My wife’s friend was clearing out a loft and found a load of subbuteo from way back when her husband was a kid.

Not being that versed in computer selling but knowing my wife has been quite active, she asked my wife to put it on Gumtree for £75.

My wife was suspicious that that was undervaluing somewhat so did some research, and found it was worth a fair bit more. So she catalogued all the items, researched prices, took photos of all the teams, did a real proper job (plus answered all the questions that came in from buyers).

The job lot sold for way in excess of his original £75, thanks to her hours of effort. After fees, postage, and so on, he netted the princely sum of £319.

AIBU that he’s sent through his bank details and asked us to transfer ‘only’ the £300 and keep the rest.

(also AIBU that he had a perfect quality set of blue and white hooped shirted players, and 1/ the wife wouldn’t let me keep them; and worse, he’d Dymo taped the box as QPR when clearly they’re Reading 😉 )

Friend you say?

Friends and money.

I’d have negotiated a “commission” before doing all that (and I realise your missus did it out of the goodness of her heart). You just can’t trust people not to be greedy arseholes when lucre is involved.

Even if he went halves with you, he would still have got double what his wife valued the lot at.

Definitely not cricket IMO and you have every right to feel a bit miffed.

I’d probably be tempted to tell him where he should stick his £19, too..

Did your wife tell the friend she was going to list higher, catalogue etc or just go ahead and do it? If it were a close friend I’d just be chuffed that they got decent money for it and I would transfer the full amount. Everybody is different when it comes to money though I suppose.

Did your wife do all that on the expectation of getting a juicy cut, or doing a favour for a friend?

If the former, was this ever discussed?

Did the owner ask your wife to do all the additional work, or did she take it upon herself?

I’ve done favours for friends in the past, I may do some again in the future. I didn’t and wouldn’t expect to be remunerated for it – and if I did I wouldn’t be doing a favour, would I?

My first reaction is, yes, you maybe are being unreasonable if the friend just asked her to list it on Gumtree and she’s unilaterally decided to turn it into a much bigger job, unasked.

I suppose to really judge this we need more details:

Is £300, or £19, or the difference between £300 and £75, an important amount of money to either party?

Was the driver for the sale the need for cash, or to declutter?

Most importantly – is she fit?

Not being that versed in computer selling

They probably don’t realise what a ballache it was to sell.

Next time get her to give them £75 and tell them she put it on Gumtree as requested.

I’d tell them eBay charged £319 – £75 in fees.

I’d have said ‘Mate, I got £320 for your stuff’ and given him £320. If you’re happy to do sell it for them as a favour because they’re unable to, you’re happy to do it regardless of the value. If I was the other party I’d be getting the beers in, obviously.

If wifey new it was worth more it sounds like she did, did she discuss a commission on the sale?

Sounds like she was simply selling it on behalf of the friend, £20 isn’t bad for uploading some pictures and replying to a few questions if it’s a friendly favour.

Was the potential value discussed pre sale?

If she was that bothered about making a cut she could have bought it off her friend for say £100.

It think Yeh your being a bit unreasonable, it’s a favour to a friend, not an investment opportunity.

Yes and no. However I think it would have been far more thoughtful if your wife’s friends had bought your wife something they knew she would very much like. A couple of bottles of top notch wine? Perfume? Exotic bouquet? In order words they should have made some effort in recognition of the huge effort made by your kind wife.

Don’t be miffed, life is too short. 🙂

this

Is this not what friends do for each other – help each other out for reasons other than pecuniary gain?

I would expect a good night out on them though.

Yeh to be fair, they could invite you round for dinner or take you out for a curry as a thank you.
That would be reasonable reciprocal in my opinion.

Unless they are hard up, in which case I wouldn’t be bothered.

Friends and money – always a dangerous combination. As already asked. Is this amount significant or not to either party. If it isn’t I’d just hand over the money and then expect a reasonable dinner / bottle of wine or something as recognition of thanks.

With most of my friends I’d be confident that at some point in the future the favor would be repaid in some shape or form. That’s why they’re still my friends but I’m sure I’m going to be unpleasantly surprised a few times as well.

I think you should of bought it for £75, kept what you wanted and sold the rest yourself.
I think your probably more annoyed at yourselves for not doing that than your friends.

