Crack Call

I recently sold an antique Catholic sick call box. In my picture you could see that the box was pretty beat up. I should have just said "Candlebra.Crappy box is a bonus".

Guy sends me this today:

I wanted to let you know the box was cracked. It was not mentioned in your description. I had hoped to refinish it. Now that will not be possible. i can send images if needed. Thank you.

Yup. Wood glue is never possible. Come on. I offered him a full refund if he returns it.

How much you want to bet he decides suddenly it's able to be refinished for a discount off his original price?

Update:
March 31. This guy surprised me. He told me no problem, he wanted to keep it but wanted to let me know what had happened in case I was unaware of the damage. I refunded him 25% anyway because he wasn't a dick.  My lack of recent assholes continues to shock and surprise me.

Yup

I got nothing. Usually I have a clever title and/or a sarcastic lead-in but this is, wow, just wow. This seller uses this gimmick on all her auctions. Funny thing is, she gets bids, ridiculous prices.

I was researching some old sunglasses I have a shit ton of. Most are pretty worthless but ol' Maggie's haunted ones sold for $50 fuckin bucks. LOL I have copied and pasted below the seller's lovely BS filled gimmick that she seems to use to sell anything and everything. I wish my shit was haunted...

Another item in Maggies collection that I wish I could keep for myself! But a promise is a promise. This is a pair of true vintage 1960's Foster Grant sunglasses in amazing condition, round...reminiscent of John Lennon or Janice Joplin. Gold tone frames, amber tinted ff77 lenses. The frame is not bent, no chips or cracks in the lenses. AND...they come in a very old wood harmonica box. In this instance, the glasses came to Maggie in the box. AND....a wonderful, very present, spirit attachment name Gerard. Gerard died in 1967 at the young age of 24. he wore these glasses always...for the last 2 years of his life and they were sort a trademark for him. He also carried them around in this old wood harmonica box that had once belonged to a friend of his. Gerard went missing at a party in Lake Tahoe and while his physical body was never found, Maggie said he drowned, purely by accident in the lake. He did not mean to die and there was no foul play, but he was irresponsible in the incident. His death occurred in the month of March. Maggie came to have this item many years later, in the late 1990's when another medium sent it to her. Maggie says Gerard is a very strong spirit who can manifest in full form. He likes his existence as a spirit energy and has no desire to progress or move on. One day about 10 years ago, I was in sort of a bad place, not happy...feeling restless. Maggie loaned me this pair of glasses and told me to wear them for a few days. I did. Every day for a week. It is hard to explain my experience, but it was healing and energizing and I came out of my slump. You can feel a loving warm presence as soon as you put on these old specs. Maggies notes say that Gerard was/is a healer and if you listen closely you can hear him humming. Very communicative with those who have that gift. I love this item. Hate to let it go, but I ma keeping the faith that Gerard will go where he is needed!

*** I have been asked frequently why I do not simply list these items in the antique/jewelry/vintage, etc. category's  here on ebay and get better final selling prices. The answer is simple....I made a commitment to be forthcoming about the properties associated with any items in this collection. This is the real deal... and it matters not at all to me... who believes and who does not. This is a benevolent endeavor in many ways.  I am more than confident that these items are going where they were meant to go. ALSO - many, if not most..of the items in this collection are not pretty or valuable. There are old rusty tools, a single playing card or a just a rock. So many odd items. Who knows what item a spirit will become attached to. I am selling only the items I feel have some value on their own. OR...may have a really special attachment that can benefit someone. 

