[eschaider]

These events can be bitter experiences. In the end the age old Caveat Emptor admonition is always true. The buyer is responsible for doing his due dilligence. The scenario is much like a home owner coming to a bank to ask for a mortgage on a home they are attempting to purchase. The bank is in essence the buyer because they are coming up with the funds to make the purchase.

Where the analogy differs is the owner is promising to pay the bank back over time — the mortgage. The bank has to assess two different items. One item is the value of the house and the other item is the credit worthiness and predisposition to repay the mortgage loan that the buyer has.

The bank will not take the buyer or seller's representations as fact. Instead they do their own research and based on what they discover, determine if they want to participate in the transaction and at what price they wish to sell money to the new owner.

Sadly the same is true of a shop like Craft's when it is sold. The difference is we are not the bank we are a customer for the goods and services the shop sells. Determining how much different it is after the sale is minimally tough — at least for a while. One alternative would be to pick the #2 provider of goods and services. The obvious downside is that if the #1 provider continued to perform as before you lost the benefit of doing business with them. The upside is the risk mitigation.

There is risk involved with anything we choose to do. Our responsibility (to ourselves) is to manage and mitigate the risk to an acceptable level. Risk can not be eliminated. It can be mitigated and it can be managed. The more mitigation and management we do the happier we will be — but in the end it is always important to remember risk can not be eliminated.