changed her plans and why that level of aggression?

Was I really being as unreasonable as she says? Genuinely confused!

Christ who pays £15 for a second hand Brolly?!! Get to the pound shop.

Hahaha it is MARKETPLACE
you are allowed to change your mind op haha
Yes it Sucks for her. But her reaction was bizarre
Block her and Move on.

I think FreshFancyFrogglette probably has it - even if not for this case, for many similar ones. Yes, there's no contract made and you have to expect that there will be timewasters along the way, but it sounds likely imho that she's selling it because she needs the money rather than because she's decided that she doesn't want it.

I've been in that position many times, where getting £15 would have made a huge difference to me and my ability to buy basics. She possibly overacted, but I wonder if it was coming from a place of 'no money for food', then 'phew, we can buy food after all', quickly followed by 'no food for us after all'. Especially coming from somebody willing to drive a very long way for it (which, granted, the seller might not have known), who clearly saw the £15 as nothing - money to be spent on a whim, instead of bothering to look for your own - and then simply taken away again on a whim.

I think there are similar elements here to the other thread, where OP had agreed to £800 of work from a tradesman and then cancelled, instead of taking precautions, and simply expected the man to cheerfully lose the entire £800 that he'd been counting on, when it was too late for him (and maybe his employee(s)) to find another job for the day.

It isn't unreasonable to assume that somebody agreeing to buy something is doing so because they have decided that they want the item. You wouldn't expect somebody to book a table in your restaurant and then call back later to cancel, as they've found a chicken in the freezer. You would quite reasonably write them off with annoyance as a flaky timewaster.

I think time in jail would be quite nice compared to the battering that you are receiving here.

I sentence you to eleventy billion days in jail you time wasting umbrella eco warrior

I’m going to go against the grain here and say you had no obligation to buy it. It’s a transaction, just like when you pick things up in shops but decide later on against and put it back. Plus the amount of times I’ve turned up for stuff of Facebook marketplace, and it’s been listed as “like new” and it’s nothing of the sort. You still could have turned up and decided it was not in the condition you expected based on the listing and not taken it.

Her reaction was utterly bizarre.

You’re not being unreasonable.

As soon as you found your umbrella, you let her know.

You apologised.

She didn’t need to change her plans.

You shouldn’t have to buy an umbrella you neither need nor want. Customers have the right to change their minds.

I’m going to go against the grain here and say you had no obligation to buy it. It’s a transaction, just like when you pick things up in shops but decide later on against and put it back.

Surely you wouldn't put stuff on the counter/checkout and let the assistant scan/ring it up - and then just change your mind? I mean, you could do that, but it would be weird.

Nobody is stopping you from picking things up and then putting them back before you get to the counter - but once you make contact (whether by putting items on a checkout or by contacting a seller) and agree to purchase, you don't normally just tell them you've changed your mind by that point.

@Sneezecakesmama “It meant an hours driving and my bloody carbon footprint excuse again ”
You were seriously going to travel for an hour to buy a second hand umbrella?? Your carbon footprint obviously wasn’t bothering you when you agreed to buy it!

As soon as you found your umbrella, you let her know.

You apologised.

She didn’t need to change her plans.

You shouldn’t have to buy an umbrella you neither need nor want. Customers have the right to change their minds.

Did OP ever tell the seller that the sale was dependent on her not being able to find her existing umbrella? The seller is a person selling one umbrella: not running an umbrella lending 'library'. On that basis, most items of clothing that people buy could 'qualify' for an instant refund, on the grounds that you do already have another dress/jumper/pair of pants in your possession.

What would have happened if OP had taken the umbrella and posted the money through and then received a message from her DH 5 minutes later to say "Sorry, I meant to tell you: I took your umbrella with me this morning" - would she have turned around and driven back seeking a refund?

Blimey, how do people have the energy to give this much of a fuck about a £15 brolly.

Yes it's irritating being messed around but it's an umbrella. Not a 4K prized bull.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I’m going to go against the grain here and say you had no obligation to buy it. It’s a transaction, just like when you pick things up in shops but decide later on against and put it back.

Surely you wouldn't put stuff on the counter/checkout and let the assistant scan/ring it up - and then just change your mind? I mean, you could do that, but it would be weird.

Nobody is stopping you from picking things up and then putting them back before you get to the counter - but once you make contact (whether by putting items on a checkout or by contacting a seller) and agree to purchase, you don't normally just tell them you've changed your mind by that point.

There is no counter.
There is no scanner.
There is no point of no return.
There is only fb marketplace. And the brolly of doom.

Did OP ever tell the seller that the sale was dependent on her not being able to find her existing umbrella? The seller is a person selling one umbrella: not running an umbrella lending 'library'. On that basis, most items of clothing that people buy could 'qualify' for an instant refund, on the grounds that you do already have another dress/jumper/pair of pants in your possession.

This is a false analogy as no "refund" was requested by OP - no monies were yet exchanged. She changed her mind - it's allowed.

