May 18, 2003

I just had a buyer email me about a recent auction purchase. It turns out that this person DID NOT read the description of that particular auction. In the shipping charges of all books and "media" material, I usually place a note that reads: "Media Mail rate is available on this item - just ask!". Well, this person didn't read that, didn't ask, paid the full priority mail rate, got her books in 2-3 days, and then was miffed because she paid more than she had to. I guess she got upset when she got her items, because she must have gone back and read the auction description again, thoroughly this time. Since she couldn't get mad at me for charging high shipping prices, she emailed me angry about the fact that I SELL books that I have registered with BookCrossing.com.

Well, it seems that there must be some unspoken rule among BookCrossers that they just GIVE AWAY any books that they have registered to the first person who asks. WHATEVER! I PAID for the books, and people from all over the world email me once something appealing of mine gets registered and they want me to just ship it to them... the majority of them just want me to pay to ship it, too. Oh yeah, like I'm MADE of money (don't forget - this is a RANT). One guy even had the gall to email me and DEMAND that I ship him twenty Star Trek paperback books that I just acquired. Um, what if I wanted to READ them?

Now, to be fair, I love TRADING with other BookCrossers. If someone emails me and says that they have noticed that I have a book that they would love to read, and would I like to pick one from their bookshelves to trade, I am ALL up for THAT. I pick a book, even if they don't have anything that I am particularly interested in, and I have them send it to me - hey, they initiated the transaction, right? Once I receive their book, I promptly ship them the one they requested. We both pay for our own shipping, nobody is out anything and we all win, and that is how it should be done.

But the next person who bitches about my selling BookCrossing.com-registered books, well, they can look at the bottom line: I pay for the book, I register it, I post it on eBay which costs money (usually $0.30 per auction/per week), then, if I sell it, I pay a final fee to eBay of $0.34, then another fee to PayPal when the person pays using that method. So, assuming that I list a lot of three books for $0.99 and they sell for that, once eBay and PayPal take theirs, I end up PAYING to sell those books. I look at it this way: Maybe I'll introduce some people from far away lands to BookCrossing.com. I don't mind paying a few cents to do that. But those who are down on that... can kiss my fuzzy backside, okay?

April 11, 2003

Many of you know that I sell on eBay. Some of you may even have taken the tons of time (ha!) it takes to read my *basic* rant on my eBay sellers' "me" page. Well, if you have or haven't you will know that I feel very strongly about how any seller should treat a buyer, no matter the item, no matter the price.

Well, in the past week I have just been inundated with idiot sellers! Makes me feel like I should just stop trying to buy from eBay.

This last week I was graced with two separate individuals who must have been squeezed from the womb of the same toothless, trailer princess. If common sense was currancy, these two are bankrupt.

The first idiot seller - boo99cards - was semi-prompt at responding to my requests of "Excuse me, have you seen the items I purchased from you weeks ago? Have you shipped them yet?". I attempted to overlook his abuse of ellipses, as this is something I tend to do myself. The use of "U r right, I shoulda done that" was an indicator that this person most likely didn't excel at English for the short period of time he spent in the public school system. I successfully avoided correcting him, as he still had the Yu-Gi-Oh! CDs (plus McDonald's cards!) that I'd purchased.

I do admit, I made a mistake. When it came time to pay for the CDs, I used a service similar to PayPal called "C2it". I mistakenly thought it was a money order service, like BidPay who makes the money order and they send it to the seller. Okay, I was wrong. BUT! C2it DID send boo99cards an email stating "You've Got Cash!", and if he didn't want to pay the $0.30 in order to collect that money, maybe he could have written me an email to say something like, "hey, there must be some mistake because I don't accept C2it". But did he? FUCK NO! What he DID do was wait more than three weeks and then filed a non-paying bidder alert on me! When I inquired about the C2it payment was when he FINALLY wrote that Homey don't play that.

So I got on the stick, BidPay'd the bloke the bling-bling and he had payment in his meth-stained fingers within four or five days. Here is where it got ugly. A week goes by. I email boo-shit asking if he received payment. He replies that he has and that my items are on their way. Another week goes by. I email boo-sphincter again and he responds that they are on their way. Okay, by this time the whole transaction is over six weeks along. I'm sure that there are some mammals that have shorter gestation periods than that.

The day after my second "where the hell is it?"-email, I get this box. The box is sad. The box is smooshed. The box RATTLES when I shake it. The box has my address scribbled on it - NO LABEL? - in a pale, washed-out scrawl. The box has "Media Mail" stamped on it, which is a surprise considering that I paid for Priority Mail - a 3 buck difference.

The disappointment never stops. I open sad box. The four CDs are in it and the evidence that they bounced a bit during the trip are evident on their corners. It is amazing that none of CDs shattered. But they aren't they aren't what I spent the money for. The cards inside are. Will disappointments never cease? The CDs HAD been opened, contrary to the auction description and then to top it off, one of the sealed packs only had one card instead of two. Not boo99cards' fault, but my irritation remained.

So I write the guy - AGAIN. I refrained from the WTF? email I felt like writing and instead inquired as to why no packing materials were used and why he overcharged me for shipping. I was a bit accusatory, but I never swore. I feel that I had a right to ask pointed questions considering the time involved. He writes back BLAMING HIS WIFE for the packing job, justifying THAT by saying that no one yet has complained. Not only does the guy not have the stones to accept responsibility for his actions, but he BLAMES THE WOMAN? He lost serious points there for lack of hair! THEN he goes on to say that my accusations "aren't very nice". Uh, hello? What fucking world do YOU live in, John-Boy? NICE don't pay my bills. NICE is what five-year olds are supposed to be during recess. Sorry, I forgot to be NICE! Whatever...