I won a pretty nice item on an auction with no minimum bid. The person who put it there screwed up pretty bad, so even if someone was looking for it, they would have a hard time finding it. To illustrate, let’s assume the item in question is worth $500 – I got it for $100.
So, I won the auction, I receive all the confirmation e-mails and make a payment via the auction website’s internal service right away. Shock and awe (it was pretty late at night), I get a phone call. On the other side of the phone, a female voice… no, scratch that, a shrieking yell of a human being that presumably has ovaries hit my ears. I’m not going to bring up the entire conversation here, because most of it was pointless rambling and yelling anyway. Here’s a summary:
• They didn’t know that they put the item up the wrong way (wrong name and category, but the description was accurate)
• They wanted the auction to have a minimum bid (that, in the previous example, would have been at around $450!)
• I am stupid for thinking that I would actually get it that cheap
• They don’t even have the item
• They’re not giving me s**t
As you might have guessed, I was pretty p****d off. But well, such things happen – it was time to report it to the auction website administration and make them sort it out. Winning an item is considered a legally binding contract, and I wanted that item. I don’t intend to let this go this early. So, I did just that. A few hours later, I get another call from the “seller”:
• They got the warning from the website that they are supposed to send me the item
• They have no intention of doing so
• They think I cheated them out of their money
• If I pay them extra “$300” they will send it (they have it now, I guess?)
• I should do this and not take them to court or anything because…
THEY HAVE KIDS AND I WILL DESTROY THEIR CHILDHOOD.
Yes, they have little snotshitters running around. Poor kiddos that won’t have their vacation trip because their parents screwed up. Sorry, folks, man up and face your mistakes.
If they told me that they made an honest mistake. Been a little more civil about it, anything. I would be willing to agree to just let it go, get my money back and forget about this. If they yelled at me and lied to me, I would give them an honest scare. But the moment you try to make me pay you extra and cover up your incompetence with “I HAZ KIDZ”, I’m never letting this go. I’ll have the auction website send the a second notice. Then, I’ll take this to court if I have to.
Really?… Really, like, really? Parent privilege extreme.
I got another phone call from the seller’s number maybe an hour after my initial post here. This time, it was a man – the husband of that wonderful shrieking harpy I talked to before. He apologized for his wife and her behavior. He also explained to me that it was her who put the item up for sale this way and she just doesn’t want to admit to any mistake (I pretty much figured that from the start though). Then, of course, he dropped “the bomb”:…
Selling this item had nothing to do with their kids. They indeed have two, but making it sound like the money from selling that item was to help them somehow was all a lie to soften me up. They are all very well off financially, they just wanted to sell that item because they don’t need it.
I could honestly tell that this poor guy was sorry. I felt bad for him – I know plenty of stories about psycho mothers and fathers that have to apologize for them (and vice versa). He offered me the item, but asked me for patience, because his wife hid it at her parents’ place (!!!) so he doesn’t just send it to me. I don’t want the drama though, it’s not a thing I need desperately or anything. I asked for my money back, and for him to try and be a greater influence on his kids than his wife could ever be. He had no problems with the first request. The second was met with a long silence, and then a deep sigh. Poor bastard.
I have already confirmed to the auction website’s authorities that I will step down and accept a refund. Thankfully they work very fast on cases like this (getting an answer from a huge company like that in a matter of 30 minutes is really impressive) and the refund procedure is underway. I should have my money back by tomorrow. The end.
The moral: was it really that hard? Did that psycho mother need to yell, scream and b******t me, trying to make me literally ignore that I spent my hard-earned cash on something and I am not getting it? In the end it’s a more of “people/parents are dumb” story than a “children are horrible” one, but I guess these are welcome here, too. Thanks for joining me on this crazy ride though human idiocy, guys (and girls)!
PS: before someone points out that things seem to be moving a little too fast here, the initial purchase has been made halfway through last week. The first phone call happened on the same day, then I was busy for a day so I contacted the auction website two days after that. That’s when the second phone call happened, and I sent my second mail to the website right after posting here. Thankfully, to keep up appearances and a good reputation, all issues like that are resolved very quickly by them.
