Never, ever understimate...
...the potential of people to be completely brainless and asinine, nor how much it can cost you financially and in terms of completely wasted time that you'll never, ever get back.
So I'm buying a notebook for Laura (Well, I'm not paying for it, per se, but I'm facilitating the purchase, inspection, preparation, and transfer of said equipment) and I've got a deal lined up on ebay...not the greatest deal on the face of the planet, but well beyind fair for what we're getting, considering it's exceptional condition and superior care. Well, I've gone back and forth e-mailing this guy out in Cal-i-for-nigh-ay for a week now, and I swear to god, this is the biggest moron on the face of the planet. I mean on the surface, he appears to be a normal run-of-the-mill guy, a little dorky, perhaps, but hey, it's not like I'm going to be marrying him, right? So the whole time, I'm like "dude, I cannont emphasize enough the fact that this whole project is under tremendous time constraints, and things will need to adhere to a certain timeline. Only after auction's end, do I notice that the guy won't take credit cards via PayPal. OK, no problem...my fault for not paying close enough attention. I e-mail him Thursday informing him of this, and that I'll need to shuffle some money around in accounts and such, and will be in a position to transfer funds to his PayPal account as per his auction instructions either Monday or Tuesday, and I'll have specific shipping instructions for him then. Great. Plan was to ship Wednesday, via FedEx two day service, for me to receive the unit on Friday, Laura gets to AR on Saturday, inspect/test/prep it over the weekend, box it back up, and ship it to her at her folks on Monday, again via FedEx 2-day for her to play with it Wednesday, and leave for MX on Thursday. Voila, another logistical masterpiece designed, implemented, and wrapped up nice and neat by yours truly.
Tuesday night comes, I make the arrangements and transfer the funds to Mr. Seller, and drop him an e-mail with the instructions, obtained from my very helpful CSR, Kat, at FedEx: He is to box the items with a final linear measure of no more than 72 inches, not surpass his high-side estimate of twenty pounds, insure for $1200.00 declared value, inform his FedEx station to ship via 2Day "Hold at FedEx Location, Bill to Recipient" service. Should he not be able to make the Wednesday deadline, he may even ship Thursday, 2Day "Hold Saturday at FedEx Location, Bill to Recipient". This way, I can hopefully utilize my interline discount (since I'm still in posession of my airline badge, otherwise we're looking at in excess of $300 for two-way shipping) when picking up the parcel.
Wednesday evening, I get an e-mail from PayPal indicating that my payment has been declined by the seller, and that oh, by the way, we're putting a four business day hold on your funds. WTF?! Turns out the clown hasn't read PayPal fine print entitling his personal account holding ass to a maximum of $500/month in free funds receivership, and balked at paying the $26 it would have cost him to recive full funding. He then e-mails me saying "Whoops, sorry, I thought you paid by credit card, so I declined the payment." then another one saying, "Whoops, looks like you paid me via direct confirmed transfer as I requested, but PayPal wants to charge me and I don't want to pay, so what can we do?"
Well, Mr. Seller, it appears that not only have you not accepted my confirmed funds, but your declination of said payment has caused PayPal to place an effective six day hold on my funds, thus disabling me from paying your moronic ass until the day before the recipient of this item has left the goddamned country.
It should also be mentioned that I've instructed this rocket scientist in every single e-mail correspondence thus far, to hey, "Call me if you run into any problems of any kind whatsoever, or e-mail me your number, and I'll call you! whatever is most convenient!" Instead, we've exchanged something like 18 e-mails where he keeps asking me what I want to do. My next one is going to indicate that I'll be flying to Redondo Beach and picking up the unit myself, and while I'm there, throttling his moronic ass for the betterment of all humanity. His last offer was for us to split the fees, $26, or $13 each. While normally, I'm all for splitting the difference (this is why your first offer as a buyer in a negotiation-type situation should never be more than half a seller's asking price. Asian haggling classes forming now, get your registration in early!), but in this case, I'm loathe to do it, on principle alone. I mean really what the hell is $13 in the grand scheme of things, but this guy has been a complete (although very well-mannered and accomodating) dolt through this whole process, and is a poster child for why not to do business on ebay, via PayPal, or the internet as a whole.