What Maggie taught me and what I am now a firm believer in is this. When our physical bodies cease to function, the essence of us, our spirit, our soul, continues on with the journey. In life, as human beings, we become attracted to and attached to our "stuff". We have objects that we covet. It may be an item that holds good memories, or a gift from a loved one. Sometimes we keep even the items that may hold sadness for us. The blanket of a departed child or a belt that was used to hurt us. A departing spirit often becomes attached and/or attracted to an item that was somehow significant in a death. A stolen wallet or piece of jewelry, a cup that held the poison or the hammer that struck the blow. I believe it is more common place than any of us can imagine, how many inanimate objects have the constant or frequent accompaniment of a departed soul that the item was important to. Maggie was certain that more often than not, there is a definite purpose to an attachment. The object may be destined to go to a person who needs the benefits of a certain energy, sometimes many years down the road. Other times, a spirit is lost and seeking comfort and guidance. And quite often...a spirit is simply drawn to a beloved item from a former life because they like it. Maggie believed that most can freely pass between "realms" and are rarely stuck here. That being said, many of the items in Maggies collection are stuck or...choose not to leave for one reason or another. Our sense of time cannot really be related to "their" sense of time.

In 2011 my dear friend Maggie, a respected and beloved spiritual medium left this world peacefully, at the age of 89. Maggie spent a lifetime accumulating unusual items, items that she believed have active attachments. Items that called to her, or came to her doorstep. She lived in the same little old house in my neighborhood for the last 52 years of her life. In her younger days she was an avid estate sale hunter and auction goer. She actively sought out items that she felt needed a "good home". She also did readings and home visits. She never charged for her services. Many of the items were given to her for safe keeping or as gifts. Spending the day or evening at Maggies house was always filled with mystery and activity, some of it confounding and sometimes, admittedly a little spooky! I met Maggie in 1999 while volunteering at local womens center, where Maggie was a devoted volunteer. Getting to know her was life changing experience for me. I came to view the universe in a completely different light. I spent the last 5 years of Maggies life keeping her company and helping out with things around the house pretty much every day. We would spend hours and hours talking about many of the items in her collection and the history....and...the particular spirit attached to them, or what she was trying to figure out about a particularly mysterious item. She said sometimes these spirits communicated right away, others....she had to wait to find out who they were. It was fascinating.  She was a brave and wonderful woman. About 2 years before her death, Maggie asked if I would take her beloved collection when she was gone and re home her tenants. Living with this collection has been VERY INTERESTING! It sometimes feels like my whole house is haunted, but I know it is not. It is the spirits "visiting" their beloved belongings. Maggie told me she believed that most of these spirits are not bound to the earth, some are, but most simply like to visit and spend time. A "visit" can last years or only weeks at a time, but they always come back time and again. I am not explaining it as well as Maggie.  Each estate item I will list for sale certainly has value in and of itself, but they all come with a "bonus". When someone doesn't believe me, I say - spend one night in my house! And people have...and there are many more non skeptics out there now! Maggie had only one living relative, a grand daughter. This young woman is very sensitive and sweet but being around spirit activity is very frightening to her. She and I have agreed that i will auction off some of this collection and use the proceeds for a private, but benevolent endeavor. I am not a good photographer. Please ask for more photos or information if you like. Ask me any questions. I have copious notes and lists on this collection and will do my best. I am NOT a medium. I am, however, as Maggie put it, very open and sensitive. I have had direct interaction with many, many spirits visiting my home. Most....and in all honesty...not all.....but most...seem to be harmless.  Many of the items will come in "spirit" boxes. Maggie stored many many smaller items on bookshelves in these boxes. I am bound by this site say that I am selling only an item. I make no guarantees of any intangible attributes. I will always take returns and offer full refunds if you are not satisfied for any reason with your new addition. I welcome questions and will do my very best to answer, but some of these items have no written history and I can only relate my own experience or what has been told to me. Please be serious and responsible when considering taking one of these very special items into your home. Thank you!

Really?

I log into my e-mail. In said e-mail there is a "conversation" from someone on Etsy. I have these glasses listed at $5.00, which is pretty damned cheap since they are mint and vintage. Text of  "conversation":

Hello dear seller, These are cool sunglasses! Would you accept a discount of a couple dollars? Thank you,

Really?? REALLY? Would you like me to just send them for free? I know they are cool sunglasses, dear. Cool enough for me to list them at $5.00. I just don't know how to even answer this. I did have to pay for the glasses to procure them in the first place you know! I am kind of insulted by her "offer". But...$2 is not going to make or break me...so I guess I'll take the $3 and get some decent feedback.

