strange requests

[Motspheres@AOL.COM]

Larry:
Perhaps a few questions first. What is your relationship to the owner of the 
store? Did he request this appraisal from you? Did he pay you for your 
appraisal? If he paid for the appraisal, then your opinion is owned by him, 
bought and paid for; your only recourse would be to inform the the lady who 
bought the piano that you provided an appraisal for the seller, and that the 
information is his to give out or not. If she persisted, perhaps offering to 
pay you again for an opinion, you would be involved in a flagrant conflict of 
interest. The store owner needs to be informed that the opinion he bought 
stands and that you will not misrepresent yourself to anyone else for his 
sake; that's fraudulent. So the store owner is trying to involve you in 
either conflict of interest or fraud. 

Now if there was no payment involved, and the opinion was verbal, 
conversational and uncontracted, the question really resolves down to who you 
represent; in this case, you are representing yourself and your own 
conscience, and your reputation, until one or the other buys your service. I 
of course would be wary of the seller's beseeching any contractual 
arrangement in the future. This is clearly a case of caveat emptor.
Paul Revenko-Jones