For sharing (and to make me feel better!) let me tell you about the time I bought a table and benches on Ricardo from a scumbag lawyer!
Setting the scene Last month I moved into a new apartment and fancied a long oak table. A seller had in 2 auctions with “buy it now” 1) a table and 2) 2 benches, which I bought paying 750 + 250 = 1000 total. Worth it for me because I had found what I wanted in short order, they matched and were from the same seller. Table and benches feature in each other’s pictures.
I went to collect the table and benches. Massive house in Horgen, so got a good feeling. Then it starts to fall apart. This idiot had stored the table on its side in his damp garage over winter and it’s ruined. Table cross joins are broken down middle and top is warped. He is in denial but I know what I am seeing. I don’t even examine the benches.
I tell him I’m not buying any of it and walk away. I point out all of the above in person by email and offer to buy the table for 100 and benches as per auction and attempt a fix but no response
We have a contemptuous exchange of emails with this law firm partner arbitrarily quantifying a measurement of sag if 8mm.... and continuing to waste my time. He eventually says he will ask Ricardo if he can cancel the auction (not my problem) and asks my permission. I say yes and state he must also cancel the auction for the matching benches.
On Saturday night he sends me an email saying he hasn’t heard from me and I am in breach of contract on the benches. Yesterday with no reply from me he emails me saying that he will begin legal action today! What a contentious time wasting idiot scumbag. I’d rather have used completely different words for the end of that sentence.
So of course I have gone back to him on my hands and knees and asked when I can collect some premium priced benches which match a destroyed table which I am not buying.
If it was any other genius I’d threaten a Betteibung for impaired value on an orphan set of benches clearly worth far less to me now than what I paid for them and he cost of my time. But this guy is a scumbag, and a lawyer.
If anyone can suggest a legal way to burn his house down I am all ears. (Obviously not really).
Did you have photos of the furniture when it was in good order. If so then its a breach of contract on the sellers part. False advertising/misrepresentation.Threaten the lawyer that you will take it further. And dont pay 1 frank!!
Did you take photos of the tables in bad condition while you were there? All you have to do is prove the item you went to see is bot as described.
PS: Surely you must know that calling people scumbag and idiot etc on public forums is really not advisable, especially when the guy is a lawyer? If he traces this thread back to you then he could sue you for slander and add that to his ammunition.
Why not have a look at the Ricardo website ? There is an AGB and a FAQ. From the legal FAQ:
Bei ricardo.ch wird der Begriff der Garantie als grundsätzliches Recht des Käufers auf Nachbesserung oder Ersatz einer von der Produktbeschreibung abweichenden oder mangelhaften Ware verstanden (resp. Preisminderung, wenn beide Parteien damit einverstanden sind).
Dabei gilt:
Beim Erhalt einer mangelhaften Ware (z.B. nicht erwähnte Materialfehler, die bereits zum Zeitpunkt des Kaufs vorhanden waren) muss der Käufer dem Verkäufer innerhalb von 14 Tagen mit einer Mängelrüge den Mangel melden, ansonsten verfällt die Garantie. Weigert sich der Verkäufer auf eine Nachbesserung oder Ersatz der Ware, kann der Käufer vom Vertrag zurücktreten (= Wandelung).
Basically if the stuff is not as described the buyer can back out of the sale.
It does happen that rarely you are thrust into a situation where you have no option but to be beaten. I don’t know legal nonsense and I certainly don’t know Swiss legal nonsense. I do at this second (It will surely pass) have a genuine curiosity as to whether these can be an implied dependency between two contracts you are a party to. Such that if one contract is rendered invalid by the other party and this directly reduces the value of your other contract after it has been “singed” but before it has been transacted do you have recourse?
The obvious implication being that a matching table and chairs bought from one seller/ time/ location/ has a much higher utility and therefore value than two separate sellers/times/location ion/colour/dimension and a load of wasted time. Buying just these benches all I am doing is buying a problem for myself instead of buying a complete solution. The Hangup this upstanding gentleman has or the fact he is choosing to maliciously exploit is that these were two separate Ricardo auctions. I don’t believe that the underlying law is that simple.
Reading your whole saga, it just sounds like the lawyer is doing his best to intimidate you using his profession.
The simple fact of the matter is that the items he's selling you aren't in the condition he advertised (how did he word it? Excellent condition? Good condition? Used?). Were there any photos of the items on Ricardo and how did they look compared to the state of them at his house when you visited?
Did you take any photos of them on site when you arrived?
As someone pointed out before, you can just refuse them on the basis that he's selling something that is not in an appropriate condition. Let him blow himself out with his legalese.
If it does turn nasty you might want to make sure you've got legal insurance. Get it now, not after the process starts.
this is switzerland, you can't be insulting people, just check a few threads on here where its come back to bite people on the arse big time, insulting a lawyer who has some spare time on his hands is a recipe for disaster, but it seems you don't want to listen to advise, even when you've asked for it, so good luck
You should simply have walked away from the deal and informed the seller and Ricardo as to the reasons. By maintaining contact with the seller and offering a price via email, outside of the prescribed Ricardo channels, you have really made things complicated for yourself as you are basically evidencing that you still want the item that you won at auction and committed to buy.
I think insulting someone anonimously doesn't constitute slander (well, since EF is written I'd call it libel, and I'd save slander for spoken speech).
There are two different sales here since it was two auctions. So you went into two legally binding contracts.
Deal 1 is the table which clearly was not in the state as advertised so no problem there and you are of the hook, lawyer knows this and all fine.
Deal 2 is the benches, unless you made it very clear and can proof that deal 2 was depending on deal 1 being successful there is no legal reason for you to not buy these. Since you have not even inspected them they might be in the state as advertised and you have no legal reason to get out of this deal.
If you keep on refusing to take these benches of his hands for 250,- and he pushes to court I think I can congratulate you with much more expensive benches. Personally I'd offer him 50% of the 250,- and he can offer the benches again on Ricardo, if he agrees you have a cheap way out.
Might not feel right, but law and your feelings are two different things.
Aren't the benches supposed to match the table in style, color and height? The OP isn't supposed to look large and wide for a table that would match that idiot's benches.
It does not matter what you think. There were two separate contracts and you cannot go unilaterally adding new terms to the contract to suit yourself. Was there anything else in the picture? Perhaps you can claim that was in the sale as well!
Get your facts straight before mouthing off and edit your posts. It won’t take a much for the lawyer to figure out who you are and for him to be able to show that others would have been able identify him as well. As for burning down his house, incredibly stupid as you have left yourself open to a criminal complaint.