"Jose" wrote in message
news
What contract? I doubt anyone's signing papers here.

A contract doesn't require papers. Would the guy be justifiably upset if
Jay decided... "no contract, I'll just take the ads off the system"?

A verbal contract is extremely hard to contest. Not impossible, granted,
but nearly so. In any case, the point is that my interpretation of the
situation is that this is a gentleman's agreement between two local
businessmen. The exact nature of the arrangement is fluid, but as long as
each individual understands exactly what's going on, I don't think it's
critically important that "at cost" has to really mean just the cost of the
parts (who knows...perhaps the vendor is treating his own time as part of
the cost).

I doubt either party thinks that there's any well-stated contract, and they
probably both understand that if the other reneges on the deal, there's
little avenue for recourse.

The fact is, there are still people who trust each other well enough to
enter into such agreements with little or no legal protection. And it
doesn't just happen in cow towns like Iowa City.

as long as Jay understands that the "at cost" number is equivalent to
buying the parts retail

I would not have understood that to be the case, unless =his= cost is
retail.

Like I said, it depends on how the vendor is interpreting "cost". But
regardless, my point is that the deal is fair as long as Jay understands
what the retail costs of the parts is. Especially given the customer. It's
not like Jay is going to go out and buy the parts himself and put the thing
together. You think these tech-related threads he starts are long now, just
imagine us trying to talk him to the construction of a computer.

Pete