I have a friend who has two horses and has no intention of buying another but continues to tire kick - asking for videos, more pictures and info. This has been going on for a while and she doesn’t seem to understand that people are taking time out of their day to respond to her requests. I and others are tempted to tell her to stop with the inquiries if she’s not intending to buy or go try out. Should I just MYOB here? Just bugs me that she’s wasting people’s time. That is all.
I have a friend that does that. Though she also does the trial rides. She always thinks she is serious. I don’t engage much when she sends me random stuff anymore as nothing ever comes of it. But I don’t think I need to protect sellers from her. That’s on them.
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Myob- you should pay no mind to what others are doing. Stay in your lane 
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I think it depends on what type of person she is. Some people just seem to be oblivious that their actions might impact others, and it’s probably pointless to bring it up if she is that type.
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Maybe they just like the attention sellers give to potential buyers and they enjoy playing the role of buyer.
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I’d MYOB. As a seller, I typically have a copied/pasted response to most inquiries with links to videos or more photos. It takes me 30 seconds, if that to send.
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Interesting, I think if she’s oblivious bringing it up could be productive, whereas if she knows she’s wasting people’s time but doesn’t care it’s pointless.
I think true friends owe each other the occasional bit of honesty so I would probably ask if she was really intending to buy and if the answer was no say something like, “Hmm, don’t you feel like a bit of a jerk taking up sellers’ time then?” No grand lecture, just a little nudge and then move on with my life.
However, I bet she rationalizes it by telling herself that if the absolute 100% perfect horse shows up she would buy it (even though realistically there’s no such thing), so she isn’t really wasting anyone’s time.
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Hmm, yeah, maybe oblivious wasn’t the right word. Maybe indifferent would be better? The type of person I’m thinking of, it wouldn’t necessarily be that she knows she’s wasting the seller’s time and doesn’t care, it’s that it would literally never occur to her to think about the seller. And if it was pointed out to her, the likely response would be something like, “If they don’t have time to send me videos, they shouldn’t post the horse for sale.”
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when I was dealing with the general public I found myself explaining all the in/outs of a product that they would then purchase online or elsewhere… so after a short time of having that done to me I would before any conversation about the product run the “customer’s” name in our system, seeing they did not have an account I would hand them them a credit app which when they refused or failed to complete I just asked them to leave.
The most common response was “I do not need credit here”, my response was “we require an open account so that we can track your purchase history for better service and tracking any warranty claims for you”,
This!
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Hmmm.
I wonder if this is a truly lovely conscientious person and a close friend? Or is she one of those horse world frenemies that actually irritate you a bit on different levels?
If she’s a true close friend I would drop one hint about wasting sellers time, maybe refer to all the COTH threads from sellers. And then leave it.
If she is more a buddy or acquaintance, I would just disengage and MYOB. You can’t micromanage people that irritate you. You just have to let it go.
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Agreed. I can’t imagine NOT saying something to a person that I actually value as a friend. I don’t understand the MYOB mentality if it’s someone you care about. You don’t have to be mean, but not sure why we couldn’t ask a friend an honest question like “if you know you’re not interested in buying a horse, why are you wasting their time?”
That said, if they responded with something like “oh, I just like it. I think it’s like a game”…I’d question whether we could actually be friends.
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I don’t think it is any of your business how she amuses herself. Asking for pictures or a video takes the seller probably a minute to send since it is already uploaded to wherever they keep them. Tire kickers just come with the territory when you are selling.
Riding multiple horses with no intention would be a place where you shouldn’t MYOB.
She may just find a horse to buy even though she isn’t " looking".
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Why not? Why is this a taboo subject to have with a friend?
Just curious. It’s not a big deal, in my opinion.
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I did not know there were any taboo topics with real friends (with the exception of things you and that friend have discussed as being taboo).
For me, I like my real friends to help me be a better person. If they see me doing something stupid I think it is better to have a friend tell you how you went wrong than to just continue going wrong. I then have the choice of deciding if I agree with my friend or not.
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I’d tell her that I thought it was tacky to waste the seller’s time, if she was going out to meet and ride the horse. If she’s just asking for pictures, I wouldn’t bother. Yes, it could be a little tiresome for the seller to send more emails/texts, but they could also be sincere with other potential buyers when saying they have other people interested.
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Not taboo. But for instance I only have 2 friends currently that I could bring something like this up, and expect they might also call me out on my own mindless behavior. Even there I limit myself mostly to things that either impact me or impact their own well being. I don’t drop on everything they do that’s not what i would do.
Eveyone else, they do enough stuff that I could comment on of various kinds that my secret attitude is more, well you do you, bless your heart, and I’ll watch to see how it turns out. I don’t have much impulse to try to manage other people’s behavior these days. I find people do what they want to do.
I have one tire kicking window shopping horse friend. I don’t think her behavior would change if I said anything. I’ve stopped giving feedback on videos because it never goes anywhere.
It’s not that she can’t ( or shouldn’t) say something if it bothers her so much. My thinking was that what the friend was doing wasn’t bad enough to risk the confrontation it may bring.
It’s not just me it bothers but others have also expressed the same opinion including her barn owner. She already has two horses, one a young up and comer and the other her broke horse. Her husband has nixed any more horses so she’s not planning on buying. I even asked her once when I saw her respond to a horse for sale on social media asking for video if she was buying another horse and she messaged me back that she wasn’t.
She and I aren’t really close friends, I like her and we have a good rapport but she’s much younger than I so we don’t have that much in common outside of horses.
If you don’t know her that well, you could hint but it’s not worth getting into conflict with a barn buddy acquaintance. It sounds like you and other people are chatting behind her back. That’s fine, we all do it. But there’s no reason you have to take it upon yourself to be the one to try to impose the behaviour you are criticizing in your gossip sessions. If it matters it should come from someone with authority like barn owner or trainer.
I would MYOB. It is not hurting you or her existing barn or her horses.
It’s in the line of questionable consumer behavior like buying things wearing them returning them, not tipping enough, trying things on at tack stores, taking up an hour of the salesperson’s time on boots or helmets, then ordering cheaper online, etc.
We might be appalled (or not) at this kind of bad consumer behavior but generally it’s MYOB.
I doubt she will stop if you tell her to. Why would she? You’re just another barn buddy with your own quirks. She’s more likely to just block you on FB and continue on her merry way.
It’s not your job to fix barn buddies’ tacky consumer behavior.
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