What Buyers Need To Know About DSR

Ebay has a ratings system. It is the "Detailed Seller Rating" or "Detailed Star Rating" or DSR.

In any case, what you should know as a buyer is that the stupid flippant complaint you have about that $5 item you just bought has farther reaching consequences than you think. But oh yay! - You got to vent about your cheap used item you weren't completely happy with.

Sellers are now allowed two 1 or 2 star ratings before ebay can swoop down and ban them. And if said seller is using ebay as a way of supporting a family, congratulations, you just possibly caused a bankruptcy, foreclosure, eviction, and raised everyones taxes, including your own when said family then has to apply for every form of assistance under the sun to survive because they no longer have income and are scrambling to right the ship.

There's a reason that ebay's CSRs are schooled in suicide prevention these days.

The "$2.29 to ship a box across the country" bitch left me a neutral and it got my account banned. This escalated my financial problems and caused me to change my Chapter 7 to a Chapter 13, which now costs me $300 a month.

She had no idea that the $20 box of used Polly Pocket crap she bought would have such far-reaching consequences for my family because ebay encourages that behavior by pushing their "buyer protection" BS and not allowing sellers to leave feedback about idiots such as her. Had I been warned, I'd have cancelled her bid and blocked her.

For the love of God, please, if you have a complaint about an item, contact the seller before you click on anything pertaining to ratings, feedback, or cases. If the seller is an unreasonable douche, please, by all means leave them appropriate ratings, but I can tell you that, given the chance, most sellers will work with you.

When asking a question, don't click anything other than "other" or you may inadvertently open a case and ruin the seller's rating.

Ebay is the instigator here, don't get me wrong. But a buyer not being an ignoramus can go a long way toward keeping sellers safe until ebay reformats their rules and regulations.

Small Seller Manifesto

I found Rich's post very astute and am re-posting it here on my blog, with slight edits. To see more of what he's about, you can visit: https://www.facebook.com/groups/formerebaysellers/?ref=br_tf

SMALL SELLER MANIFESTO:

What Most Small Sellers Want From Ebay

A level playing field and equal item visibility with the big box, Chinese, high volume sellers.
An end to the DSRs, an end to Guardrail or Quick Decline, trending.

Customer service reps who are in the United States, speak English clearly, and can actually solve or resolve one's problems.

An end to holds being placed on PayPal funds,

An end to Seller Limitations in terms of the number of items a seller can list (especially if you're going to offer us 1 million free listings).

The ability to leave some kind of feedback- not necessarily negative- that alerts other sellers to BAD buyers.

To not get forced into Global Shipping or be opted into features one may not want.

To be treated like we are self-employed small to mid-size business people and not employees of eBay

To stop the bullying. To not have our search standings lowered randomly, to provide services for fees paid, to not use lies and spin to hide truths from sellers, to properly market their website, to not set sales limits that are in effect sales goals and then renege on them in secret with a hidden sales cap, to appreciate sellers and help build long term relationships with them instead of eliminating small sellers in favor of preferred big-box retailers.

eBay should not penalize / punish sellers for actions that are out of the sellers control once the package is shipped (e.g. Post Office slow shipping issues due to weather, etc.). Ebay should not interfere / meddle with transactions between the seller and the buyer. eBay is an auction selling platform provider and as such is a service provider, not an employer and not a sales and/or fulfillment company.

Fed Up

With FedEx that is. I sold a lamp. Buyer whined that shipping was too expensive and why don't I offer FedEx...other sellers do. What she doesn't know is that FedEx is a giant headache, not worth the fuckin' savings.

I pack box. I get ready to bring said box to the nearest FedEx drop off site...20+ miles away (my car gets about 23 miles to the gallon, so kiss $8 in gas goodbye)...then I ran into a problem. The box is over 5 feet tall. It won't fit in my car in any way, shape or form.

