AITA for buying a $50,000 guitar for $4,000 and refusing to sell it back when the buyer found out the real value?

A Reddit user, an experienced guitarist, bought a rare 1952 Telecaster for $4,000 from a co-worker who was selling his deceased father’s possessions. The user knew the guitar was worth around $50,000, but the seller didn’t, and after discovering its real value, he demanded it back.

The Redditor refused, leading to harassment and a restraining order. Despite the co-worker’s complaints and threats, the user maintained that the sale was fair, and HR sided with him. Now, the user is asking if they were wrong for keeping the guitar and not offering to sell it back. Read the original post to see how it unfolded.

‘ AITA for buying a $50,000 guitar for $4,000 and refusing to sell it back when the buyer found out the real value?’

This happened a while back. My wife and I still talk about it every once in a while. She’s on my side and most of our friends and family are. However when it happened it was like WW3 between us and her co-workers and others.

Here we go…I’ve been playing the guitar for 22 years. I know guitar values and whatnot very well. I’m very into the guitar market. At my wife’s old company she was hanging out with co-workers one day after work and she mentioned that I play guitar.

A co-worker who I guess is very popular at work said that his dad passed away and he was selling his dads things. His dad had a guitar and asked my wife if I’d be interested in it. My wife texted me and I said to have him send me the info on the guitar and the price. The next day he texted me the pics and price.

It was a 1952 Telecaster in mint condition. He had the original receipts which was crazy! (That’s how I knew the date). I asked what he wanted for it and he said he “looked up Telecasters online and he thinks $4,000 is fair”. I texted back, “I’ll take it for $4,000” and went to pick it up. The guitar had no sentimental value to him at all.

Here’s the issue at hand. The guitar was/is worth approximately $50,000 depending on the buyer and I knew it. When I got the guitar I told my wife the price and what it was worth. She was floored. Fast forward two weeks her co-worker tells my wife he just found out what the guitar was actually worth from a family friend and wanted it back.

She said, “well he really likes the guitar and he knew it was worth $50,000 which is why he was floored you offered it to him for $4,000. He really likes it and I doubt he will sell it back, but you can ask.” (Probably not the smartest thing for her to say, but she was caught off guard and it’s not her fault or problem).

He contacted me and asked to buy it back. I said that it’s not for sale. He then said I scammed him and he was going to “sue me and take my wife to HR for being a part of the scam.” Which was nuts, but he actually did contact HR. They were cool about it and said it’s not their problem. It’s between him and me.

Over the next few months he made things very uncomfortable for my wife at work. He would bug her constantly about it. She eventually had to go to HR for harassment and they actually let him go (She complained twice and he was warned and didn’t stop). He’s contacted me several times about it so I got a restraining order for harassment too. I blocked him too. I haven’t heard from him in about a year.. AITA?.

UPDATE: Well this post blew up way beyond what I was expecting. It looks like I was voted Not The A**hole. There’s over 5000 comments. I couldn’t read them all, but I did read a lot. Just to clear up some things.

I left somethings out because I didn’t want it to influence opinions and really wanted it to be about me buying a guitar at significantly lower market value vs the people in the story.

I did include the fact that the guy was harassing my wife at work not to make the guy sound bad, but because I thought it was relevant to the story. Here’s some specific details I chose not to include: The guy and his dad were not close at all. So those people saying he was grieving and I took advantage of him, that is 100% not the case.

When I went to get the guitar he was telling me he hadn’t talked to his dad in six years and was actually annoyed he had to deal with a funeral. The dad bought the guitar new and never played it. Luckily it was stored in a closet and not in a basement or attic. There’s no issue with the wood or electronics.

It plays like a dream and I couldn’t be happier. I am not selling the guitar to the son or anyone. It will be with me for a long time. I’m in my 30’s so maybe in 30 years it will find a new home.

I would have MAYBE considered giving the guy more money or giving him one of my guitars to sell on his own, but I decided not to do that after he left a terrible voicemail on my phone the day he found out the real value. He demanded it back like he was entitled to an object he sold fair and square, called me a POS, called my wife a POS and said he would “do bad things” if I didn’t sell him the guitar back.

And to those people who say they would have told the guy the real value. That’s a load of horse s**t. If you went to a garage sale/estate sale and saw an item worth $5000 priced at $50 there’s not a snowballs chance in hell you would walk up to the homeowner and tell them they mis-priced it.

You’d buy the item and then tell all your friends and family what a great score you got! Don’t even kid yourself like you wouldn’t do that. I don’t feel bad about buying an awesome guitar at a steal of a price. I was curios what others would think and it looks like I’m not the a**hole so thank you reddit. I can play the guitar with zero guilt now. Not like I felt guilty before, but now my feelings are justified.

