Re: Trouble with Craigslist sell
The problem is that he dont have any of the information from the seller. The guy knows my email, phone and address so he is going after me to pressure me ( im guessing here) to release the seller information. Being that the seller is family (by the significant other part of the family) I rather face a judge than get into family bad blood. I know it might sound stupid to some, but family ties are very important to me....
However, if I knew he had scam that guy with prior knowledge of the guitar being fake I would have still not give the number but I wold be giving him hell if he wouldnt call the guy...
You should give him hell anyway. Family or not, he is using you to solve his problem with the buyer. If it were me, family or not, I would call the buyer, give him the family member's number and tell him that I was out of it. I would also tell him not to call me again.
The problem that you are going to have, even though you have made it clear that you don't feel that you acted as the seller, is that you were the contact point. As a non-attorney, I can only react to legal situations in the context of personal experiences in business, but I have to think that you have more of a connection to the sale than you realize.
Beyond that, I think you have two problems. First, if the guitar really is a fake, and your relative knowingly presented it as a real Martin, there is a reasonable argument that fraud occurred. Whether that would hold water in a court I don't know, but I don't think I would want to find out the hard way.
The second issue is that the buyer could make a claim of being financially damaged, and sue your relative and you in civil court. Once again, I know that you don't feel that you were a party to the transaction, but you must look at this from the buyers perspective. If he is being honest, and thought he was buying a real Martin, only to later find out it is not, its reasonable for him to be mad. Whether you like it or not, he views you as a party to the sale, and he views you as a person who is not being helpful getting his money back. He doesn't have to be right about this - all he has to do is to be mad enough to intiate a lawsuit, and make you argue about the rights and the wrongs later.
You also have to realize that the buyer isn't going to want to chase your relative in NC. The sale took place in your state, in your house, and that is probably a significant issue. Combine that with the fact that you aren't being cooperative, and you end up with a guy that just says, "the heck with it, if he won't tell me where the seller is, I'll just drag Mr. Nandy into small claims court." From there he may simply go to that court, put up a filing fee of about $100, have you served, and you're then in a position of having to defend yourself.
Do yourself a favor, try to get out of the middle if you can, but if you can't tell your relative that he needs to stop worrying about whether you are in his good grace, and think about whether he is in your good graces. I think that you are forgetting that the importance of family ties is not a one way deal.