I log onto my old FedEx account. I need a new password they say. I jump through requisite password hoops, and try to initiate a pick-up. Not allowed for this account. I create a new account, this time a business account, I try to initiate a pick-up...error message, call customer service. I call up and finally arrange the pick-up for Monday morning.

Monday morning I roll my ass out of bed early to pull the box out. I am beat. Dead tired. I decide to go back to bed after hauling the huge monster out to the porch.

While I slept, the idiots at FedEx called me because they could not find my house on "either M____ St." There are not two M____ St. in this town, but there are two in the next town over. I know this because once, on Valentine's Day, I got a box of flowers. Addressed to someone on East M____St., next town over.

Charley was pissed off that someone sent me flowers until he figured out what happened. I chased down the driver and gave them back. Charley got reamed out for it later, because I didn't get anything for V-Day (never do, he's a cheap-ass), but I digress.

Anyway I called FedEx and said there's ONE M____ St. in this town, and my house says 16 right on it, it's green. The driver calls back and sheepishly admits he had been looking in the wrong town.

The box is still on my porch.

Update 3/11/14.
They called back that night to say "Sorry we didn't pick up the box today, we had engine trouble, we'll pick it up tomorrow between 11am-1pm.
FedEx came to pick up the box. It was 3pm.

They Exist

Yes. Good buyers do exist. I shipped a clock out a few days ago. I double-boxed it, surrounded it with bubble wrap and peanuts and somehow the USPS still managed to rough it up.

The man messaged me with his phone number and I called him. We discussed things at length and he refused to take a refund. Of course, I am setting some aside anyway in case he wants it later, but I am grateful that he immediately did not go on the offensive and start the feedback threat/case filing BS that is so rampant these days.

I have had a bacterial infection for a few days and have been mentally foggy and miserable and the other clock I sold is giving me fits with packing, especially in light of what just happened. I am a day behind schedule and also racking my brain trying to figure out how to pack this fucking retro lamp that is going halfway across the country.

The lady messaged me and basically demanded FedEx because it was cheaper and I agreed under the assumption that I could get it picked up. I log into my FedEx account...nope. Item must go to a drop off site. Problem being I have an 8 cylinder gas hog and the nearest drop-off point is 20 miles away...never again. You want to save on shipping? Buy someone elses shit. Next time it's USPS or you can go screw.

Fuckin' Waah

I come home from the store, mind you I am a little under the weather having been fighting a bacterial infection for a few days now, and this message was waiting for me:

Dear____,
The shipping cost for this lamp is very expensive compared to other lamps I've looked at that are shipping with FedEx Ground or FedEx Home Delivery. Would you be able to offer shipping other than USPS to extend a more affordable rate?
  

I felt like saying "Well, if you like the shipping cost on those lamps, bid on those then!" But I told him the truth. That I had attempted to offer UPS and FedEx but got bounced by ebay's stupid bidness policy. It would not allow me to list unless I only listed USPS for shipping.I would click continue and it just kept recycling the page, almost like I was reloading rather than listing the damned item.

Dipshipping

So my idiot husband has this new brilliant idea to start dropshipping. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. For someone who is basically pretty smart, he always falls prey to idiotic get-rich-quick schemes.

I would not care and I would let him crash and burn if my account wasn't on the same fuckin' IP as his. He gets banned, I get put under the microscope and probably also banned shortly thereafter, and if I've gotta start from scratch again for something that I didn't even sell, I will castrate him!

As a sidenote, he decided to dropship lingerie which I feel is just a scheme so he can gawk at the pictures on his listings and/or hope that one of his customers will send him a picture. If one does, I hope it's a big hairy trucker guy...

Full Throttled

I notice when you re-list things that had lots of watchers, suddenly they will have a bid, though they did not the first round. It's almost as if cheapskate buyers were waiting for you to re-list in hopes of you dropping your price. I no longer do that. I just relist to send them a clear message that, no, I won't get raped on the price of this item.

I also believe in throttling. And, I might add that these were listings I paid for. They were not free.

