Mr. Grupie

I belong to a group. The group is chuck full of Ebay cheerleaders. I joined it because I thought it was about something else, but I stayed to read the bullshit.

It has been painful for me to hold my tongue as they kiss buyer butt and dole out refunds like candy.

It's almost like they are proud to pay someone off to shut them up when they've screwed up.

If anybody even has the slightest tone while talking about a pampered buyer in the group, they go apeshit and the offender is then schooled not to assume anything bad about a buyer even if there are a million red flags. They also advise people not to block anyone and assume "Ebay will take care of it"

Uh guys, 99 times out of 100, they don't. Ebay provides the block feature so you can take out the trash yourself.

I am sorry, but sometimes you get yourself an asshole.

These people brush off refunds as if they are rolling in cash. Oh well, I will just sell more.

Is it really "selling" though when basically you are just shipping shit out and paying people to take it?

In my world, sometimes a buyer needs to be held accountable.

Sometimes they should pay return shipping, and sometimes you don't want that asshole as a repeat buyer.

Even though I am so clearly rogue, I hold the exalted Top Rated Seller status they all seem to want. I toe that middle line so hard I should wear a tutu. I feel like if I clearly screwed up, then sure, I refund. However, if the buyer is just being an asshat, they get treated as such, and BLOCKED.

I always roll my eyes as someone in the group posts a self-congratulatory "I refunded my buyer immediately, now I will have a repeat customer!"

Uhhh, is someone who complains and returns shit really what you want for a repeat buyer? SMH

You Don't Work So...

Just got done scrubbing 6 antique fans. We drove an hour to get to some auction in Vermont, and sat through hours of crap and repro cast iron banks to get to a huge lot of clocks the auctioneer had. When I got home I spent all night babysitting my rogue furnace, and so woke up late - 8:30. As soon as I got up, I went out to the trunk and grabbed last night's haul.

After lugging in about 11 clocks and the 6 fans, I set about testing things. I wound one clock...ticked for a few minutes, promising. Then I grabbed a wipe, wiped everything down, and tested each and every fan and 2 clocks. To my amazement, each of the fans worked perfectly. The clocks, however, not so much. One Westclox wall clock just about lit me up like Vegas, lol. A nice GE Westminster chime clock hummed and that was it.

I sighed and looked at the bedraggled pile of fans and went to work...2 of the fans had blades painted white. They looked rusty so that was kind of discouraging. I took the worst one and stuck it on a rack in my sink. I sprayed the bastard with Awesome and scrubbed it with a toothbrush. I could not get around the cage to the blades. I took the cage off. I spray more Awesome and the "rust" comes right off the blades - it was nicotine tar. I stood at my sink for about 2 1/2 hours straight until each fan was presentably clean, then I took the cords, bound them up nicely with a brand new twist tie. Later today I will oil 4 clocks and rewire 2 more. Yet, people think I just buy shit cheap, take a picture and list it.

I get the "You should go here for work" or "You don't work so..." bullshit from people all the time. I indeed work. It is hard work sometimes, and it sure as hell is time-consuming. Make no mistake, Just because I work from home, does not mean I have all this free time to do people's bidding. Things don't clean and repair themselves, nor do they pack and mail themselves. They do not research themselves, do write-ups on themselves, or appease customers when something is not up to par. That in itself is work and a skillset.