This is to explain the reason why a buyer of mine sort of got confused with the transaction as mentioned in his feedback (Item number: 160178409214). 

As we all know, there's nothing more sweeter than a smooth transaction in eBay.  And having to deal with honest and very considerate sellers is just but icing on the cake!  I've had great sellers who gave me good deals and most of them do give away freebies for being a returning customer.  And I always believe in "paying it forward" so I do see to it that I give back the same courtesy to my buyers as well.

As an occasional seller, I make sure that the descriptions of the items I put on offer are described as accurately and honestly as possible.  It's good to make it a point that there are no unpleasant surprises for your buyers.  Although I do get one of those shocking treatments occassionally, but rest assured sellers do compensate me accordingly. 

Some say my postage may be a bit more compared to other mainstream sellers, but mine has got a reason behind it.  There is this eBay term sellers use as a "bulletproof" packaging and I see to it that I send items as securely as possible.  I wish my customers to get the items the same condition the left my hands as you can see in my feedback.  It is my standard to put adequate box-boards (apart from the usual backing boards and bags) to protect the spine.  You'll never know what type of postman may deliver your goods. LOL.

As the saying goes, "to err is human"... and even someone as careful as I am do slip once in a while.  As what happened when a returning customer took one more of the items I was selling.  As advertised I (usually) ship the items as soon as the payment clears, and my buyer was a swift payer (like me LOL). 

It was a good thing that prior to have sealed the packet, I gave it another look to see if everything is in order.  Upon closer inspection, the VFN (very fine condition) book turned out to only be FN (fine which is 4 steps below being M or mint condition grading).  So almost immediately after posting the item (first class/ recorded) I had issued a full refund for his purchase since I had listed the item wrongly.  As what I have said, I would always want to be as honest as possible.

End of story?  Don't betcha, this is where the confusion sets in.  My dear buyer didn't get a clue on why I would give him a refund as normally a buyer would contact the seller first for any compensation in the event that the transaction was unsatisfactory.  But not with me.  I wouldn't have to wait for that thinking if I were in his shoes, how would I feel about the whole thing.  It is after all indeed confusing to get your money back instantly when the seller just informs you at the same time that the item had been posted.

He thought that I might have been talking about another transaction he knew nothing of and also with the thought of his eBay account being hacked into.  Scary thought indeed!

After communicating further and emailing him the details once more.  That was the time he understood everything though he did say that it was unnecessary since he wasn't particular of the condition of the book and that he didn't even notice the difference.  He just wants to read them, and wasn't as condition-fussy as I am. hahaha!

Still for me, it was necessary to keep my concience clean.  After all reputation, a perfect feedback and reliability is worth much more than a few quid.  You can never really buy "true and genuine" trust and loyalty can you?

Nevertheless I still would want to thank andyrjb for being too kind to have returned to purchase once again. And also to redgrierson, andrew1136, vautja666, jjdryden, stefan_brauer, prime006 and chocolate_donkey for finding time to check on my items and actually buying them.  They were all behind that One Fine Sunday (I had called) for multiple purchases of my items on offer on that one perfect weekend!

And to new watchers and possible buyers of my books, this will be proof enough on the dedication and the honestly as well as after sales satisfaction I wish to give my customers.

And to scammers, don't take my kindness and my honesty as a weakness.  I can be one tough cookie to crack you know. LOL

Best regards to all!

I am not very pleased with the recent Royal Mail industrial action for it having an adverse effect on our eBay transactions.  They shouldn't have accepted mails in the first place, if this would mean a problem of having to deal with a whole lot of backlogs.

I am pretty sure with the huge amount of mail and parcels all jumbled up together, albeit in the tens of millions, it won't be a surprise if all the FRAGILE and DELICATE items we send would be received damaged.

Imagine a glassware or a sensitive rare comic book at the bottom of tons and tons of mail?  How about figurines and other breakable stuffs?

Having sent my items First Class/ Signed For to get myself a tracking number (reference number) to view online, it still wasn't a great help at all.  For more than two weeks, all mails sent within the UK are not tracked and have no record of the status when viewed at the Royalmail website.  So what's the use then?

I'd be damned if my buyers who may also be unpleased with the slow delivery service would give me a red-strike for the snail mail.  Though I may say that would be unfair for me and the rest of the other sellers in eBay since this isn't our fault.  All we can do is just hope that they receive the items safely and give us a deserving green mark for the items sold to them.

What's the point of having the items sent First Class if only what you will be getting is Third-World Class mail service.  It's a rip off to charge us customers a premium rate for services that is given below expected standards.

Worse is their 08459 call centre.  You'd be annoyed to hear an explanation about the industrial action when it doesn't interest me nor does it concern me in the first place.  It was about 2-3 minutes of blah blahs when all I wanted to know is the status of the mail I have sent. 

And when the moment comes for me to inquire about my mail's status, an automated voice recognition system doesn't seem to get my clear-crisp-well-pronounced (numbers and letters) reference number.  Did that twice and to no avail, no voice recognition.  Then when it did, I was told that the automated tracking system is not working at the moment. 

What the ****?  They could have set that to be announced first so we wouldn't waste our time going further and endure their unreliable mail tracking service.  Albeit they were just fishing us out for some premium call money for their kitty eh?

Makes you wonder if indeed they deserve to be dealt with by the Royalmail management in the first place.  I am not anti-union, in fact I am for the organisation for the protection of the workers rights BUT come on, give back some good service will ya?

Give and take folks... get what you want... give us what we want!  It's not about you Mr. Postmen, it's about us the people who brings in the revenue for Royal Mail to survive.

And also, for crissake... if the envelop says do not bend/ fragile, do not shove it in the little mailbox please.  May I remind you the use of the doorbell?  Intelligent lifeforms live in our house you know?