So the upshot of all this is that I've got to miraculously pull another grand out of my ass and in all likelihood, pony up another $13 for this guy's total ignorance, and lose at least a day of prep time, in addition to possibly not getting Laura the notebook until the morning of her departure. This is so not cool.
Here's my last e-mail to him...think it's over-the-top? (and here I go quoting myself again...)
Dan;
Normally, I'm all for, and usually the first to suggest splitting the difference. I'm not at all interested in haggling with you over $13, so I don't want to give you the impression that I'm about to, but I think that in this case, in principle, I have a certain objection to paying for half of something that's arisen through no fault of my own. I had originally planned on paying for this auction via credit card, and I fully admit that it was my oversight that led to my last-minute discovery that you had requested PayPal payment via verified bank transfer, and as such, I went to the added expense and effort to ensure that payment was made as per your specifications. While I recognize that you had no way of knowing that your declination of payment was going to effect a six-day hold of payment funds, I'm now in effect having to come up with $2,000.00 to pay for a $1000.00 auction, (as well as incur shipping approaching $300; this is in no way your fault, but I mention it to give a better and more complete situational overview) in order to live up to my obligation to purchase these goods.
I do fully appreciate your accomodation of my time constraints, and associated inconvenience in the shipment requests I've made, and I'm grateful for these efforts.
I hope that I've not offended you in any way, as this is not my intent; merely to present the situation as I see it, and I welcome your thoughts and/or remarks.
I will need to make a call or two in the morning to see about re-remittance via cash or credit card payment. Either way, I'm still going to need to complete this transaction in a timely fashion. Non-delivery is not an option for me, as I've made a committment, and this is the only opportunity we have in the foreseeable future to accomplish this task.
Thanks for your continued cooperation,
-Gene
(end psychotic rant)
Back to our normally scheduled programming tomorrow. Developments as they occur
So I'm buying a notebook for Laura (Well, I'm not paying for it, per se, but I'm facilitating the purchase, inspection, preparation, and transfer of said equipment) and I've got a deal lined up on ebay...not the greatest deal on the face of the planet, but well beyind fair for what we're getting, considering it's exceptional condition and superior care. Well, I've gone back and forth e-mailing this guy out in Cal-i-for-nigh-ay for a week now, and I swear to god, this is the biggest moron on the face of the planet. I mean on the surface, he appears to be a normal run-of-the-mill guy, a little dorky, perhaps, but hey, it's not like I'm going to be marrying him, right? So the whole time, I'm like "dude, I cannont emphasize enough the fact that this whole project is under tremendous time constraints, and things will need to adhere to a certain timeline. Only after auction's end, do I notice that the guy won't take credit cards via PayPal. OK, no problem...my fault for not paying close enough attention. I e-mail him Thursday informing him of this, and that I'll need to shuffle some money around in accounts and such, and will be in a position to transfer funds to his PayPal account as per his auction instructions either Monday or Tuesday, and I'll have specific shipping instructions for him then. Great. Plan was to ship Wednesday, via FedEx two day service, for me to receive the unit on Friday, Laura gets to AR on Saturday, inspect/test/prep it over the weekend, box it back up, and ship it to her at her folks on Monday, again via FedEx 2-day for her to play with it Wednesday, and leave for MX on Thursday. Voila, another logistical masterpiece designed, implemented, and wrapped up nice and neat by yours truly.
Tuesday night comes, I make the arrangements and transfer the funds to Mr. Seller, and drop him an e-mail with the instructions, obtained from my very helpful CSR, Kat, at FedEx: He is to box the items with a final linear measure of no more than 72 inches, not surpass his high-side estimate of twenty pounds, insure for $1200.00 declared value, inform his FedEx station to ship via 2Day "Hold at FedEx Location, Bill to Recipient" service. Should he not be able to make the Wednesday deadline, he may even ship Thursday, 2Day "Hold Saturday at FedEx Location, Bill to Recipient". This way, I can hopefully utilize my interline discount (since I'm still in posession of my airline badge, otherwise we're looking at in excess of $300 for two-way shipping) when picking up the parcel.
