EBAY NUTTERS

Gawd, Ebay! Psychoville. We sell quite a bit of our church stuff through it and largely that is OK - it is a way to advertise and reach bored housewives who want a pew for their kitchen. They don't usually have too much of an agenda. The trouble starts when I sell domestic stuff, i.e. anything that is 'collectable'. For instance, we had a whole bunch of early 60s toy trains and coaches; and once those Hornby Dublos and Triangs were listed all these questions started to come in. Is that a R221 in a R223 box? Is that a bogie with bricks or without? Can you send detailed photographs showing the speck of rust on the undercarriage? And after the sales finish you get these follow up emails where even if the customer is happy it seems like they are complaining: There is so much abstruse, intense detail about stuff no grown man should care about.

And 'Emoticons', those little flashing gizmos that adorn a certain type of email; I still can't get my head around those. And if people are actually complaining it is easiest simply to refund without arguing... Or so I thought.

I've got this nightmare weirdo out there who has bought a Victorian silver christening cup from me on ebay. The complaints and demands started before he even paid which I should have taken as a warning. Once he had the thing he insisted on a refund before returning the cup because he did 'not trust me'.

Paying this was a mistake. I had fallen into a classic pride trap - How dare he not trust me! I'll show him! Of course what happened next was that he announced that he was not returning the cup as I had falsely described it and was therefore trying to 'obtain money by deception'. In vain I pointed out that this was not such a great deception as he now had the money and cup. The next kicker was his email saying that in addition to keeping money and goods he was going to sue me through the small claims court for the repair of said object and then post bad feedback. (Sellers cannot post bad feedback on ebay anymore) Arrggh! The cost of this fantastic object - £28. (See pic; a bit of a bargain don't you think for a nice lump of Victorian silver?) The cost in terms of anger and stress - priceless. And to put it into context, I have £100,000 of borrowed money invested in US Dollars. A single cent change in the exchange rate means hundreds of pounds lost or gained for me. It doesn't bother me at all compared to this bloody cup.

There is something really wearing about coming up against criminals/lunatics/obsessives who want to mess you up. Maybe for money but mostly because they are fuck ups. Like old age, disease and accidents they are closer to you than you think.

POSTSCRIPT: I SAVED ALL OF HIS WACKO THREATENING EMAILS AND SENT THEM OFF AS A PACKAGE TO EBAY/PAYPAL/A CROSS SECTION OF SILVER DEALERS ON EBAY. LO AND BEHOLD HE SENT THE MONEY BACK TO ME. NATURALLY HE GAVE ME THE BAD FEEDBACK, ONE OF HIS COMPLAINTS BEING THAT I OFFERED HIM A REFUND...