Beer Trade Dilemma...What Would You Do?

A couple of months ago now, I agreed to a trade with a fellow HomeBrewTalk member. It took a couple of weeks for cooler weather to arrive for shipping, and once it cooled down, it seemed that everything was on-track for a smooth trade.

I sent 2-bottles of beer, in exchange for 1-bottle from the other forum member. My shipment to him arrived in a timely manner, and the bottles were in good condition. However, the bottle I was supposed to receive was damaged in shipment by FedEx, and they declared the package undeliverable.

At first, the person on the other end of the trade said he'd get the situation resolved and make things right. This went on for about a week, then all of a sudden, he seemed to change his mind once he found out FedEx wouldn't cover the damages, "since it was alcohol." With that, he said that's one of the risks we take when doing a trade like this, and that the only thing he could do would be to ship me a bottle of next year's vintage once it comes out. I offered several other solutions, but have not gotten any sort of a response to the last several PMs I've sent.

What would you do in this situation? I realize it is only 1-bottle of beer, but to me, it's almost more about the principle of the matter now, and not upholding his end of the bargain. I don't want to necessarily drag his name through the mud without giving him one last chance to make things right, yet I don't want him doing the same thing to another member on here.

Relax and have your own. Who cares about a bottle of beer?

Its always a risk when doing business with someone you have never met. This person may have not taken as much care when packing your shipment. Stuff happens at times, but reviews about company's or individuals that do wrong are appreciated by others.

dude take him up on his offer

Maybe find someone local to trade with?... I can't imagine going through the hassle of shipping a single bottle of beer. "next year's vintage"?... doesn't the guy/gal brew more than once a year?

What's wrong with a bottle from next year? I bet had you graciously accepted that compromise you would have had more than you bargained for in the package next year.

Frodo said:

Maybe find someone local to trade with?... I can't imagine going through the hassle of shipping a single bottle of beer. "next year's vintage"?... doesn't the guy/gal brew more than once a year?

Click to expand...

LOL...you are missing quite a lot.

Sounds like the person tried to make good on the situation by offering a bottle from the next vintage. Dealing with FedEx on risky packages (i.e. bottles of alcohol) can be tricky and get somewhat pricey. Any seller who has had something go wrong on eBay can attest to it being a bit of a witch hunt in regards to "what's next" with FedEx. In the other party's defense, 1 bottle isn't worth the time/effort/$$. Relax and take the other party's offer on the next vintage. It's not like you knew what you were supposed to get was better that what you will get.

Xpertskir said:

LOL...you are missing quite a lot.

Click to expand...

guess so.

Homebrew: Serious business!!!!

why do you say he is missing the point... NO... He understands... I think you missed HIS point.. He is saying dont worry bout it, but next time trade locally and you wont have to deal with the hassle.

Xpertskir said:

LOL...you are missing quite a lot.

Click to expand...

I would wait until his next vintage and if he does not deliver then you can drag his name though the mud. Just save all your emails or pm's so you have proof at a later date. But at the same time it is just one bottle of beer. Why would you trade 2 of yours for 1 of his?

I'm pretty sure hes talking about commercial beer trade...

I'd be pretty mad, but if he/she showed you the proof that FedEx damaged it with their comments, you can't be mad at him/her.

Take 'em up on the offer for next year's vintage.

Sorry for the delayed response. The bottle of beer in-question was a bottle of 2012 Dark Lord, so that's why he said I'd have to wait until next year.

I do have as many PMs saved that I can (only 15-PMs right now since I'm a basic member).

I had even proposed a 3-way trade in which he traded someone else some beer for another bottle of Dark Lord '12, and they sent that bottle of DL to me. Again, never heard anything back.

Not sure how it was packaged, as I didn't get a response to that either. I packed the heck out of the 2-bottles I sent to him, using bubble wrap, foam, and those little airbag pillows, then made sure it was labeled "Fragile" several places on the exterior of the package.

JonathanG said:

2012 Dark Lord

Click to expand...

Ouch... Yea, I'd be mad.

At $50/bottle, I'd pack it with dead baby seals to prevent breakage. I could understand if FedEx ran it over, but anything less should be protected from by the sender. Inexcusable. Period.

