Imagine for me please. You’re trying to help out your mother, earn some extra cash, and hook someone up with a really great deal on what could possibly be the ugliest fur coat in existence. There must be someone out there that would like to purchase such an item, so you decide to go to eBay to help facilitate the process. You’ve sold an item on eBay before, and that item was also a shitty item you couldn’t imagine anyone wanting, but look! A bidding war, a winner, a payment, a sent package and some positive feedback! Easy.
You understand that this may be an expensive item to buy online from an independent seller, so you do your damnedest to make sure that everything goes smoothly. There’s no sizing on the coat so you guess that it’s about a size 12-14, but you want to be sure people know what they’re getting, so you include measurements of the coat in the listing. No one would spend $400 on eBay without reading through the entire description, so you’re covered. But no! You even go so far as to include 6 pictures of the coat! Unheard of!
You turn it live… and wait. There seems to be a little interest, but no one is biting yet, that’s okay. It’s a big ugly expensive coat. Surely there still is a market for these types of things?! Just one day left and… YES! You have a bid! Sure it’s bottom of the line, you were hoping to get at least half of what the coat was worth, but you’re getting rid of it, that’s the important thing. Who knows, maybe this person will love the coat, even wear it every day! This wasn’t so bad! Another successful eBay sale.
Then you wake up in the morning, check your internets to see if the pretty pretty money has come through yet. Nothing. That’s okay, the buyer is probably just pulling together the funds. Then you get a message. The buyer is asking questions about the state of the coat she’s already legally obligated to purchase. You think it strange, why didn’t she ask these questions before agreeing to purchase? Oh well, might as well humor her. A week later and the buyer still hasn’t sent payment. Coat is still taking up space in your tiny apartment. Oh look! Another e-mail! Huh. Looks like she wants to back out of the sale because she’s unsure of it’s authenticity. Does this woman know anything about eBay and PayPal? Apparently not. You assure her that the coat is real fur, as your listing declares, and remind her kindly that PayPall and eBay have her back if you had try to jip her. You wonder how many hours of your life has now been spent answering questions that are already answered in the original listing. Perhaps eBay should screen morons out of the buying and selling process. Oh well, the buyer has sent in your payment and you ship the coat out the next day.
Ahhhhh, now it’s time to enjoy your pretty pretty money! Wait, surely there’s something wrong. PayPal is blocking your funds from you. Oh, it looks as if they do that automatically on higher priced items for new sellers. That’s fine, as soon as they confirm shipping the funds will be released. But there’s another problem, you get another email from the buyer… the coat doesn’t fit her, she wants a refund and to return. This is silly, you aren’t legally obligated to take it back, not to mention that you’d lose about $40 from listing and shipping fees if you did. It’s not your fault the woman doesn’t know how to measure herself. Didn’t you do everything you could in the beginning to ward off this type of outcome? Where were all of the informed and grateful eBay buyers? Why did you get stuck with the fat woman with the poor comprehension skills?
Just breathe. PayPal will sort it out for you. In order for you to have to take the coat back it has to have been inaccurately described, and it wasn’t. Sit pretty. Oh wait never mind. They don’t care enough to read the listing, you must take the coat back. Fine, you give up. Send the coat back and move those funds back to PayPal so that moronic fat lady can terrorize someone else.
Now, I want you to once again put yourself fully and completely into this glorious moment. You receive a package in the mail, a fairly beaten looking package actually, wow looks like someone took a shit on it and then kicked it against the wall a few times. Huh, must be that expensive fur coat you tried to sell on eBay. But wait. What’s that smell? It didn’t smell before… that was one of the main reasons you figured you could sell it. It was in excellent condition. As you approach the box with a nice sharp pair of scissors you place the smell. Wow, it’s like a freshly used ashtray. It tingles your nostrils as you slowly start to open the box, god you’ve always hated that smell, it doesn’t get much worse than this… And then you unfold the coat from the plastic bag inside of the box. You hope that the bag has kept some of the smell out. Quite the opposite in fact, the smell seems to have been trapped within the bag, soaking into every fur, fiber and facet that it contains.
So now you’re down $40, countless hours of your life, a fur coat that can be worn by anyone other by than someone sitting in the corner of a crack den without being smelled, and your sanity.
