Rude experience at a train show.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

My wife and I went to a train show in Wallingford, CT earlier today. During the course of looking around, my wife found a somewhat beat-up Athearn DD35A that she liked. The tag on it said $25.

I asked the woman that was running the booth if I could test it out, and she said that the engine was a dummy, I pointed out the flywheel that was visible through the frame and the fact that the wheels did not freely spin.

So I tested the engine out, and found that it ran, albeit roughly, likely nothing a good cleaning would not fix. When I got back to the booth the woman asked if the engine ran and I replied that it did, after some help moving.

She asked if we were interested in the engine, my wife replied that she was.

“Hmmm… $25… nope…”

The dealer took off the $25 tag and replaced it with a $50 tag.

My wife got rather upset with the dealer quite rapidly, to the point where I had to drag her away before she lost her temper with the dealer.

Now my wife is upset that she did not get the engine that she wanted me to get for her. I suppose $50 is reasonable for the engine, despite the work needed to the shell and handrails, but with the dealer’s rather sharp tongue and insistence that the tags she placed on items she was selling was not the actual price, I did not feel that I should buy anything from her.

Did I do the right thing by refusing to deal with this woman, or should I have paid the $50?

I am even starting to doubt that I should have tested the engine out, and just paid the $25 at the start of it all.

2

No,I beleive you did the right thing!!

After you showed her that it wasn’t a dummy locomotive,she should’ve let you have it for the original price of$25.00,not double the price!!!

3

You did the right thing. If I was the seller, I would let you have for that price just to get it off my hands.

4

oh yeah, I’ve met some greedy and stupid people around the block…one reason why I like model railroading is that our group usually has fewer of 'em

5

If I remember correctly hiking the price from that which was marked in that fashion is frowned upon by the law. I wouldn’t do business with that dealer either.

6

You should have charged her a $25 consulting fee for fixing her “dummy” locomotive.

7

Too bad you did not get her name or business name – you could have reported her to the organization running the show. She may not have been asked back. A bad dealer is bad for the swap meet and could make the other dealers look bad if word gets around there are bad dealers at that show. I know of a dealer that was not invited back to a show for similar reasons. It may also keep other somewhat shady characters less shady if they know they could lose their spot in the show. Just my two cents.

8

Y’know I’ve had similar troubles as both a buyer and seller… I once thought I’d like to be in the Hobby Shop business and bought an estate collection that I resold on Ebay, and a basic order of DPM and Woodland Scenics items…

I had buyers taking issue with my 10% above cost pricing for new items, and fair value pricing of used ones… I could 't win there… As a buyer, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had sellers pop off to me for asking a question…

Where I come from it is considered polite to make conversation…

9

What that woman did was wrong. Whats even more wrong is trying to get 50$ for a beat up old Athearn DD40. I felt $25 was a little high. I have a feeling that lady doesn’t sell much merchandice with those prices.

Walking away was the right thing to do.

10

This is an old Athearn wide hood model and is not even worth the $25.

Be glad the person did not sell it to you.

CZ

11

I did not find out her name, but the banner on her booth said Scotsman’s Trains.

I found the website for the group that runs the shows held at that location, and am going to file a report with them as soon as I get a reply back, as their “contact us” page only allows a 128 character message, hardly enough to describe the seller and how she treated my wife.

There were plenty of good sellers there, including one that insisted that I test run a pre-war Lionel 1684 that he fixed up. He was concerned that I might not like it since the whistle was removed, but that matters little to me.

I have had something similar happen before at a show in Williamantic, CT a few years ago. There was a guy that was selling a few Varney “Old Lady” 2-8-0’s and “Casey Jones” 4-6-0’s, of which I have a small number of each. He had a Varney 4-6-0 for $5. He said that the engine was a derelict and would never run again, as it shorted out every time he ran it.

I paid him the $5, and looked the engine and tender over, one of the tender trucks had been reversed, so short would always occur if placed on live tracks. The test stand was in sight of that seller’s booth, so when I got the engine to purr like a kitten, he was furious.

He came over to the test tracks and demanded that I pay him $40 more since the engine runs, or he was going to take the engine back. ($45 was the price of the other Varney 4-6-0’s he was selling). I told him that I paid the price that he asked and that I was not going to buy from him again.

