weswilson | Ebay Fun

At Dragoncon, a particular dealer was offering ten third-party d20 books for ten bucks, so I took the bait. Four of the ten weren't all that great, but the six I enjoyed were so inspiring that I revived my ideas for The Great Wes D&D Campaign(TM).

After I was done reading them... I felt a bit vacant. So I decided to search for more deals on these third party products. Ebay was the logical choice, and I found a plethora of inexpensive D20 supplements to bid on. The shipping charges are the real hit on things like this, so I tended to buy large numbers of items from individual sellers to benefit from combined shipping. Happiness is getting five auctions in one media-mail envelope.

Everything went fine until this week. I had won ten auctions from the same vender... anything from a penny to four bucks per book... and when I got the final bill, the shipping was more expensive than the items themselves. I did a quick scan of all the items and sent off the following e-mail:

I hate to sound like I'm trying to nickel and dime you out of money.... but everything on this list is a 40-60 page booklet. All of them could fit into one media mail envelope. Is there any possibility we could bring the postage and handling down a bit from 26 bucks? I figure it's six bucks to ship one envelope... I'd pay twice that... and round in favor. Could we get it down to 13 dollars? That should compensate you for the time and take care of the envelope.

This is the reply that I got:

Wes - shipping and handling include a lot more than postage. My rates are set. My standards are covered in every auction.

Please pay promptly,

(Insert dealer's name here)

Uhhhhh... what? ok... don't be insulted, Wes. I can't help it! Yeah, I know... but take a deep breath, pay the bill, and try to get her to laugh it off while letting her know that was insulting.

So I sent off:

I am happy to pay promptly... but can't help but feel that was an unnecessary dig... :-P

Please ship my stuff,

Wes Wilson

tbtbtbtbtbtbtbtbbtbtbtbtb

Everything gets better if you stick a raspberry on the end of it, right? Silliness trumps asshole.. doesn't it?

So I get a reply:

LOL, okay dude. :)

And I'm hoping it's the end of it.

Today, I go to bid on an item from another vender... and I'm BANNED! Come to find out that this person has multiple ebay accounts and has banned me from bidding on any of them! And the kicker is that I unwittingly had purchased six OTHER items from that OTHER account, totaling SIXTEEN THINGS I bought from her, and she's being an insulting bitch. Better yet, keep in mind that this other account doesn't register as the same as the one I've been conversing with, so she's scalping me on even MORE shipping by not combining all those auctions into one. Beautiful...

A little detective work and I see that a few people have tried to leave her neutral feedback on the things she has shipped, only to get negative promptly added to their own accounts. It seems logical to me that sellers leave their feedback after the purchase and shipment, but I doubt that will be the case. Now the big issue is whether I should even bother trying to complain about this person...

Grrrrr...