So I wrote the guy with the missing item and his response? The item I purchased on the 29th of June WILL BE mailed this Saturday.  His excuse? " I had to work doubles this week, and I did not find out until MONDAY that I had to work doubles.

Ok...so um.... June the 29 was the Tuesday OF THE PREVIOUS WEEK. You have an excuse (albeit a shabby one) for not mailing the item THIS week, what about LAST week. Not only did he RAISE the shipping to priority mail (must mean LOW priority in his book) but he has yet to even MAIL IT!

Needless to say that once the item arrives (IF it ever arrives) I won't be doing business with this guy again. What a jerk.

So, here it is 8 days later from the end of auction on that item where the seller changed the shipping AFTER the auction. Funny that he/she/it changed it to PRIORITY mail, and yet I have yet to see hide nor hair of the item. He is also one of those sellers that holds the buyer's feedback hostage until they get theirs. Yes, "feedback extortion" is alive and well on Ebay, folks.

I hate HATE hate leaving bad feedback, but at this point, what am I to do?

Counting the days til the item shows up...

The last purchase was a pain in the arse. First, the seller changed the shipping AFTER the fact (I hate that crap) and so I had to ask my boyfriend to send some money to my paypal so I could pay for the item. Had the seller NOT changed the shipping, I had enough to cover it, but he did so....meh.  It was only a change from regular post to priority mail, but was 5 dollars more than the auction originally stated. I really wish they would make it so that sellers could not change the shipping.

Then....I redeemed one of those "coupons" Ebay sends out from time to time, it said it successfully applied it, then on the next page in red letters took it away again. So whereever the hell it went, I have no clue, and I really don't care, too much of a hassle to mess with for one whopping dollar discount. It will be the last one I redeem. I am not real big on futility and frustration.

Sometimes I do what I believe to be a completely innocuous search, only to discover an "Ebay Counterculture" of sorts, or at least some secret society of people who collect the very thing that I thought was completely common and without merit or value.  This happened yesterday with "Whisk Brooms"  I have a very old, but still very sturdy whisk broom, but I have been taking it outside more and more to sweep off the patio cushions. My thought was...could I get one cheap off ebay to have two, one for inside and one for outside? When I get to my search results I find there are folks who collect whisk brooms! Who woulda thunk?

I did find one dealer of nice sturdy NEW whisk brooms and I put one on my watch list. As is my way when I think of buying something that I have no clue of the price locally, I put the item on my watch list, then go out and see if I can get it easily and locally cheaper. But the guy who is selling them on ebay seems to have a store dedicated to such things, so should I need to I can return and purchase his once I check prices.

But it is often that way, I will think something is just a little "thing" to me, and it is a "precious" to others. Many times in my life I have begun to collect something only to have it become popular over the years and go way out of my price range. Van Briggle Pottery did that, as a glaring example. I began to collect it around 1968--now I cannot afford it. I do have the pieces I got back then, but it is out of my reach now.  I won't even mention how glad I am that I began to collect Jane Ray Jadite in the 70's when you could still get pieces for 25 cents. *wink*

I got sniped this morning while I was sleeping. I hate that. Although it is perfectly "legal" to do on Ebay, I find the practice of Sniping to be if not dishonest, at least unsavory. I have never sniped someone. I guess I just do not have that much "sneak" in me.  There are the true snipers. People who watch an item you have bid on that they want and 2 seconds before the auction ends they come in and outbid you. Sometimes they use a "bot" to do this, which is even MORE creepy.  And then there are the "false" snipers---the buddy-pal-chums of the seller who come in at the seller's request and outbid you either to attempt to raise your bid to your maximum, or they outbid you and buy the item because the seller is not getting what he thought he would get for it, and was too much of a cretin to put a reserve on the item.

Yea, I prefer a bidding war:  two people who upfront and along the way let the other know there is another person interested in the same item and they bid alongside you and both have an equal opportunity to purchase the item based purely on the amount they are willing to spend. 

Snipers, in my opinion ruin the Ebay auction experience for me. I especially hate to be sniped by someone who has a very LOW feedback number who swoops in and outbids me at the last minute and it is their first purchase in 6 or so months. Always looks dishonest to me, even if it is not. And because it leaves a bad taste in my mouth---knocks the air out of my buying balloon so to speak, I end up not shopping for a while on Ebay.