Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Update 3: My Knabe Grand Piano's Rebuilding Estimate. :)

If you feel the relationship and trust has been violated, then I suppose that you are within your rights to rescind the offer and let this client walk to the competition. You could also request that they take down the free advertising they were giving you until you started negating by posting.

My questions remain:
What does the law say?
How has the law been violated?
How has Piano Forte been damaged?

“Could you point me to the Canadian laws which prohibit this? My understanding is that privacy laws in Europe are much stricter than those in Canada.”

Well you are incorrect in your thinking. We have just had a revision of the privacy laws here in this province and Canada. I cannot talk about my clients or reveal ANY INFORMATION about them to anyone, including the police. The police would have to get a court order to search my files. Otherwise I can tell them to get lost.

Now in Canada the law MUST balance. This means that the same law applies to everyone, not just the business owner but the interested client/ party too. Otherwise the law is applied unevenly and you know what kind of appeal applications that would produce.

Well, if this is true as you described it, then piano4te can sue this client instead of doing the work, making money, building goodwill and getting referrals.

Sounds like a plan.

I just went for a 20 minute walk and it did not help. For the next prospective client that now walks into my shop, what do you think the very first question will be now? It will not be “how much would you like to spend” it will be “are you a member of the Piano Forum?”

If they are I will refuse the work now. Do you not see the damage this has caused? How many other technicians are not saying this but thinking it in your town RIGHT NOW?

Quite frankly I would not need the work, not work that has this type of risk. Business does not like risk and anyone who thinks they are a businessman should know this fact……

Thejourney,

Stop all the obfuscation ok? You can look up all the Canadian laws on the internet. Advertising……. get a grip ok… this is not advertising. For my shop I would not ever want this type of as you have stated “advertising”.

I understand your point, and removed the pictures.

I am very troubled and sorry.

I have not disclosed any essential part of the proposal initially, except the cost. Also, I haven't signed or agreed.

I am a Korean citizen, so I am very confused and do not know much about U.S. customs. If I offended anyone, then I will apologize.

I suppose a quote could be subject to a confidentiality agreement, but if I went to buy any big-ticket item and the seller attempted to prevent me from discussing the price with anyone that I chose, then I would be very suspicious that something was not quite right with the price. Certainly if you go to home-improvement forums you will see people post prices they have been quoted for equally expensive renovations

I think the calls that the poster should post personal information, such as medical or tax records, are misplaced. The poster has not divulged personal details about the rebuilder, merely the price quoted for an unspecified amount of work. Calls for the poster to divulge personal information would be more appropriate if the post had revealed the actual business records of the rebuilder.

I agree with theJourney that I would like to be directed to law that says the poster is liable to the builder for the price of quote, especially in the US where presumably the poster is located. And I would further agree that suing potential clients is not the best way to attract future business.

Finally, I think this blow-up is directly attributable to the general cloud of secrecy that surrounds the prices in the piano industry. As the population becomes more comfortable with sharing information on the web (I'm only in my 30's and I can't beleive some of the stuff people put on facebook and the like), more and more people are going to put explicit details of their piano transactions online. This is an inevitable trend, and I would think the industry would be better off accepting and adapting, rather than fulminating (and possibly running to lawyers!) when pricing information is made public.

Cheers

Well, I think all the outrage over this is a bit over the top. People discuss quotes for all kinds of things with other people, competitors included. I wouldn't have posted pictures of the proposal but I don't think there's any law against it. If there's a concern, it would be with potentially damaging the business relationship, not with being sued. From the reaction of some of the folks in the business, it's easy to see that they do not like this but I don't think there's much to be done about it. It's also a bit ironic. In previous threads, dealers have challenged the credibility of price quotes on the Forum. This approach definitely addresses that objection but still no good. At the end of the day, consumers will share prices on the Piano Forum and that's a good thing IMHO.

By the way, I think this is a good proposal but I would be prepared to spend more on the action down the road as you just may not be happy with the refurbished original. Also, I assume that the soundboard in this piano is good. Not much point doing all this work if it isn't.

Jerry, I think most would agree that by giving the original poster the quote, without an express confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement, the re-builder has forfeited any claim to privacy he may have. If the poster had broken into the rebuilders shop, stolen the proposed quote, and posted it on the internet, then privacy be an issue. Here it has no relevance.