I’d have said ‘Mate, I got £320 for your stuff’ and given him £320.

Ditto. You never know when you might need a favour yourself.

If the shoe were on the other foot I’d probably treat them to dinner or a nice bottle of something, but “I’ve done you a favour, where’s my money?” isn’t really the sort of discourse I’d have with friends.

Buying it off them for the asking price of £75 and then subsequently selling on my recently acquired Subbuteo set, however… (-:

If you’re relationship is such that if they invite you round for a curry and a few drinks one night, then present you with a bill for your share, then you’re totally right that your wife’s time was worth more than £19.

If on the other hand, you were just genuinely thrilled to help out a friend with a good result, then yes you are.

Friends is a tricky subject, and it’s not as easy or straight forward as you’d think. My mother and fathers sides of the family always had very different views. Fathers side was the expectation that something would be done for free/mates rates, but what goes round comes round.

Mothers was that you’d have to pay someone, so better make sure it goes into the pockets of family/friends rather than strangers. Both make sense, and seemed culturally normal to both branches of the respective families – as long as it isn’t abused neither were really wrong, were they?

Not read all the replies, but the solution is actually simple…

Transfer the full £319 back to them. Treat it that you’ve done them a huge favour and made them a stack of money.

If they want to put a monetary value on the work your wife has done then £19 is completely taking the piss.

YANBU

Many of the posters above have got their backs up because they feel that you have put a financial value on what was supposed to be a favour for your friend.

What they’ve overlooked is the fact that it wasn’t you that put that financial value on it, it was your friend. And the value he placed on it completely took the piss.

He’s being an utter dick suggesting that £19 is a sensible value for what your wife did.

However, you’re not in any position to put a value on the service either at this late stage. So you need to give them all the cash back and reclaim the moral high ground.

In my group of friends this would be exactly what we’d all do, “fair play, you got me a couple of extra quid, let’s round it to £300, you keep the rest and I’ll get the beers in”.

I think you’re over thinking it, they likely don’t realise how much extra work it was to get the extra money and think the £19 is a nice thank you. Don’t sweat it, I’d be gobsmacked if they thought they were taking the proverbial.

It wasn’t really like a business service was provided though, was it, a mate said to another, ‘stick this on ebay for me would you?’

Other mate said Yeh no worries.

That’s it.

It’s not like it’s a great effort to upload a few pictures and answer a few questions, unless you charge your mates an hourly rate for your attention, in which case you’re basically a prostitute.

Some people have really weird ideas about friendship.

+1

You’ve got to think that some folk on here don’t have any friends.

thegreatape – Member

I’d have said ‘Mate, I got £320 for your stuff’ and given him £320. If you’re happy to do sell it for them as a favour because they’re unable to, you’re happy to do it regardless of the value. If I was the other party I’d be getting the beers in, obviously.

Is what I would have done. I can’t understand doing anything else for a friend.

I’d have said ‘Mate, I got £320 for your stuff’ and given him £320. If you’re happy to do sell it for them as a favour because they’re unable to, you’re happy to do it regardless of the value. If I was the other party I’d be getting the beers in, obviously.

This. Lots of it.
favours for friends are favours.

I’m bloody glad I’m not friends with some of you lot. Probably get a bill for just spending time with you. Favour for a friend is just that, if you expect to be compensated for a favour then it’s not really a friendship or a favour. I’ve taken time off work and traveled miles to help mates move house. Some of your would have been sending them expenses forms and an invoice for labour 🙄

Cheers for the comments. It’s a bit later and I’m a bit less miffed now but to answer some of the queries / comments.

It was her good sense that realised that £75 was a bit cheap and checked out the potential value. She then told her friend (who’s an acquaintance rather than a close friend) who then told her husband (who isn’t – it’s a school mum and we don’t really know him; certainly not that we’d expect to be invited round for dinner, etc.) She then did the honest thing and told her friend about the potential value. They’re not best mates in which case I wouldn’t quibble, you know you’ll get paid back one way or another with a proper mate.

When he was informed about the potential value he asked her if she wouldn’t mind listing it for him. We didn’t discuss a fee, it felt a bit grubby and we’d kind of thought my wife would be seen OK out of it without necessarily expecting it.