And don't count on us claiming compensation from Royal Mail, this is another long sad story for me to tell.  Not to mention the headaches that come along with it.

The anxiety of being a first time seller is like a roller coaster ride!  Having listed some "unwanted excesses" with the hope that other eBayers would notice and snap them up, watching the "watchers" can be an advance experience on how it is to be menopause in such an early stage in life! 

You get the feeling and the notion you finally won't see that item to be relisted again.  Days on, you anxiously wait that the bidding would end and you get to finally post the item to the winner.  Then a few hours before the bidding ends.... * kapoof!*.... they vanish into thin air like an Earthling being kidnapped by a Martian (LOL).  From having that woohoo feeling to an aww man... LOL

Just when you thought you get enough excitement from work in one day comes another life in eBaying!  I guess I have to wait for that darn flying saucer to flyby and return our beloved Earthlings back to eBay!

At times I just get too excted upon discovering a great good bargain on eBay! And because of over zealousness, I end up buying the wrong item.  Well not totally wrong, just something not quite what I want... hmmm that still is a wrong item isn't it? LOL

My first mistake was purchasing an OAKLEY paraphernalia thinking it was an OAKLEY IRIDIUM JULIET shades.  So I immediately snapped it since it was a Buy It Now offer.  I'd hate to see it go to another eBayer with the fastest finger you know?  Then upon carefully reading the description (after the purchase), what was on sale was in fact the rubber frame supports and not the shades!  The Oakley shades was pictured to show the buyer what model they are for!  ** Doiy!!! **

It was my mistake and not the seller since it was clearly stated in there what he was actually selling.  All along I thought I was going to get a genuine Oakley under a tenner! Damn!

Now just recently, I wanted to upgrade my PCs memory since most of the DDR2s on offer in eBay are sold cheap!  So here I was, having not learned from the past impulsive mistake, place a bid on a couple of RAM at 512mb each. 

It was pure bliss upon winning the item. 

It was shipped lightning fast and well packaged. 

I had to wait for evening time before I install them in my PC with my hands sweaty and all from the over joy and over excitement!

I vacuum cleaned the inside of my PC making it look spanking brand new!  I really made a mess in the house with all the dust scattered around the living room! It didn't matter I said.  That was irrelevant since I've got an extra 1gig of memory!

I carefully compared them with my existing ones... aha! they are alike in size, shape and architecture I told myself! GREAT!

Upon installing and having to plug all the cables, USB and connections at the back... pressed the start button... and.... beep... beep.... beeeeep...

Huh?  was that supposed to happen?... again... again.... (presing button) duh still the same... something must be wrong here... and indeed there was... a slight misjudgement cost me a nights moment of pure bliss!

After having "googled" the model of my PC, checked on the specks and the type of memory compatible to the system, I should have gotten a Non-ECC rather than the ECC type which I purchased. 

Awwww man!  Just that spec, everything was similar except that.  It was again stated clearly that the memory on offer was an ECC type so the seller had no fault in it.  As being a proper Briton who would stand up to palabra de honor, I would have to keep it without any complaints.  The seller did try to help me and his after sales support was great.  A very friendly fellow and he gets my respect for that.

A similar experience happened as well though this one was a very unpleasant one.  I bid and won for a Gen 13 book with a fantastic cover only to realise that it wasn't a comic book but an actual NOVEL.  Again, lesson number two: Don't judge a book by its cover. 

The saddest part was, I didn't even get the item.  The seller from across the Atlantic with a 100% feedback at over 1000 just dissapeared.  And like a ton of bricks falling above him, red mark after red mark in feedbacks started pouring in.  Something serious must have happened with that guy.  What a way to throw all that hard earned unblemished feedback score.

Sometimes I wonder, with all these experiences I get along the course of my eBaying, will I ever learn?  Let's wait till our next blog then shall we?

Like what my dad used to tell me as I grew up: "Always read the label son."

.. and still not much luck.  Though my first two buyers seemed pleased anyway. Sometimes we get the illusion that there are a lot of folks out ther who have interests similar as yours.  Hoping that they would snap up your goodies like freshly prepared pancakes.  Then again there's a chance that these folks with similar interests are sellers as well (LOL).

Buying is a lot easy.  It wasn't long ago when I've decided to complete an old passion for my favourite band, a-ha...  and that lead to another love, completing The Corrs albums, singles, rarities etc...  As if that wasn't enough I went on completing DVDs and the rest is history.  Now I am looking forward to complete my other love and passion, Witchblade.  And thanks to eBay I was able to attain this dream of mine.  From items that costs only under two quid to extraorinarily priced gems!

Now I am trying my luck into selling.  My first one was some spare parts for an unused hoover.  Placed it on a 0.99 offer and someone (perhaps the only one) snapped it up.  COOL!

The second try was a box of imported snacks which I was hoping that people would give interest in it.  One "watcher" but NO buyer. *sigh*.  I guess it was obvious that the 15 quid postage was too much for items costing under a tenner!

Third try are my excess comics.  In my persuit to get near mint copies of the books, I ended up purchasing the same issues twice and sometimes even thrice!  Now that obsession is beginning to take a lot of my drawer and wardrobe space!  So I am selling... and not just one or two items, I'm selling a whole lot!  I had a buyer who made me so pleased with his/ her purchase that I added a lot of extras. Only to realised I went 2 quid above the advertised postage cost.  Hmmm some say give a lot, receive a lot...  Fingers crossed!

Now with the second batch of books on offer, and still no buyers lest no watchers.  I have reduced the postage costs and the combined discounts.  Makes me wonder if I'll ever get any profit from the sale?  Then again my original goal was to just give them a new home to a fellow enthusiast and somehow get a bit of money back.

Knock on wood things will go the way I've hope it would be.  Good luck to us all!