I had 2 clocks for sale. One had 100+ views and about 30 watchers. It sold. The other, 16 views and 1 watcher, it did not sell. I relisted it after March 1 and voila! Nearing 70 views and 9 watchers. It's the same clock, same listing, only now somehow the visibility went up, maybe I was hitting their predetermined hidden limit they had for me in February, so they had to "throttle" me, lol. God forbid they get more FVF fees. 

I have this My Little Pony thing up right now. One with a damned haircut sold a month or 2 ago for over $100 with the shipping, and I could not even get the start bid on mine, and it's priced at about half of what the other one sold for, and in better shape. I refuse to price it any lower. It's going for that price or I'll just chuck it on Etsy for double the price and leave it there for months until someone caves in and pays it, lol.

This Shit Isn't Worth Anything

I know, 3 posts in one day...I am an endless well of opinions this morning. The life hostage is finally figuring out why I hate .99 auctions. It devalues your shit.

He's been selling books lately. Each time he looks one up, there is a hiss of breath escaping him as he sees that some other idiot has devalued his book by listing it for .99.

My own example. I have a nice piece of fabric that I just bought. I look it up.

Some pieces are hundreds, some like $65, $90. Respectable. Then there's the seller listing them for $25 each. Of course, when you click and read the description for these $25 pieces, you see why, but someone doing some surface grazing research (IE, just looking at end price), may think "this shit isn't worth anything" and list it for $25, therefore devaluing everyone else's, because who is going to pay $90 for your shit when someone else's identical shit is listed at $25?

Bolsheviks

Ebay has been likened by some to the Gestapo, which since they are a militant police force on your account, they somewhat are. To me they are Bolsheviks.

Ebay for me is Russia.

When I was a kid, my Lithuanian grandmother used to be paranoid about the Soviet Union. Really paranoid. We'd be driving down Route 2, and, seeing the radio towers up on the hill above the highway, she would say to me "Those are the Russian spy towers"  and she would carry on for some minutes about how careful you have to be. Russian spies are everywhere. I would laugh and think to myself how paranoid she was.

This is me with ebay. I am paraNOID. As my mother-in-law would say, "I ain't lyin'"

I check the IP addresses on the computers frequently. I delete all e-mails from my former ebay and paypal account from my inbox without reading them. I don't give out my user ID to anyone. I don't mention precise descriptions of items I am selling, or names that I deal with on this last account because I don't want someone nosing around and making a connection of this account with the other two.

I refuse to call CS for anything, ever! They'll dig while you're on hold. I don't think this. I know it. The last time I was banned, all I called for was a raise on my seller limits. They left me on hold for an hour and a half, I kid you not. I am assuming that they were digging in that time, because when the guy got back on the line, he told me I was suspended, and immediately pulled 42 auctions I had just listed. No passing Go. No collecting $200. I had just attained a Top-Rated Seller status the week before. 14 years of service and me handing them money every month. See ya, bye! Too bad for you. Have fun paying for that bankruptcy we helped cause!

When I do have to use my old accounts or check on something to do with them, I borrow a laptop and steal someone else's wi-fi to do it. I utilize Google's call forwarding rather than give out my real phone #. There are many steps, many hoops I jump through to avoid ebay Bolsheviks.

Cuckoo Clock

I've been restoring a clock for resale. For said clock I need a certain size piece of convex glass. This lady in the next state has this size glass. She asks $4.00. I put it on my watch list. First time I forgot to bid, it doesn't sell. She relisted.

2nd time I put in a bid early because the damned thing ends at 7:00 AM, I enter a bid of $6.50. I get outbid.

She relists that fuckin' thing or one like it again. I forget to bid, it doesn't sell, she relists. I watch it again. I enter a bid of $7.00 the night before it's supposed to end, I get outbid.

Each time she fuckin relists it it has the same end time...7:00 AM. I am not getting up at 7 on a Sunday each week to bid on this fuckin' piece of glass. AND...

How is it that when there are no bids from me, the thing doesn't sell and gets relisted but the second I put in a bid the thing sells, and not to me? Maybe ol' Cohen from the board has a point about shill bidding going on? I've been watching this same piece of glass for almost a month.