It did take quite some time, a lot of the boxes were very dusty, all were catalogued and photographed, and so on. Probably 3-4 hours in all. Again, not in the expectation of particularly gaining from it but if she’s doing a job she’ll do it properly.

I think what galls me slightly is that he’s realised she’s made him a fair chunk, decided that’s worth a reward and kept £225 of the valuation above what he’d have originally taken for it and given her £19. Maybe he underestimated the effort, maybe he thinks that’s what it was worth, but TBH if he’d kept it all and bought her a bunch of flowers I think that would have seemed nicer.

Anyway, gone now. Thanks for opinions.

And no, she’s not fit.

(plus, he **** up the QPR / Reading issue, even if no-one had heard of Reading in the 70’s. So he’s a **** anyway)

Should have offered your mate the £75 and re sold it later 🙂

Put another way then – if a mate asked you to fix his bike up so he could sell it – I’d do that no quibbles.

If someone who you know from the school run approached you and said ‘you know about bikes, would you mind posting this on gumtree for me’. But then you look at it and realise with a couple of hours of a clean and polish, and a reindex of the gears and a bit of lube on the chain you could actually get £300 for it. And you tell him that and he says wow, that would be ace.

Would you expect to do it for buttons?
Would you expect to get a case of beers?
Would you say yes, but it’ll cost you 1/3 of whatever profit we make?

and at the end if after you’d spent time but no money per se on it and he told you to keep £19 would you be OK with that?

I’d either do it and be happy with the nineteen quid or just list it as he originally asked. Would depend on what else I had going on. It’s a good feeling helping others just because you can sometimes. Who knows, that kindness might even be repaid at some point.

If someone who you know from the school run approached you and said ‘you know about bikes, would you mind posting this on gumtree for me’. But then you look at it and realise with a couple of hours of a clean and polish, and a reindex of the gears and a bit of lube on the chain you could actually get £300 for it. And you tell him that and he says wow, that would be ace.

I’d not have done it to start with. I’ll help friends without a second thought, but a random asking for a solid?
You did originally state that it was your wife’s friend though.

I think you’re over thinking it, they likely don’t realise how much extra work it was to get the extra money and think the £19 is a nice thank you.

That’s a very good point actually. If it played out like this:

“Can you sell this for me? I want £75.”

“I’ve sold it, and got £319.”

“Oh wow, that’s awesome, round it off and keep the change.”

… then that seems totally fair to me, if they’re oblivious then they probably think they’re being generous. Do they actually have any idea how much effort / time / research went into the sale?

If someone who you know from the school run approached you and said ‘you know about bikes, would you mind posting this on gumtree for me’. But then you look at it and realise with a couple of hours of a clean and polish, and a reindex of the gears and a bit of lube on the chain you could actually get £300 for it. And you tell him that and he says wow, that would be ace.

TBH, I do that all the time with PC faults for my wife’s work colleague’s hairdresser’s cousin etc and count it as a win if I get a bottle of wine out of it. But then a) it’s good practice to keep my hand in and b) I’m a bloody idiot.

Do they actually have any idea how much effort / time / research went into the sale?

Not much I’d guess, if it’s desirable it will sell itself if it’s described honestly. Couple of good pictures and an honest description of condition.

You did originally state that it was your wife’s friend though.

Yeah, but there’s friends and ‘friends’ who are people you know. I should have made that distinction, but if it had been a proper mate I wouldn’t have quibbled or bothered posting.

Do they actually have any idea how much effort / time / research went into the sale?
Not much I’d guess, if it’s desirable it will sell itself if it’s described honestly. Couple of good pictures and an honest description of condition.

Lesson learned but she spent a fair bit of time on it doing a good job – prob 3-4 hours by the time she answered loads of odd questions from subbuteo geeks. And an honest description of ‘shoved in a dusty box with half the players fallen out’ probably wouldn’t have realised proper value.

You’re a bloody idiot – I specifically avoid getting myself sucked into that (I get enough practice just doing that for people who are more than acquaintances – happy enough to do it for some of my neighbours I know well, who tend to return the favour in some other way).

is your wife annoyed by it? How does she feel about it? If you did some of the work then i’d demand a portion of the £19 if not all.