Regardless of what the letter of the law says on this, for me it boils down to ethics. Let's not forget that it is not just business owners who should practice good ethics, common sense and even when in the throes of enthusiasm, a touch of reality and above all, good judgement. The client is equally responsible.

I think most honorable technicians would walk away from a job that has been so horribly spread over the internet. Speaking for myself, I think a client who displays this kind of lack of judgement is not someone I want to be involved with. Gossiping aside, you can be assured of nothing but problems with the client during and after the restoration.

And egging people on and trying to rationalize this kind of behavior from the sidelines is pretty low as well....You know who you are...

But it is probably a moot point. I would be surprised if this thing goes any further from here. Probably a case of an over-zealous client shooting himself in the foot.

Too bad for both parties.


I only hope that many people read this thread and learn a few things from it.

What I really want to see here is a picture of Avantgardenabi's piano and the room it came from.

Jurgen, I don't know if you are referring to me, but it is not my attempt to "egg" anyone on. If the rebuilder in question wants to walk away, that is within their right. It's worth noting that before the thread derailed, people (including Gene Korolev) said it was a good price and that the poster should take it.

I fail to see how what the poster did was "unethical." Simply by posting the price? If the same rebuilder quotes a different price to a different piano/person, he should be able to explain why the prices are different. Every rebuild is different, no surprise why prices are different. I certainly deal with this sort of thing in my own work all the time.

Well I sure am glad someone got the point...

I am sorry, but I honestly do not understand this statement.

My pictures did not contain any more information whatsoever except my name, my piano's serial number, and the estimate. Therefore I initially did not feel that I was doing something wrong.

It is I who should be offended if this information is disclosed to the public, but I chose to do so.

Also, I clearly mentioned that prices will vary according to my choices. I only disclosed a rough estimate.

I wrote this update, because everyone seems to be interested in my piano.

But I will stop writing these updates from now. I apologize if my writings caused any problems.

(Please understand that posting pictures in this site is actually really painful, but I still wanted to share anyway...)

In Korea, everyone shares virtually everything these days via internet, for a good will of a general public.

Again, I am very sorry for my actions.

As a non-piano related consultant, I would be very distressed if I saw one of my quotes with my full company information on a forum related to my line of work. It may not be illegal, but as others have said, it sure is tacky.

Pricing is something that is very dependent on current conditions, e.g., maybe the rebuilder underpriced and is desperate for work due to the current economic conditions or because he took pity on the OP, whatever... Maybe he overpriced, because he is too busy or didn't like the OP or whatever.

Either way, I wouldn't want other customers to wave that picture in my face when, for whatever reason, the next quote is/has to be higher.

In general, although many of my clients know each other, I trust and believe that they do not discuss my quotes with each other...EVER.

Meta

I will not argue with you. I was simply stating my personal views as a professional piano technician.

Keep us informed of developments with your piano. I am truly interested.

I was kind of looking forward to seeing how this project turned out. Hopefully, Avantgardenabi hasn't left the building for good.

I don't think we have to worry about Avantgardenabi leaving. We should be worried about Avantgardenabi being left.

This thread has been enlightening. Not only did I learn about civil law but I now have a list of a few piano "people" that I personally will NEVER do business with.

This lady made an unfortunate mistake. I don't believe for a second it was malicious. Whether she was right or wrong, some of the behavior exhibited by members on this thread is simply atrocious.

I, too, think this has become a 'tempest in a teacup'. The original posting of the tech's info was 'not quite the thing', but now we learn that the poster is of a much more "open" culture, as far as such matters are concerned. When Avantgardenabi learned of the faux pas, the offending material was removed.

But now we have techs 'blackballing' ALL PW members (I hope you'll reconsider, Dan) and other members blacklisting some techs who have responded (I hope you'll also reconsider, LR).

Please...a little charity (I'm speaking of the Christian sort, but whatever your leanings, it's a universal concept) for your fellow posters...well, heck...how about for your fellow human beings?

Avantgardenabi, I hope you will continue to keep us updated on your Knabe. It's a beautiful piano, and I'd really like to see how it turns out. I will understand, though, if you say 'to heck with them all' and we never hear from you again. And that would be more the pity.