Ethics Question
General forum
Posted on June 14, 2018, 9:08 p.m. by IsThisAMagicCard
I went to an estate sale in the wealthy area of my city, and bought a small collection of cards for cheap.
The highlights include one of each ABUR dual, Imperial Seal, Time Walk, and more.
Part of me feels like a monster for basically ripping off a grieving mother, and the rest of me is happy I paid less than $100 for these cards.
What would you have done in this situation?
Sounds like the dream scenario to me. Its horrible about her loss ...combined with a complete ignorance of magic pricing... but none of that is your doing. Business is business, its not personal. If you don't like owning them, then just give them back... but you didn't do anything wrong.
June 15, 2018 7:26 a.m.
Ender666666 says... #5
So long as you paid what she was asking, and didn't haggle the price down lower, I see nothing wrong with it.
It's up to a seller to know what they have and price it accordingly. I don't think you ripped her off. You just got a really great deal.
June 15, 2018 8:14 a.m.
Rzepkanut with that logic it would be morally ok to trade a Scaled Wurm for Snapcaster Mage as long as the kid is unaware of the value of his snappy.
June 15, 2018 8:18 a.m.
Personally, I would purchase the cards. As Homura_Akemi, if you are feeling guilty, you could donate a portion (no need to donate all) of your profits on the card to charity. I would two points to this suggestion. First, you should chose a fairly innocuous charity--ideally one related to the deceased's interests. You should also donate in the name of the decedent and write the mother a note explaining that you purchased the cards, found out some were valuable, and donated proceeds to a charity in her son's name.
smackjack: I disagree that this logically follows--children and adults are inherently different. The child is not of an age where they know, or should know, the value of their Magic cards. There's a reason contracts entered into by minors are revocable.
June 15, 2018 8:53 a.m.
cdkime well, mothers are also in a position where they they don't know, or should know, the value of their kids Magic cards. Especially in this situation where the grieving mother probably don't have the emotional energy to check each end every card for value. And even if we don't count them being grown ups vs kids.. I have a friend in my age (33) who just started playing. I would argue that it would be morally wrong for me to knowingly trade my Scaled Wurm for his Snapcaster Mage and justify it all with "you are grown up, you should know the value of the card".
Sure, you could argue that because its a grown person, the deal sticks if you have a deal. But its still morally wrong to not inform the poor grieving mother about the value of her deceased sons possessions, and willingly buy them for less than a thousand of its value. Legal? Yes, but morally wrong.
June 15, 2018 9:17 a.m. Edited.
brandontraps says... #9
Depends who offered the price. If it was her suggesting 100$ than you got a great deal for keeping your mouth shut. If you offered 100$ knowing it was worth more than yeah you should feel guilty.
June 15, 2018 10:45 a.m.
As I indicated, I actually agree with your conclusion in how to act--it would be the right thing to share the profits with the Mother, be it directly, as you suggested, or indirectly through a charitable donation, as I did.
My issue was more with your hypothetical--the situations are not equal, and adults, even emotionally distraught ones, cannot be equated to children. Likewise, I find your new hypothetical lacking--you've added a new fact--friendship--to the mix, which has its own ethical duties, such as trust.
Again, I agree with your ultimate conclusion on how to act, as well as that the law and morality do not always equate to one another (a fact I know better than most)--I just found your response to Rzepkanut's did not logically follow.
dsigsbee: The facts as presented do not seem to indicate legal duress under the common understanding of the term. There is no unlawful threat or coercion. The purchaser did not use a position of power to subjugate the mother. While mother made a bad economic decision based on her emotional state, that should not be considered a valid equitable reason to rescind the contract.
Also, bit of a pet peeve, but you probably should not make case-specific conclusions of law based on facts read over the internet. If you are a layperson, you are not qualified to do so. If you are an attorney, you should know better--not only do different jurisdictions have different rules, you open yourself up to all kinds of liability should someone rely on those statements incorrectly. If you are a law student, you know just enough to make a fool of yourself.
June 15, 2018 12:22 p.m.
