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Date:         Thu, 27 Jul 2000 20:19:21 -0400
Reply-To:     Richard Golen <rgolen@umassd.edu>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Richard Golen <rgolen@umassd.edu>
Subject:      Re: Parts Place - Dear Vanagon List Subscribers
Comments: To: Kevin Hale <kjhale@earthlink.net>
In-Reply-To:  <41200074272241410@earthlink.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 06:41 PM 7/27/00 -0400, Kevin Hale wrote: >We offer it back to her at fair market value, she does not have to buy it. >No one screwed anyone. > >In retrospect we should not have called Melissa, but we thought it a good >idea to give her a chance to re-own her beloved van. > >Melissa stated that she was a college professor at ( I believe ) Eastern >Michigan University. She did not appear illiterate or mentally handicapped >in any way that would lead us to believe she required "extra" special >consideration. She appeared to be about 30 years old. > > > >Why all this mis-information? > > >Most colleges and some high schools offer a course called Economics 101. I >hear it is worthwhile. I would think it would be required by anyone in the >teaching profession.

Kevin,

Like Melissa, I too teach at a university.....business law, in fact. I do disagree that you did not do anyting illegal. In contract law (be it common law or the Uniform Commercial Code) there is an underlying or implied duty of "good faith" and "fair dealing". Part of this duty is that a party with superior knowledge or bargaining power does not unfairly take advantage of a party with lesser knowledge or bargaining power. Clearly, Parts Place (as stated in its catalogues, etc) holds itself out to be an "expert" in things VW.....obviously an English professor does not. So legally you took advantage of the situation, and your "offer" to resell the van for $3300 clearly shows you took advantage of the situation.

By the way, my university offers a course called Introduction to Economics....however, it also has a course called BUSINESS ETHICS (PHL 215 I believe), and perhaps it should be a requirement of folks in the business profession as you believe that Economics should be required by anyone in the teaching profession.

If you REALLY wanted to do the right thing, perhaps instead of contacting Melissa and asking her if she wanted to buy her van back for $3300 (the moral equivalent of rubbing salt into one's wounds...after all you KNEW how much she hated to part with the van), you could have said, we'll sell it back to you for the FAIR MARKET VALUE of the repairs we did plus the $200 we paid you for the van.

What you have done is what many companies these days seem to forget, keys to a successful business are satisfied, repeat customers as well as a good business reputation. It seems to me that all that counts here is your bottom line.

Even if you don't buy my "good faith" and "fair dealing" argument, the law is not always the "judge" on what the customer and the public perceives as right and wrong....its the ethical and moral conduct of the company in question as well, and that ultimately effects the public's spending habits and a company's bottom line.

If that is the case consider this. You paid $200 for the van, and lets estimate that you spent $500 in getting it to run. That's $700 in costs, leaving you $2,600 profit. However, you now have a BIG (given the number of folks on this list, as well as the number of folks who also are on other VW-related lists (New Beetle, Watercooled, Vintage, Type 2, etc.) public relations problem. How much goodwill and potential sales have you lost from these listees because of this? I bet you've lost more than that the $2600 profit you made from the sale of the van.

Personally, had the story been how wonderful Parts Place was in undoing a "tragic" mistake by one of the list members (and yes, if you check the list archives, you will see that we both praise as well as complain about certain suppliers), I would more than likely order that set of shocks that my 87 Vanagon Westy needs from Parts Place. Why? Because I would have respected the way you treated one of our list members. Instead I'll order the shocks from one of our tried and true list suppliers. Chalk at least that lost sale against the $2600 profit made on the van.

Richard Golen


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