eBay used to be great - I still love buying and selling things on there but me and the boyfriend are more wary now as we have come across more and more idiots who don't have a clue what they are doing. There's newbies and there's idiots...it's the idiots that pi** me off.
My sis asked me to sell a pc game for her, so I took a photo of it and put it on eBay. The game was Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004, starting price £4.99, Buy Now price of £8.99 - a bargain if I say so myself! Unfortunately for me, an idiot bought it with the Buy Now option and then mailed me saying that she'd just noticed that I didn't accept PayPal and that she wasn't going to buy it as she only paid via PayPal. The idiot should have read my auction details before bidding!
Not wanting any hassle, I decided to allow her to pay by PayPal, even though this meant that I would be losing out due to PayPal fees which you now cannot pass onto the buyer. Two weeks later still no payment - I mailed the idiot, she said her PayPal account was under review and she would contact me once it was sorted. Another week later, I mailed her and she said it wasn't sorted so I said that she had to send me a payment via other means, cheque or postal order.
A month after she had won my auction, the idiot sent me a cheque, which was put into my bank the following day. Out of courtesy, I mailed her to confirm that I'd received her payment. She mailed me back asking me to send her the game immediately and I replied saying that I needed to wait for her cheque to clear in a few days before I did so. The idiot didn't understand and said that cheques didn't take so long to clear and that she would report me to eBay. I replied that it took her a month to send me any payment so I had shown her more than a little patience, she should show me some too. The idiot replied that she hoped she didn't have to give negative feedback.. OUTRAGEOUS! If she were in front of me now, I would have slapped some sense in to her idiotic face!
The cheque cleared and I sent the game out by Recorded Delivery - again, out of courtesy, I emailed her the tracking number.
Several days later, out of curiosity, I wondered what would happen if I keyed the tracking number into the Royal Mail website. I got the following message:
"We have tried to deliver your item from our PORTSMOUTH Delivery Office before 14:00 on 17/11/04 and we have left a while you were out card. "
I hope the idiot remembers to collect the game within a week otherwise it will returned to me. What really annoys me is that I am entitled to give this idiot negative feedback, but know for a fact that she will leave one back for me in spite, when I will not have deserved one.
AARGGHH! :(
What a hassle! I haven't yet dared to tread into the selling side of eBay and it is because of stories like your's.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there are a lot of horror stories out there, but it's not really an eBay problem, it's a consumer problem. You did nothing wrong, but some people don't realize that, sometimes, it's just the guy next door selling his extra stuff, and they expect to be treated like they're at Nordstrom or Bloomingdale's.
ReplyDeletePaypal's another issue entirely. If you've ever been to www.paypalsucks.com, you know what I mean. Some of the stuff they do would be criminal if they were technically defined as a bank under US law, but they're not, which is part of the problem.
Anyway, I could go on and on about lots of weird, bizzarre, and sometimes crazy people I've heard about on eBay. I've probably stood in line at the grocery store with some of them. :D It was interesting to read your experience.