Wednesday evening, I get an e-mail from PayPal indicating that my payment has been declined by the seller, and that oh, by the way, we're putting a four business day hold on your funds. WTF?! Turns out the clown hasn't read PayPal fine print entitling his personal account holding ass to a maximum of $500/month in free funds receivership, and balked at paying the $26 it would have cost him to recive full funding. He then e-mails me saying "Whoops, sorry, I thought you paid by credit card, so I declined the payment." then another one saying, "Whoops, looks like you paid me via direct confirmed transfer as I requested, but PayPal wants to charge me and I don't want to pay, so what can we do?"
Well, Mr. Seller, it appears that not only have you not accepted my confirmed funds, but your declination of said payment has caused PayPal to place an effective six day hold on my funds, thus disabling me from paying your moronic ass until the day before the recipient of this item has left the goddamned country.
It should also be mentioned that I've instructed this rocket scientist in every single e-mail correspondence thus far, to hey, "Call me if you run into any problems of any kind whatsoever, or e-mail me your number, and I'll call you! whatever is most convenient!" Instead, we've exchanged something like 18 e-mails where he keeps asking me what I want to do. My next one is going to indicate that I'll be flying to Redondo Beach and picking up the unit myself, and while I'm there, throttling his moronic ass for the betterment of all humanity. His last offer was for us to split the fees, $26, or $13 each. While normally, I'm all for splitting the difference (this is why your first offer as a buyer in a negotiation-type situation should never be more than half a seller's asking price. Asian haggling classes forming now, get your registration in early!), but in this case, I'm loathe to do it, on principle alone. I mean really what the hell is $13 in the grand scheme of things, but this guy has been a complete (although very well-mannered and accomodating) dolt through this whole process, and is a poster child for why not to do business on ebay, via PayPal, or the internet as a whole.
So the upshot of all this is that I've got to miraculously pull another grand out of my ass and in all likelihood, pony up another $13 for this guy's total ignorance, and lose at least a day of prep time, in addition to possibly not getting Laura the notebook until the morning of her departure. This is so not cool.
Here's my last e-mail to him...think it's over-the-top? (and here I go quoting myself again...)
Dan;
Normally, I'm all for, and usually the first to suggest splitting the difference. I'm not at all interested in haggling with you over $13, so I don't want to give you the impression that I'm about to, but I think that in this case, in principle, I have a certain objection to paying for half of something that's arisen through no fault of my own. I had originally planned on paying for this auction via credit card, and I fully admit that it was my oversight that led to my last-minute discovery that you had requested PayPal payment via verified bank transfer, and as such, I went to the added expense and effort to ensure that payment was made as per your specifications. While I recognize that you had no way of knowing that your declination of payment was going to effect a six-day hold of payment funds, I'm now in effect having to come up with $2,000.00 to pay for a $1000.00 auction, (as well as incur shipping approaching $300; this is in no way your fault, but I mention it to give a better and more complete situational overview) in order to live up to my obligation to purchase these goods.
I do fully appreciate your accomodation of my time constraints, and associated inconvenience in the shipment requests I've made, and I'm grateful for these efforts.
I hope that I've not offended you in any way, as this is not my intent; merely to present the situation as I see it, and I welcome your thoughts and/or remarks.
I will need to make a call or two in the morning to see about re-remittance via cash or credit card payment. Either way, I'm still going to need to complete this transaction in a timely fashion. Non-delivery is not an option for me, as I've made a committment, and this is the only opportunity we have in the foreseeable future to accomplish this task.
Thanks for your continued cooperation,
-Gene
(end psychotic rant)
Back to our normally scheduled programming tomorrow. Developments as they occur
posted by Gene at 3:50 AM
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