You knew it was a mistake and he caught it late. I wouldn't give a gun away either if it was an honest mistake.

I would love to see an age distribution chart overlaid on the opinions posted on this thread.

Honesty and integrity are two of the most important words in my vocabulary.
Add a dose of common sense and you have a road map for life.

Marc

Inhnderstand what you are getting at, but where is the integrity of the seller? This was NOT the same as listing it for sell here and leaving out a number. Nobody would expect you to sell it then. This was a no reserve auction. The seller chose to use a no reserve auction because it saved him a few pennies. He could have set the reserve at the price he wanted, then he wouldn’t be required to sell. He chose not to do that. That auction was then up for the entire duration of the auction. It appears he does regular constant business on gun broker. He would have seen the bids as they came in and realized they were much lower than he expected and could have done something then (he could have bought the gun himself and relist in). He again chose not to do that. It appeared he decided to let it ride, and it bit him in the butt. A guy who does business that way has no integrity.

One look at the pistol told me a mistake was made and I'm not to sure you can make him pay. I've seen a dealership make a mistake on a new F-150 priced at 2,999 dollars, seems he or the paper left of the 3. Neither were held responsible. Kind of like giving somebody a 10 dollar bill and they give you change for a 100, it seems some here would keep it. (There's your lack of character and integrity) This was an obvious mistake.

I still can’t believe this.

You think those on here that say the seller is in the wrong and should sell are lacking character and integrity?

If this was a "buy it now" deal I could see seller maybe trying to back out, especially if it posted and sold super quick. Live auction though is different story. And yes, I will give over change back if somebody messes up.

One look at the pistol told me a mistake was made and I'm not to sure you can make him pay. I've seen a dealership make a mistake on a new F-150 priced at 2,999 dollars, seems he or the paper left of the 3. Neither were held responsible. Kind of like giving somebody a 10 dollar bill and they give you change for a 100, it seems some here would keep it. (There's your lack of character and integrity) This was an obvious mistake.

I figure what goes around eventually comes around and life's too short to waste any more time on someone like that.

UPDATE:

So, because I wanted everything in writing, I emailed the seller and asked him to confirm the phone call from his employee, by email, that he was refusing to honor the sale because of a mistake in entering the starting bid amount. The guy then emails me with a completely different story that they sold the gun prior to the auction ending, but didn't take the auction down in time. This is in spite of the fact that his ad had no provision for local sales and in fact said that "there will be no face to face transfers..." Convenient.

I replied that when he created an account on Gunbroker, he agreed to their rules and policies. One of which states, "by listing an item you are legally committing to accept the high bid for the item. If you receive a bid above the minimum price you set, and a reserve price is not specified, you are legally obligated to complete the transaction." I then inserted the link for citation.

I explained that this means we had a valid contract for him to sell me the revolver for $351.00, plus $35.00 for shipping, that he breached that contract by anticipatory repudiation, and that neither of his excuses is a valid defense. I also explained what the "benefit of the bargain" measure of contract damages meant. His response was "Good luck with that."

Sooo, I just gave him an F rating, and left a generic statement that "Seller refused to honor my winning bid on a no reserve auction. His employee called and gave one excuse and when I asked for his repudiation in writing, seller gave a completely different excuse."

And... as expected he gave me an F rating too, even though I complied with all the rules and made the effort to complete the transaction as my part of the agreement. He even had the audacity, in the comment section, to call me "A piece of work," lie and claim he "offered to make it right by sending [me] some product" (I don't even know what this could be), and warned other users to "Beware" of me.

Anyway, I'm compiling all of our communications to send to gunbroker, with a statement, asking to have his comment and rating removed. I'm not asking them to do anything to the seller and whatever ends up happening, I'm just leaving it at that.

I figure what goes around eventually comes around and life's too short to waste any more time on someone like that.

I appreciate all of the outside input, as it is not always easy to remain subjective with personal conflicts. I know there are opposing views on most everything and all that I can do, is do what I think is right and hope that it is the right decision. With that, I'd like to thank each of you for your insight.

I got to thinking and checked; I bid on the same model revolver from the same seller in a no reserve auction a couple weeks before yours. I checked, the serial numbers are different, but clearly they knew what they were doing listing that pistol with no reserve, they just expected it to sell for what the other one did.

https://www.gunbroker.com/item/747106507