A bit scummy, yeah. My friend was checking out from a local LGS while buying 10+ singles at once. Noticed his total was way off. He realized the LGS was charging him $6 for Survival of the Fittest instead of $60. This is a situation where the seller was even more responsible for pricing stuff correctly, but the person carrying out the transaction wasn't familiar with MtG. Mistakes happen and my friend was prepared to pay $60 for the card. It would have been scummy of him to take advantage of the teller keying in the price of the card incorrectly.
June 15, 2018 2:41 p.m.
i have a hard time believing this actually happened, but if it did, you did nothing wrong in any way. if a grown adult can't check the value of something before selling it, thats on them. not the buyer.
in fact to be perfectly honest, if it had been me i would have told her the real value of the cards immediately after the deal was done and the cards were in my hand. i'd have help up the binder like "thanks for sellin me thousands of dollars worth of cards for just $100" and walked out like a boss while laughing at her.
June 15, 2018 7:24 p.m.
smackjack: i've done something similar to the situation you described back when i was playing yugioh. the "six samurai" cards were still new, and i traded a single "blue eyes white dragon" for about half a six samurai deck.
June 15, 2018 7:26 p.m.
Agusdakilla says... #14
Bahamut90 that seems like a pretty unethical thing to do, especially to a mother grieving a recent death. You must not be a very nice person.
June 15, 2018 7:39 p.m.
I wouldn't take him or her too seriously. He's been here three days and the majority of his posts are pretty negative in tone. I hope we've caught him or her at a bad time and that this isn't a representation of his or her character. Who knows?
June 15, 2018 7:54 p.m.
How do you know you didn't get swindled by a savvy grief-stricken woman? Maybe you got conned into buying counterfeit cards. Better get 'em checked.
June 15, 2018 7:54 p.m.
- Unless the conversation is "This card costs 100$" ..."Ye I know but I just want 10$" ..."Ok, cool" then anyone participating in a similar trade is a very bad person. Think "taking candy from a baby" bad person and this is coming from someone who's primary magic color is black.
2.But its apparently a troll post since the user just registered so its all cool. As for the majority of the other commentators its cool too, keep swindling new players into trading duals and goyfs for junk rares, I'm sure this practice will entice even more people to join our evergrowing community
June 15, 2018 8:25 p.m.
Seem like almost everyone is black and white on the subject. Haha. Personally I would treat them like I treat any gifts from my friends. Don't sell or trade, just play. Keep them forever and if you have someone close to you who needs one of them you're not using for something just pass it on. If you never make a profit, and just enjoy the cards at play value then I'm sure that's what her son would have wanted. Or hell, if you need the money sell them all and just be thankful you got an opportunity to buff your bank account temporarily. At the end of the day, you're the one who'll lose sleep over it. Make the decision you can live with.
June 16, 2018 9:01 a.m.
IsThisAMagicCard says... #19
Thanks for all the kind words everyone. I think I'm going to listen to your advice and sell them off, go back, and donate most of the money to a charity the mother thinks her son would have liked.
June 18, 2018 7:36 a.m.
...that or you thought this silly discussion would be some convincing back story for your lead in to start trying to hock them here, which of course you're completely unwelcome to do.
June 18, 2018 10:02 a.m. Edited.
I’ll make you an offer when you get the cards checked, and send me pictures I’d like them graded preferably.
What set are they?
June 27, 2018 1:36 p.m. Edited.
Are we sure this isn’t another independentmeta troll account?
June 27, 2018 1:38 p.m.
Dylan, This was definitely someone trying to scam the community. They only joined T/O to post this ridiculous story, and then try to sell the cards under the guise of "charity". They haven't made any comments or contributed to the site in anyway since as far as I can tell. Hopefully no one got duped.
Homura_Akemi says... #2
I do not know what I would do. I suppose the two obvious options would be to either do what you did or tell her the cards’ values and see what her reaction would be.
Because the seller chose the price of the cards without researching their value, I feel that the fault for that is on them. However, if you feel guilty about this, then you could explain the value to the person or sell the cards and donate their money to a charity.
My thoughts are that morality is subjective, so whatever you choose to do is okay as long as you’re not hurting people. If they live in a wealthy area, then they may not need the money anyway despite the expenses of funerals if they are grieving.
June 14, 2018 9:27 p.m.