Beer Trading is a gamble from many perspectives, and it happened that you came up on the losing end on this one and got f-cked. Assuming that it was packaged right, the person who shipped it to you should not have to pay up, any more than you should pay up if the package was "lost" on its way to them. Sounds like he is nice enough to buy you another $50 bottle of beer, so dragging his name through the mud isn't warranted at this point since he has to wait for the next vintage to make good on his offer.

Another option would be to decide what happens should the package be lost, BEFORE you do the trade. Be sure everyone is on the same page before doing so. Maybe there is an etiquette to this; I don't trade enough to know it.

Well, it sucks. First, you made sure you packed your beer very well, and it would be expected that the other person would too. But things like this take experience sometimes and sht happens, as they say.

That said, you offered him an option, but it wasn't accepted. That option requires the other person to work a deal with someone else, costing them time, effort and money, which is apparently in excess of what they deemed suitable.

If I were the other person I'd seriously have to think about whether or not that kind of thing is worth it. I'd want to try almost anything to work out a solution that the was agreeable. Certainly waiting a whole year could be considered as disagreeable to you as working out a 3-way trade is to them.

The fact is, the other person takes the fault in this and might not be able to finish the swap without incurring a larger portion of the cost. That is the price for not packing good enough. In my opinion, depending on the cost of the swap with the 3rd person, it would be the best for them to accept your solution and work it out.

However, there may be other options to consider. Can we brainstorm on this and see what makes sense? It seems there will be no agreement on whether to go 3-way or wait a year.

How about monetary compensation for the beer? They pay you what they paid for the beer, or it's street value, and nobody has to work hard and spend a lot of time. You get money that could be used to purchase next year's vintage or have the option of working with someone else this year.

Or he could return your beer.

Or just call it a bust and wait the year.

Seems kind of *****ey to make someone wait a whole year rather than try and give satisfaction in a reasonable amount of time.

Not calling anyone out, I'm not involved but if it were me I'd send out a replacement right away if for no other reason then to take care of a fellow brewer and HBTer.

skibb said:

I'm pretty sure hes talking about commercial beer trade...

Click to expand...

ah, i see. $50 a bottle! I am missing quite a lot.

I did forget to mention that he offered to return the beer... well, part of it at least. I'm not sure if he drank one of them, or gave/traded it to someone else? I don't want half the beer back!

This was a trade I was really looking forward to receiving. Prior to this, I'd only done local hand-delivery trades. Unfortunately, this has put a bad taste in my mouth.

And I tend to agree that there should be a reasonable solution here. I think you could've dropped the package I sent him off a 2-story building and it would've survived. I wish he'd have done the same.

Hindsight is 20/20-of course, and terms for breakage/damage should've been discussed beforehand.

Maybe we can at least make this a constructive thread, and come up with an etiquette list for just such a situation to help others in the future? I am, after all, an optimist, so we might as well take a (currently) bad situation, and try make something positive of it.

If you don't want to wait for next year, and if all else fails, I think reimbursing you for the cost of your bottles, plus your shipping is fair. He did get the beer you sent, so if nothing else you should be compensated for what you sent. My guess is that his packaging was probably not up to par.

If you're feeling generous split the cost, so you both take a small hit on the loss.

What was the beer you sent him?

JonathanG said:

I did forget to mention that he offered to return the beer... well, part of it at least. I'm not sure if he drank one of them, or gave/traded it to someone else? I don't want half the beer back!

This was a trade I was really looking forward to receiving. Prior to this, I'd only done local hand-delivery trades. Unfortunately, this has put a bad taste in my mouth.

And I tend to agree that there should be a reasonable solution here. I think you could've dropped the package I sent him off a 2-story building and it would've survived. I wish he'd have done the same.

Hindsight is 20/20-of course, and terms for breakage/damage should've been discussed beforehand.

Click to expand...

How do you know he didn't pack it well? If FedEx refused delivery, they would have sent the package back to him right? Did he sent you pictures showing substandard packaging or are you just assuming?

If it's who I think it is, I've traded with him before and everything arrived well packed and as agreed. It's very possible this was just an unfortunate set of circumstances.

If he can't/won't send you another 2012 Dark Lord, and you aren't willing to wait for the 2013 Dark Lord, why not just ask him to send you cost of the beers you sent him?

