So I went to look at a hot tub today on Craigslist and caught the guy in a couple of lies. The first thing I asked when I got there was does it leak anywhere? He said, "If it leaks then I am not aware of it." First of all, anyone familiar with selling stuff on Craigslist knows that's a cop out answer. It is a phrasing typically used to keep you away from future liability. It's an "as is sale" so this is pointless. Under law they're not liable anyway so what's there's really no legal liability. The liability is some guy coming back with a gun to demand his money.
This is probably how it worked in the good ole days too. As bad as it sounds, that's part of the incentive not to lie that I like about meeting at someone's actual address. I know a guy who lied on Craigslist and had the buyer come back to his address threatening. Personally, I tell the truth. Also if I sell stuff on Craigslist it's usually not to pass a tar baby on to someone else so it's their problem. I'm an engineer so if I can't fix it then there's only a couple options. Give it away, burn it, melt it, sell the working parts, or it's getting thrown away. I also like to sell things fast and at a good price. You make someone else happy and it's less painful. I cry in my beer.
As I started to look around the body of the tub, I could see soft ball size bubbles or warping in the fiberglass. Now I'm not talking about the air bubbles in the water, I'm describing the condition of the fiberglass body of the tub and it had large warped (bubble shaped) imperfections. I ran my finger across a number of them and found a couple patches and cracks. I brought him over and said (my exact words) "What are these bubbles in the fiberglass?" (while pointing under the water at one of them) His response was "This hot tub was here when I bought this house, if there was any patching then I didn't know about it." That's the second lie that I caught him in. I never mentioned to him that I saw the patches. The patches were the same color as the fiberglass so they were not visible at a glance. He knew about the patches. Then he said "I'd be more worried about leaks in the piping." I'm just going to ignore the fact that I never mentioned the possibility of these patches leaking. I had already opened the access panel while he was inside and looked at all the pipes. He was trying to get me to think about the positives.
The piping was in fantastic shape and clearly were replaced recently along with the pump and control board. He also mentioned that he had a guy come in and replaced something but said he couldn't remember what. BS, you had all that piping replaced down there along with the control board and the pump. You paid for the maintenance and he told you exactly what was wrong. At this point I was thinking, yes I can see some of the things work, that's worth something. OK, so the body leaks and the piping/control board/pump are in good shape. Moving on.
Then I told him that I would have liked it if it was hot so that I could be sure that the heating element was still good. I had texted him several days prior to make sure that this would be set up. Then I texted him again the day before. His response to both texts was OK. Knowing that this was true he accidentally eeked out "Well it's been heating since this morning." I opened the cover to the controls to see how much the heat was turned up. It was on maximum. It was 5pm and the hot tub was half full with the heat on high all day. The heating element was shot. My response was "So the heating element probably needs replacing then." His response was "I'm not sure."
Ok, you own a HOT TUB. If it's not getting HOT you know it. Stop with the lies. State the problems to me so that I can determine how much I'm going to be spending on the thing. Sorry bud, but you're not worth my time. I'm not going to give you money if you're not being honest. It's just going to piss me off later when I'm right that you lied. Maybe that's just me.
Somebody check my blood pressure!
Dan
