My Damned eBay Thing Again!!

What’s the deal now, eh? Alright, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve put anything on eBay again. Most days, as soon as I sit down at the computer to start getting things ready, my wife starts in with the “you’re not going to be on there all day?” routine. Very annoying, so I just stopped with the eBay stuff all over again.

And again.

But lo and behold, my unemployed wife suddenly notices that we have more money going out than coming in (really?) and that we’re sliding on the slippery way more than she thought. Yup. But I’m abandoning my family if I try and do anything about it. Geez!!

But, finally, I explain why I “haven’t been doing my share” (of all the workload) and she succumbs and lets me get to work on the eBay stuff again.

I use a program created by eBay called ‘Turbo Lister’ which greatly speeds up the process by recognizing your previous entries and mass listing once you’re ready to do so. I once had 50+ auctions end within a minute of each other and bidders were trying to get multiple items and bid higher than normal to try and get them all. Sweet.

Friday night, after baths for the kids, I plopped myself in front of the computer and started my ‘originally-intended-for-Thanksgiving’ “scan-a-thon” and eBay entries. All night Friday and into early Saturday morning I scanned. Later on Saturday and late into Sunday morning I wrote up HTML and uploaded jpeg files to my website. Sunday afternoon, I entered the HTML into separate entries in Turbo Lister. Essentially, each item takes (from scanning, research, HTML, FTP transfer, and Turbo Lister listings) about 10 minutes. Early Sunday evening, I’m set. I have close to 100 items ready to go immediately.

All files uploaded in Turbo Lister.

All information is correct.

All systems go!

GO!!

Failed.

What?

User not known.

WHAT?!?

Into my eBay email account I go to find a message dated a week earlier stating that my account has been suspended –get this-- because auction# so-and-so has an outstanding dispute on it and until it’s cleared, there’s nothing I can do on eBay. If it’s a dispute that has been resolved, I can get in touch with the complainant and have them email eBay to settle the problem.

But I only have a number to go on.

So, a couple hours of searching brings up the item number. It wasn’t even listed on eBay anymore (guh!) as it’s incredibly old. Even worse was that it was with my old account with the now-defunct email address.

Oh, and the user is no longer registered with eBay…

The worst bit of all, though, was that it was the same user I had the big fight with last Christmas when the post office took 4 weeks longer than expected to deliver the item. It was going to New York, not some Podunk town where it may be more inconvenient to get to. No, no. They just took their bloody time and got both the user & I severely pissed at (each other, them, and me with eBay).

Lo and behold it’s come back to bite me in the ass almost a year later.

So the defunct eBay account is suspended. My current eBay account is suspended and I decide it’s time to open up eBay account #3. But wait! There’s more! Both accounts have been suspended because my credit card on file is the same for each!

I go to use my wife’s credit card and set up another new account, this time using a new Gmail email address. Unfortunately, THAT credit card was also on file and I’m screwed again. They won’t open the new account for me.

And then I begin to think: Did I just commit fraud?

Well, since I’m on a roll, I decide to use that last, best bastion of hope. I called my Mom.

Mom permits me to open an eBay account in her name, with her credit card, and her home address. But by the time I get this all sorted out, it’s getting to be very late at night. I missed my window of opportunity.

Going to go bald soon if I keep tearing my hair out….