Jukas said:

If he can't/won't send you another 2012 Dark Lord, and you aren't willing to wait for the 2013 Dark Lord, why not just ask him to send you cost of the beers you sent him?

Click to expand...

Or find some other beer/beers from his region that you wouldn't mind sampling.

I'm planning on getting into trading soon, will make sure all possibilities are discussed/agreed upon prior to shipment. The mods might want to move this to the Sampling/Critiquing sub-forum....

I've come to realize "fragile" labels generally mean "open football practice" to some people.

pedimac said:

I've come to realize "fragile" labels generally mean "open football practice" to some people.

Click to expand...

Yup. I recently had my shippment from cynmar delivered, with all the tubes and what not I ordered for slanting. UPS guy walks up towards my door, sees me in the kitchen and goes "here you go man" and tosses it on the ground from waist high. When I looked at the box it had no less than 3 fragile stickers in his immediate eye line. If the delivery guy does stuff like that imagine what happens in the warehouse.

Jukas said:

Yup. I recently had my shippment from cynmar delivered, with all the tubes and what not I ordered for slanting. UPS guy walks up towards my door, sees me in the kitchen and goes "here you go man" and tosses it on the ground from waist high. When I looked at the box it had no less than 3 fragile stickers in his immediate eye line. If the delivery guy does stuff like that imagine what happens in the warehouse.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've heard enough stories from UPS and Fedex workers to know never to write "Fragile" on anything. It invites the warehouse guys to have competitions to see how far they can throw, kick, drop, run over with a forklift, etc. Better to just pack really well and leave the outside nondescript.

ThatGeekGuy said:

I'm planning on getting into trading soon, will make sure all possibilities are discussed/agreed upon prior to shipment. The mods might want to move this to the Sampling/Critiquing sub-forum....

Click to expand...

So what would be a fair agreement to make ahead of time concerning breakage, lost package, etc.?

First of all, I wouldn't sweat this one much. Yeah, if the $50 numbers being tossed around are accurate, that's enough that it's worth thinking about before writing off, but put it in perspective. You were going to spend that $50 on beer---A beer---that's something of an extravagance. It's disappointing to lose it, but we're not talking about your last few dollars to feed your family. If it were me, the worst response I'd bother with would be not to engage this person in trades in the future. If attempts to agree on a remedy fail, I'd just leave it at that and move on.

Second, if you're looking for the best compromise here, here's my economist-style suggestion. Average the costs of the beers (NOT including shipping) on each side of the exchange, and call that the value that you each were trying to obtain. He got his value, but you did not. If he pays you half of that value---half the average cost---then you each come out of the deal an equal amount "screwed" by the unexpected event. It's not perfect, and there are other ideas about what is fair (believe me, I tried half a dozen of them before deciding this was my favorite), but it is simple and reasonable, especially since it's unlikely that one of you paid significantly more than the other.

Deciding on the value to be compensated is difficult, and where I'd expect people to disagree with me. I don't include shipping in this calculation. That is because you were each willing to eat the cost of shipping the product to the other guy in exchange for the beer. Even though your beer did not arrive, he still paid that cost already, so that part of the deal worked as planned. It's just a matter of sharing the cost of the lost product. Most likely the beer costs were similar on both sides of the trade---it's unlikely you were trying to send him either a $5 or a $500 bottle of beer in exchange for his $50 bottle---so the average is probably close. However, even if the costs were grossly different, simply averaging them is a decent compromise. At least, as good of one as I can come up with.

Finally, if you are still trying to reach a resolution in this case, unless he has admitted otherwise, I would graciously assume that he had done as good a job packaging as you did and ascribe the fault to FedEx. It may or may not be true, but you're not going to get anywhere by picking a fight by being accusative. In the future, in addition to agreeing in advance about how to deal with a lost or damaged package, I'd also agree on packing methods in some detail. Then, if you receive a package that doesn't meet those standards, whether intact or not, don't deal with that person again. It can't protect you from an outright scammer, but if you can't accept that risk, you shouldn't be swapping with strangers in the first place.

I went ahead and posted on the Dark Lord trade thread that I would take him up on his offer to replace the broken bottle of 2012 Dark Lord with a bottle of 2013 Dark Lord once it is released next year.

I posted a couple of days ago on the trade thread, and have not yet gotten a response from him. Will keep you posted on how this turns out.