Hello! If you’re not here because you’re curious about the Artifact I’ve posted for sale in my store, you should check it out after reading this article. There will be a link to it at the end of the article. This is the no middleman deal.
Anyways, it’s time for the stories of it!
The best place to start a story is often at the beginning, and while for most, the beginning is often boring, my beginnings are a bit interesting, to say the least.
My mom was a manager at a clinic, so I got to meet all kinds of people, including the tech guy. I must have left a good impression, because he would bring me the old/broken hardware instead of just tossing them in the trash. If anything was wrong with it, I would try to fix it. I could often take parts from other broken units to make one good one. If it wasn’t something I could use, I would sell it on eBay.
It’s worth mentioning that during this time, I was maybe 13-14 years old. The laptop in the photos above was a few years into my eBay career. By the this time, I accumulated enough money to buy my first car without going broke. 2009 was the year I decided it was time to open a credit union account… Funny enough, I used to keep all of my money on me at all times. I figured that was the safest place for it. However, I had so much money that it would hurt to sit on it, and that was ultimately what pushed me to open a credit union account as well as a PayPal account.
I used that laptop as an example of some of the things I used to sell on eBay because that was the first item I’ve ever sold on eBay that was returned as being “not as described”. Obviously, it was exactly as I described (I don’t use stock photos). The item that was returned was missing parts. I explained this to eBay and they still made me issue a full refund. This is despite selling it “as is” and stating that I don’t accept returns. As you can probably imagine, I was always very meticulous when I described the items I sold. That’s how I kept a perfect seller rating for years.
However, despite this dispute, I foolishly continued to use the platform because I was able to make pretty good money using it and assumed this would probably never happen again. As time passed, the tech guy retired and I began using eBay less frequently. My interests also expanded further into the automotive industry and thus I used Craigslist more since it was free to list vehicles and other bulk items that I didn’t want to ship. To give you an idea of how much money I was able to make doing these things, I will say this… To this day, I have never been an employee.
I don’t say that to brag, I say that to highlight how idiotic eBay’s decision was. But before I get to that, let me tell you what happened. I just returned home after spending a few years in California. My dad bought a brand new ZX-14R while I was in California. He bought a seat for it but then decided to trade the bike in for a Harley, so he had me sell the seat for him. I sold it, but just like in the story with the laptop, the buyer decided to say that it was defective, when in truth, he just didn’t want it. Since I didn’t accept returns, that’s all he could do to get a refund. I explained this to eBay and tried to dispute it. They made me issue a full refund. So I actually lost money because I offered free shipping when I sold it.
This is where things got interesting… I never forget when I’ve been betrayed or experience injustice, so I tried to take precautions… The seller waited so long to make a claim, the funds became available to be transferred from my PayPal account into my credit union account. Which is exactly what I did. Because eBay and PayPal are like the left and right wing of the same bird. I knew my money wouldn’t be safe in my PayPal account and that neither eBay nor PayPal would have my back in this case. When he finally made the claim, I explained to eBay that what the buyer was stating was impossible and told them not to issue a refund. They didn’t listen to me. I sold it at such a low price that the buyer could’ve sold it to make a nice profit. That would’ve been too much like the right thing to do… When I got the seat back, I informed my credit union of the situation and they reversed the charge.
If only that were the end of this eBay nightmare… A YEAR LATER I remembered that I had a nice break kit for my car saved in my watch list. I went to check to see if they were still available and if the seller had a website so I could avoid using eBay. I guess eBay noticed that I logged into my account and was like “Hey, you owe us!” because in less than 72 hours, they tried to take that money again. I informed my credit union that I didn’t authorize that transaction and got my money back again. I found a way to contact eBay to ask them to look into the case again. I asked them why they ruled in his favor… They acknowledged that I had a high eBay rating with 100% positive feedback while that guy had almost no history. They explained that they ruled in his favor because “their bank is more likely to reverse the payment…”
I offered to send them the seat since that was the honorable thing to do. They didn’t want that and made no other valid suggestions…
A few days later, they attempted to take the money out of my account again. When that failed (because I don’t keep my money in there) (read this article to learn more), eBay sent me an email to inform me that they would try again within 3 business days.
Since eBay was attempting to take my money via ACH, even if there wasn’t enough money in my account, my credit union would charge an overdraft fee of $30. So I thought to myself, “Oh yeah?! We’ll see about that!” and went directly to my credit union to change my account number, but my credit union noticed that I have a long history with them and said it would be a shame to lose that because of this. So they offered another solution that cost me about $25. I went there with a check to deposit, so the $25 wasn’t a big deal. I was happy to pay the fee to be rid of eBay forever.
Now I have a new seat that I have no use for! You can check it out here. Oh, and if you buy this seat, I’ll throw in a 1 year level 2 membership subscription at no additional charge. That’s a $720 value (not including the seat)!