Wednesday 29 October 2008

The Good, the Bad and the Ebay

One bad thing at the moment is that I'm finding it hard to photograph my stuff. We've had some nice bright days, but whenever I get my camera out, the clouds gather, the skies go dark, and my photos become dull. However, I managed to do a few - here's one I was pleased with.

Ebay.... You might know that I spend A LOT of time on ebay. I know, I know, it's an addiction, but then there are so many brilliant things to be found. like all this dolly goodness -


But isn't it horrid 'When Ebay Goes Bad' ? I've been waiting for over two months to sort out a transaction with a seller in the States. I ordered a whole bunch of dolls. She took 5 weeks to post them! When the package finally arrived, I found she had left out the most expensive doll. I'm still waiting for it to arrive. Trouble is, it's gone past the date for a dispute on ebay, so I just have to hope that it's down to incompetence, rather than anything malicious.

But last week I felt like an ebay vigilante, as I reported someone else for shill bidding. I've never done that before, but I was pretty sure this time. Nobody had bid on this item all week, but within an hour of my bid, I'd been outbid (underbid first, then outbid). It happens, and when it feels a bit wrong, as this did, I usually just leave them to it, and walk away. But it was a new-ish seller and a new bidder, and when I when I looked at the bid history, it seemed to correspond pretty neatly with the dozen or so random items the seller had sold/was selling so far. So I reported it. There must have been enough there for ebay to take action, as all the seller's items had been removed within a couple of hours. Blimey! The Avenging Angel of Ebay has meted out justice!

1 comment:

Teena Vallerine said...

Well done you vigilante! I had an eBay nasty last weekend - spiteful hateful emails on a sunday morning. It's so great when it goes well but I guess the whole world can't be as wonderful as us! t.xx (ps those dolly heads are really creepy but love all the plastic ones!!)