It seems that whenever I find something I no longer want or need I turn to eBay to turn it into some quick cash, however I’ve had a few bizarre experiences in the past few weeks that has made this routine rather annoying. I think my luck is changing because I did manage to get a good price on a jersey to make good on a bet thanks to a friendly seller.

At the end of August, I posted an old SIMS PC game on eBay that I had found collecting dust in the basement. There was nothing wrong with the game besides the fact that I had turned everyone in my family to Mac or Ubuntu users so no one had Windows to run the game. I eventually found a buyer who won it for next to nothing with maybe $9 in shipping cost. I walked it down to the UPS store in the Union since our new house is so close and the shipping charges were actually more than the item’s selling price and shipping cost so I lost money on the deal. That’s not the worst part.

I get an email notice from UPS about a week later saying that the package was undeliverable! I’ve never heard of this and of course the buyer was filling my eBay message inbox with sob stories about how her daughter was anxiously awaiting for the game to arrive. I tell her about the undeliverable notice and she tells me that she wanted me to send it to another address that wasn’t confirmed or listed as her shipping address when she checked out on PayPal. Is that not the storybook eBay scam? 

I need this item overnighted to Nigeria for my family member’s birthday even though this account is registered to Florida

eBay tells you to not ship to non-confirmed locations so I shipped to the address that she had on record thinking that would cover my ass. The package gets returned to me and then the buyer opens a dispute because nothing was delivered to her. I explain over and over to PayPal the situation including tracking numbers and emails from UPS. They even saw that the address she listed when checking out was the one I had a tracking number to! PayPal sided with her for some reason and I had to give back the $9 she paid me after already spending $11 on shipping the item initially so it was like a $20 loss for me!

The package still sits on my shelf in its packaging and I’m about ready to re-list it hoping the next buyer gives me a real address to ship to.

The most recent eBay headache came just a week or two ago. I sold an old broadband modem to a guy in Indianapolis for a little under $9 and had a shipping charge of $8.99, but he wanted to pick it up from me since my address was listed as Carmel, IN. When I informed him that I was in Bloomington for school, he thought I should ship it to him for free. Not so fast Tahar! The price of gas to drive from your west side residence to Carmel or Bloomington is going to be more than the $8.99 in shipping. Also, it’s only 20 miles further to Bloomington than to Carmel from where you live and odds are that traffic will make the drive longer to Carmel even though it’s closer.

I tried to play nice and offered to bring it up to Indy when I flew out to Vegas at 5am on a Saturday. He actually wanted to meet me and pick it up at the airport. Absent minded me forgot it while packing necessities for my trip, but I emailed him the night before so he didn’t have to show up for nothing. This prompted a, “ship it to me for free or I’m opening a dispute!” So right now it’s a claim and I am going to drag it out as long as possible to stick it to this asshole who would rather meet a stranger at 5am in the airport than pay $8.99 to have an eBay item shipped to his front door. Something just isn’t right about that and for the $8.60 I stand to have returned to him, it’s just as much fun to drag out this dispute on PayPal. I’ve already relisted the item :)

I have had ONE good eBay experience lately when I was searching for a Philadelphia Phillies home Jimmy Rollins jersey that I owed my roommate due to a lost bet. I thought Manny Ramirez and Joe Torre could take care of the most losing franchise in all of sports, but that wasn’t the case so I was faced with finding a cheap jersey quick. I sent a message to the seller of the cheapest jersey I found asking if he’d be willing to sell it to me at a flat price before the auction was over. Now I sound like a scammer so to ensure my authenticity I briefly explained how I was just a college guy trying to make good on a lost bet. The guy actually went for it and I sent him the money through PayPal just incase he tried to run away with it. 

Turns out that the jersey I wanted had a rip in it so he offered to send a different Phillies jersey that was actually nicer. He sent me the tracking info and it should be here by the end of the week. That’s how eBay is supposed to work! Good people selling their junk to others.

I don’t know why or how people have formed these grand expectations of other buyers and sellers like each person is an Amazon.com or Zappos.com. They’ve become greedy when it comes to getting a deal or saving on shipping. Hopefully I’ve just come across two loons too quickly and there are more people out there like my jersey dealer who’s looking to help people out.