He tried claiming that I swapped tags to one of the staff members at the show, who had seen me perform the repairs and had even heard the discussion the seller and I had about the engine before I bought it. Needless to say, the staff member sided with me, and told the guy to give me my engine back.

Every time we passed that guy’s booth at shows that he is at, he calls me a “jerk”, “cheat”, and a negative religious reference that I would rather not type here.

That seller

12

On the contrary, I believe you will find your have an excess of 123 characters. 122 if you punctuate.

john

13

I suggest the next time it happens you help him expand his vocabulary…

slan⋅der

/ˈslændər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [slan-der]

–noun

1. defamation
14

So why did you fix it at the show instead of just taking it home and doing that there? Were you trying to prove something to him?

15

  • what can one say? there are an awful lot of jerks, selling and buying, at model rr shows. I 've seen some clubs use almost Gestapo type tactics for crowd control that were more fitting for a Ramones concert. Some dealers have been fantastically vicious i.e. sarcastic mean and rotten to my well-behaved kids.

  • I had a very dismal experience with a well-known dcc seller/installer @ the Springfield show a couple of weeks ago. Some of their errors: installer not acknowledging me, the customer, while at the same time he was busy having an “all important talk” with an acqaintance; portraying a “since I’m the installer I am superior to you the customer” attitude; having only one order-taker working along side the installers. While I was waiting the order taker either had to go the bathroom or wanted a piece of pizza and took off. Guess it was beneath the installer’s job description to write up an order form. After ten minutes I left. Screw em. This dealer lost all my business that day and forever.

16

I am afraid you will find these people every where and not just train shows. Bad apples do spoil a bunch. They do not even have to be sellers or patrons. We had our modules set up at a show once and an adult male in his fifties or so was arguing with me about every thing. From my steam engine switching the hoppers while the Acella was screaming past to what I made my modules from. He even bent over the rope and put his 2 elbows on the layout denting the foam. I finally lost it and said in a loud voice that I know what the module is built from because I built it!

While setting up a show a seller dropped a wad of cash by his table. I picked it up right away before some one else did and told the person he may have lost some money. He checked his box that the money fell from and confirmed what had happened. I handed him the cash (all of it) he grabbed it and put it back in the cash box. Not even a thank you or how about a 10% discount on any thing you like. Next time it happens I will have more money to spend on trains.

There are sellers that go above and beyond. I was talking to a seller about an item he did not have at the show. I said I would make it a point to remind him to bring it the next show we both attend. I did not have to wait that long. A few days later it was in the mail with a note saying he can catch up with me the next show and not worry about the shipping charge. That was nice.

Over pricing junk. I see it all the time. It is usually the ones that peruse yard sales and swap shops and bring the junk to shows to unload on unsuspecting hobbyist and people that bring youngsters. They usually have the brass sectional track taped together in 5 piece bundles with a $5 price tag. Or the old Tyco train set one brass power truck, truck mounted horn hooks deep flange wheels light as a feather cars for sale.

All I have to say is do not let one bad apple spoil it for you. There are far more good people in the hobby than bad.

Jumpin

17

Frankly, if my wife went to a train show and saw anything she wanted for $25, I would buy it immediately. Even if it was the wrong scale and era it would be on the layout somewhere.

Enjoy

Paul

18

Back in the mid 90s when I first got started I bought an early Bachmann Sante Fe 484 from a dealer and never went to the test track

A couple of days later when I tried to run it I found the axle was broken on the drive wheels ( later learned that this was endemic to those models )

I couldn’t believe a dealer didn’t know it was in that condition --it was boxed

Dumb trusting me my own fault for not test running it but still

19

I was not trying to prove anything to him, I was wanting to see if the motor itself worked, or if that would need replacement.

If I was trying to prove something to the seller, I would have shown him what was wrong and explained to him what was done to fix the tender, and then tested it out.

20

The big mistake here seems to have been pointing out to the seller that the loco was powered and not a dummy. Simply paying her the $25 and taking the engine without telling her that she was wrong about it would have avoided a lot of grief.