@Eeiliethya

Blimey, how do people have the energy to give this much of a fuck about a £15 brolly.

Yes it's irritating being messed around but it's an umbrella. Not a 4K prized bull.

@Platax

It was literally 2 hours so why take it off eBay

Why wouldn't she take it off eBay once she had a firm agreement to sell?

For precisely the reason she is now fuming! In case it falls through!

I honestly don't understand this concept that she was obligated to buy because a message had been exchanged to that effect. Bear in mind she hasn't even physically seen the item yet. Imagine she turned up at the seller's house and it was faulty when she attempted to use it? Imagine it had appeared to be black in the photos but was in fact closer to dark blue in reality, and OP didn't want a dark blue brolly, she wanted black. Imagine there was a hole in it, disguised on the photos ... etc etc. So many reasons why a person might see the item and change their mind. Or of course, they might just change their mind regardless of any of the above - and that's OK. It is not a binding contract to swap messages saying you want the item.

As I said earlier in thread, I had a "buyer" turn up at my house after messaging me about a brand new unworn and still tagged in box pair of trainers that didn't fit my daughter. She drove over an hour to my house, asked on the doorstep to try them on (I obliged - only allowed her to try one of course in case she ran off 😳), and then proceeded to say "oh they don't fit, wrong size- I'm a size 4 and these are a 3". The size was very clearly listed in the advert and she had also asked me in the message exchange what size?! 🤦🏼‍♀️ Anyway... it was annoying, yes (also a bit amusing if I'm honest😂), but I was very pleased I hadn't removed them from sale yet. For this very reason - things can fall through.

So .... take home points:

1. No one is obliged to follow through on a purchase of any item unless they have signed a legally binding contract. FB messenger is not such a contact.

1. Removing an item from sale before seller has completed purchase (i.e. monies exchanged) is a bad idea - wait until they have physically paid for and taken the item!

1. If someone exercises their right to change their mind - don't be an arsehole and threaten them with the police. Just sigh and move on.

Think that covers it 😂

What a load of drama over a poxy umbrella. What sort of person pisses about searching for second hand umbrellas when you can buy a new one for a couple of quid? Also I’m guessing it was raining when you started looking for your brolly, so why did you not guess that your DH was using it? And when you did find out surely you could have gone ahead and bought the Joules one so that you and your DH could each have your very own umbrella.

Am I the only person alive who has more than one brolly?

Obviously it's ridiculous of her to say she's contacting the police but I can understand that she's annoyed. You wasted her time.

'I think I'm about as bothered as upsetting the strange woman grin'

If your so not bothered about the whole thing why have you posted it on Aibu?

I'm amazed she would leave it outside and trust a stranger to post the money through the door.

I'm amazed you would drive an hour to collect an umbrella. (I guess you mean half an hour each way, which isn't quite so crazy as an hour but still). Then to come over all pious about carbon footprints! (You must be able to laugh at yourself about that, it is an absurd stance).

It seems to me that you are suffering from a particularly modern twist on self-absorbtion.

It seems that you simply can't grasp that your actions have negatively impacted someone else or, if you can, you don't really care. After all, the situation suits you fine - you found your umbrella - so what's the problem, really?

The "other people do worse" defence is particularly ridiculous - that one will let you excuse yourself for just about anything short of murder!

Reneging on your bargain is one (very annoying) thing, but to do it and then profess to not be bothered about the inconvenience (and possibly worry) you've caused someone and hold them up for ridicule and censure - as you've done on this thread - is another.

We all do things to inconvenience other people at times, but a decent person genuinely apologises for it, which involves understanding that you are in the wrong, saying so and accepting the other person's right to be annoyed with us. It doesn't involve a cursory "sorry" followed by outrage that the other person still thinks poorly of you and appealing to the masses to tell you you're not in the wrong.

By itself, this is a minor incident in the scheme of things, yes, but your "I'm the main character" attitude (of which I expect you're completely unaware given how common it is) has annoyed me, I'm afraid! And if everyone behaves like you (which, more and more, they are) it makes the world just that little bit of a worse, more mannerless, more difficult, place to be.

So yes, YABU!

That is a truly excellent point PetriDisher

Sofiegiraffe You have completely misunderstood the law of contract, what does and does not constitute a legally binding one (spoiler - one can absolutely be created via FB Messenger, or indeed verbally) and what happens to that contract in the event of misrepresentation, faulty goods or one person "changing their mind". I don't propose to set out a full correction because it would be long and is not the point of this thread, but I just wanted to put that marker down for anyone who might think your post is accurate advice - it is not.

I don't understand why either of you would go to all this trouble over a second hand umbrella when you could have nipped into an supermarket and picked one up cheaply and easily. I have no idea how much a new Joules umbrella would usually cost but 15 quid seems a lot to me for a second hand brolly, plus Ebay postage.

She's bonkers to report you to the police. I bet they had a good old chuckle at that.

Nowt so queer as folk.

YABU and she’s not the weird one here. I would have just still bought the umbrella.
What you did was annoying and selfish.