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

Peabody77 −  Nta. When you sell something it is your responsibility to know or determine what its worth not the person you are selling to. Edit- to your edit I absolutely agree.

agd1516 −  ESH. You blatantly took advantage of him and his ignorance. He sucks because he didn’t research it enough, and then harassed you and your wife to the point it got him fired. Just a whole messy situation. I don’t think you should sell it back to him. You paid a price he gave you (bad on him). You just seriously took advantage of him (bad on you).

downbythesea113 −  ESH. Harassing you and your wife is not okay whatsoever regardless of circumstance. But let’s be real, you did prey on his ignorance and took advantage of it, which makes you s**k, too.

Harsh lesson for the guy (double whammy in losing something of value AND going crazy and being fired in the process). Hes an i**ot because he should have done his research. You on the other hand, will justify in your head why you think you’re in the right and won’t lose any sleep over it.

But — consider this: insider trading is wrong because of information asymmetry – ie, someone profits because of others’ ignorance – the balance of knowledge of information is not the same.

Similarly, there was major information asymmetry between you and this guy – you knew way more about the value of the guitar because it is one of your passions. You profited from this asymmetry. Granted, not illegal (as insider trading is), but if it were me, I would feel really guilty about taking this kind of advantage over someone. This is $46K we’re talking about.

Edit: not going to respond to everyone saying this isn’t exactly like insider trading. I dont think I said that. I was simply drawing on the concept of information asymmetry to illustrate why I believed what the OP did was wrong. Everyone jumping on me that this isn’t exactly insider trading is stating the obvious.

IATAAllDay −  I’m a bit conflicted because it seems there may be more to the story but I’m gonna say YTA. You knew what it was worth and blatantly ripped the guy off. He just lost his dad and was probably having a hard time and just wanting to unload stuff but you could have leveled with the guy and told him the truth. Sure you may not have ended up with the guitar but now you seem like a greedy p**ck

Jumpy-Jelly −  YTA. I can’t believe how many votes on here for the opposite! This guy sold his late dad’s possession in good faith and you took advantage. This isn’t even a random person, a colleague and assume some kind of friend?

For everyone going on about how the guy should have “researched” properly, if he doesn’t know anything about guitars he probably had no way of knowing what he was looking for. What a s**tty thing to do, you should have told him what it was worth.

[Reddit User] −  YTA – 100% without question that was an a**hole move, doesn’t mean you have to give it back. The non a**hole move would be to tell him its value before purchasing, not knowingly take it for almost nothing.. the majority of people would have done the exact same thing in your situation, doesn’t mean it isnt an a**hole move.

[Reddit User] −  I feel like this thread highlights the dissonance between reality and reddit extremely well. How can someone possibly think this is the morally right thing to do.. YTA, that was really low.

PARA9535307 −  YTA. There’s a legal aspect and a moral aspect to this. I can’t speak to the legal side (and this isn’t a legal sub, though it might be worth a post to one). But from a moral standpoint, yeah, they should have done better research. But you knowingly took advantage of a grieving co-worker, to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars of their inheritance. That’s just an a**hole thing to do.

I mean, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine you passed away, and your wife was grieving – how would you want the people in her life to treat her? Secretly thrilled at making a massive profit from her grief and ignorance? No, right?

AllTh3Naps −  I vote NTA. Yeah, it really sucks for them, but they should have done a better job researching the value.

melonlollicholypop −  This is one that could fuel an ethics class discussion. What you did was opportunistic. For some, opportunism has no inherent value: good or bad. So, for those, you simply engaged in a sale paying the sticker price. End of story.

Others believe that opportunism is a trait to be valued. For those, you did nothing to mislead, and therefore taking advantage of an opportunity to advance your own objectives is a marker of a successful individual.

For these people, each person is responsible first to himself, so you had the obligation to get yourself a good deal, and the seller had the obligation to get himself a good deal. The results here being that you succeeded and he failed.

These same people would side with the seller if he had asked you for $50K for the guitar, and you happily paid that, and later learned it was only worth $4K (given that circumstances were the same, and he didn’t lie – just that you failed to research).

And then there are others that believe that opportunism is a negative trait that requires preying on others. For those, the overall impact to society that concealing information in order to profit (a lie of omission) creates is largely negative.

These people would feel you had a larger ethical duty to the truth, and that you took advantage of someone else for personal gain. These would be people who tend to support Kant’s idea of a moral imperative. His idea, (oversimplified version), states: “Does my action respect the goals of human beings rather than merely using them for my own purposes? If the answer is no, then we must not perform the action.”

I can see both sides, and would have a hard time as a juror having to choose. Those making the argument that the seller did no due diligence are hard to ignore. There was a great deal of his own negligence that led to his predicament, but ultimately, we aren’t here to judge him, we’re here to judge you (because you asked for it). In the end, I am with Kant, and YTA. And I wonder if maybe you aren’t also a bit of a Kantian – after all, it’s still niggling at your conscience years later.

Do you think the Redditor did the right thing by keeping the guitar after the seller asked for it back? Would you have done the same if you were in their shoes, or would you have offered to give it back? Share your thoughts on this unusual dilemma!