Question of ethics

[xray]

I have been pondering whether it is ethical or not to warn others in the club if I was to offer unsoliceted information regarding z cars listed on ebay that I have personaly looked at and know for a fact they are not even close to being what they are described as. I have been asked to look at a few in my area and told the member what I thought the car was worth and to deccribe what I saw.The few times I did this the cars were in bad shape and the member did not bid on the cars.I feel I did a service to these members.I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination but I do have a lot of knowledge of z cars and I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.I would never mislead anyone intentionaly so I could purchace a car myself.I guess the question is should I inform the club if I see red flags all over a car for bid without being asked?

It is absolutely ethical to help a club member by inspecting a car which is local to you, but distant to the interested party. I would expect it of other club members, and I hope others would not hesitate to ask me if they felt I could do them a favor.

If you find the car desirable to yourself, I (as the distant interested party) would like to know that.

Once you look the car over, be as factual as you can. The inspector can't possibly know the capabilities or risk the interested party is willing to take on a particular car, so the interested party is best served with lots of photos of key areas, with some explanation if the picture is confusing. If an opinion is wanted, then make it obvious to the interested party that you, the inspector of the vehicle, are giving an opinion...

+1 on discerning seller intent. It's OK to give an overall judgment of the deal in question, but I would avoid pejoratives or personal impressions. Let the car and the price for it speak more loudly...

$0.02,

Steve

[Go240Zags]

.... REAL PHOTOS, taken from the angle of someone who is going to buy a car and NOT someone who is going to sell it will tell more than most opinions can. I can take a real junker of a car and photograph it to look much better than it actually is in person. Same goes with a house ... how many of us when looking for a house have seen the house photos online then scratched your heads when you saw the place in person. Same goes for cars ...

Case in point -- my avatar. The photo was taken by the P.O. and is one of several I've included in my gallery. From the photo my project doesn't look too bad (it's small and at an angle that makes the paint look pretty good). However, if you look in the gallery you see there are lots of problems. The P.O. sold me a fairly solid shell as advertised and at a more than fair price. He took pictures of all the rust spots and problem areas. We all know that it is easy to make something look better in pictures than it is in person if that's our intent -- and on eBay that's often the case.

I appreciate our members' efforts to judge a car based on their knowledge of the subject. However, we need to keep things more clinical than critical shall we say. Even if it is highly over-exaggerated as to condition. Keep to the facts, take photos if you can of the problem areas and let the potential buyers be the judge. We all know it can be enjoyable to poke fun at some of the things we see on eBay, the case of a highly modified car that was on there a few times comes to mind. But often the car being sold is someone's baby and no one wants to hear their baby is ugly - even if it's obvious to the rest of us. Just my 2 cents.

[onuthin]

I want to thank everyone for their comments regarding the ethics of both solicited and unsolicited info. The few times I have been asked to look at Z's in my area only one time was it an obvious attempt to mislead a buyer. The other times it was plain the seller knew nothing about the car and was unaware of the hidden rust areas that were plain to someone that with knowledge of Z's.Floorpans rusted out,rails rusted into,under back hatch bad and the list goes on.When it was pointed out to the sellers all but one appeared to be embarressed and changed their description or was willing to negotiate a lower price.Like said earlier I try to stick with facts and things I see good as well as bad when I describe a car.I have been asked as an opinion how much would I pay for the car and my answer is what I think the car is worth to me.I also ask the prospective buyer if they are not interested in the car at that price would they mind after they make the final decision not to buy would they mind if I made the same offer that I would not try to underbid them. So far I have not bought any that I was asked to look at.The main point is I don't think most sellers are dishonest they just don't know about their cars.I feel bad busting their bubbles when they were told they have a rare sports car and find out it is a rust bucket with a lot of major problems.I also remember when I started collecting Z's and wished I had someone to point this out to me.From now I will continue to look at all Z's in my area andwill report on the facts as I see them and let the buyer double check before jumping blind into a " bargain"