eBay Honor Betting

A few weeks ago President Romney (note that at the time of this posting, he hasn’t won his parties nomination for president and the presidential election is a year away) bet Governor Rick Perry $10,000 to prove something improvable and people got all mad about it cuz idontknowwhy. Something about $10,000 being a lot of money (that’s the point, dipshits) and that’s insensitive to people who aren’t running for president and don’t have $10,000 to put up in an unlosable wager against a political opponent lying about them. Idk. It was a media manufactured outrage that blew over within 2 days – but it reminded me that I recently bet someone on eBay something impossible for them to prove and they too didnt accept my offer.

I sold my old Macbook Pro at a ridiculously cheap price considering its renovations and new parts both inside and out (over $1,300 worth of new parts and labor, actually) and even offered extra goodies to go with it. One of those extra goodies was something someone else was gonna add to it. They did, as the winning bidder requested, but they didn’t ask me for the $30. So I pocketed the poor winners $30 and spent it on hookers and blow, right? WRONG, bitches. I’m such a saintly piece of incorruptible majesty that I actually refunded that amount to the buyer even though they had no way of ever knowing I wasn’t charged it – which itself is an unneeded detail cuz I coulda just charged that amount regardless of whether I needed to or not. That’s called PROFIT, babyyyy. But no. I refunded it cuz I’m awesome like that. I mailed the Macbook to the lady buyer internationally over in The Netherlands with no additional speed at her request (to save on shipping).

But then the person asked for their $30 and I was like oops. So I explained to the buyer that the refund was in error and the extra $30 needed to be re-sent. Except now, with the shoe on the other foot, she wasn’t so charitable. The Macbook was already in the air on its way to her so I couldnt take it back over the $30 and she could easily screw me out of it. Uhht oooh…

She replied to my request for the thirty bones by expressing outrage over the (what I thought was) super reasonable shipping price considering the weight of the computer and the distance between Los Angeles and the Netherlands.

She sent me this reply:

So wait, you are trying to tell me that shipping was $66? I am am very confused about the pricing. I used to ship things to europe and australia from the US often when I ran a shop on etsy and shipping was never close to that much. I did a bit of research when trying to determine how much the invoice should be and it could not have been more than 30 ish, 40$ maximum unless you did some expediated option which I expressly asked you not to do, in fact I requested slow (but safe) shipping to avoid high costs.
I suggested $100 to make the math very easy, not to be taken advantage of.
$66 sounds bogus to me.
But there is a receipt somewhere showing proof of this cost, yes?

However, this extra charge aside, I am really concerned that you never sent me the tracking number. Right now I just have a message from you saying you sent it, but no way to prove that and for me to know when to expect it. And you want me to give you additional money? Reading these is a bit frustrating.

By the way, I don’t receive forwards from ebay to my email address when i get an ebay message so i don’t know that i have a message until i log in to my ebay account which has not been often recently. so i apologize for the delay on my part.

But before anything else, I really a way of tracking the computer and i would appreciate it you could send it to my email: [REDACTED] (at) gmail.com

Ug. a big mess I got myself into by being a nice guy. Again. My reply is kinda lulzy so idk why I didn’t post any of this till now but here’s what I said in return:

RICHARD:
I’m not asking for additional money. I asked for the final payment of the item you purchased. It doesn’t make sense to say you’d be taken advantage of because I already had the money and only refunded more than I should have because I was trying to give you a break (the opposite of advantage taking).

I regret any miscommunication on the shipping agreements but I don’t know of any cheaper method of shipment and you didn’t specify one. So I shipped through the United States Postal Service with no added priority, as you specified. The packing slip on the box includes the date shipped and the price of shipping if you wish to verify (though where I come from, it’s customary to put something on the line when making a scurrilous accusation. how about if the shipping date and cost match my description with laser precision then you owe $4 donated to Red Cross International? honors system on the collection).

The tracking number is [REDACTED] and is marked as being delivered but Addressee not available, so you can pick it up at the post office any time.

Please pay the final $30 owed on this transaction as soon as possible.

She never replied about the bet so I don’t know if the Red Cross ever got it’s $4, but then again that was a term I set, not one that she agreed to, so… I’m assuming they didn’t get it.

The only reason she replied at all was that she didn’t know there was no password to the computer… so this chick got the item, saw on the shipping label that it was sent exactly when I said it was and for exactly the cost I said it was and opened it up to use it without paying the final cost for it – until luckily for me, she was faced with a password prompt. So she payed the $30 and asked me what the password is.

I informed her that there isn’t one and she just needed to hit Enter and create her own password.