Crazy eBayer of the day award goes to...

[valis2]

A customer purchased something out of my eBay store today. The item in question is green, has leaves and flowers on it, and is solid. She paid for it, and then sent me a message:

What a great little frog, I can tell you that he is a little worry stone. You put your thumb in the hole an rub, takes the worries away. :)

I replied:

Frog? I'm a little confused--this is a flower/leaf motif. And there's no hole. :)

She replied:

lol, you must think I'm nuts.
I just came from a indain village the other day an had seen some of the same little critter an stones like this. on the back of it where it is howled out is where you rub your thumb, I do hope there is not a hole in it,(if there is a hole in it it could be wore out or someone was really worried)This is what the indains told us. Any way I'm glad to have it. Thanks.

I wanted to reply further, pointing out that, again, there is no frog, but I was afraid to.

What do you think, ook? Am I going to receive crazy feedback from her when she gets it and realizes that there is no frog involved? lol.

Comments

[cordeliadelayne]

LOL. How very odd *g*

[valis2.livejournal.com]

And yet, so very typical of many of my interactions on eBay. *sighs* :)

[ook.livejournal.com]

Yeah...you've gotten one of the new breed of eBay buyers: the crazies. There's a LOT more them these days.

I suggest you send her a link to a photo of the item: front AND back on the same image, with FRONT BACK marked clearly on the photo. Do NOT email the photo to her because she may be too stupid to open it. Send her a tinypic.com link instead.

Tell her: Please LOOK at this item you bid on. It is NOT a frog.

Tell her that you just did not want her to be disappointed in the item and that you would be happy to cancel the transaction if she wanted to do so. But make it clear that THERE IS NO FROG on the item.

Let us know what happens. :/

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Y'know, you are just so full of good sense.

I am going to contact her again, just in case. *nodnod* Thanks so much!

And woe, I am frightened of further crazies on eBay. :(

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

The new rule of "no negatives or neutrals for buyers" will attract the Crazies, I bet. Personally, it'll keep me from selling anything any more. I used to get rid of all my junk and old clothes, but I dread exactly that. Bidding on a size 2 coat and then complaining it won't fit a 200 pound lady. That kind of thing... "Ye who can read, hath an advantage". Extended to "Ye who hath eyes..."

[ook.livejournal.com]

You might also include the photo in the email (if your program does that). You might get lucky and her email might be set up to open images.

I hate dealing with stupid people. I wish I could ban anyone with feedback of less than 20 to bid on my auctions. >:(

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Dude, I just checked--she's got 100 fb! *boggles* I never would have expected that.

Have emailed her. I really hope this goes smoothly. ugh.

[ook.livejournal.com]

Every time my resolve never to use eBay again starts to weaken, I pay a visit to the Sellers forum. The horror stories there about dishonest, stupid and pain in the ass Buyers refreshes my memory as to why I stopped selling on eBay. The Paypal chargeback stories are really depressing. :(

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Those stories scare me so much. Seriously. Fortunately, my items are so cheap that I'm not usually embroiled in that stuff. *crosses fingers*

[ms-hecubus.livejournal.com]

I completely second this advice. It's exactly waht I was thinking.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I did send her another email telling her that there is no frog. No reply. I'm going to the post office in the next hour or so to mail it out, so I think that unfortunately it's a moot point now. :(

[hardboiledbaby]

Waitaminnit...

There's a hole, but there isn't, but if there is, it's wore out?

I'm howling now...

[valis2.livejournal.com]

hahahah! Isn't this classic? I must admit I scratched my head when I first received it...

[mingbutterfly.livejournal.com]

Is the item in question actually a worry stone? If not this is weird x a million. LOL.

P.S. I was clicking on the funny stuff you wrote about HP and died when I read this:

"Picture of snake on desk in 'Friends Forever' frame."

Coincidentally, was trying to figure out how to decorate my office. Was leaning toward a "Keep calm and carry on" print, but this is worth considering ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

No, it is definitely not a worry stone, and yeah, weird x a million. You called it!! haahah!

And yes, the snake BFF thing ALWAYS makes me crack up!!

*giant hugs*

[todayiamadaisy]

I don't know: I would have said from the start of the second email that she knows it's not a frog and that she was confusing it with some other thing she's seen. But then it goes mad. Perhaps you should draw a frog on the package. :-)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought at first that she figured it out, but then I reread it a couple more times and I wasn't so certain. Hopefully she will not penalize me with bad fb for her bad eyesight!

[privatemaladict.livejournal.com]

Please let us know how this turns out, I'm very curious!

Her spelling leaves a lot to be desired as well, huh?

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I'm wandering off to the post office in about an hour to mail it, and we should know in about three days, lol! And yep, I'll certainly update us all.

[catsintheattic.livejournal.com]

The mind of some people ...

... not to mention the spelling.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

hahaha! Yeah, exactly. *shudders*

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah.... she's clearly up for a surprise there... I hope she doesn't complain after you told her this isn't a frog... Or maybe she mistook one ebay auction for another?

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I thought at first that she had gotten confused, but the second email made me think, nope, she's just crazy. lol!

[loudmeggaphone.livejournal.com]

Depending on what she is smoking at the time, there may actualy be a frog when it shows up.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

bwahahahahah!!!!!!!!!! omg omg, lol. I am dying.

Yes, exactly!

[little-tristan.livejournal.com]

Whatever the actual answer turns out to be, you will be blamed. That was the main lesson I took away from eBay. It's always the seller's falt when the buyer's a moron.

We used to host our own photos and take them down as soon as the auction ended, sometimes putting up another auction right away and using the same photo name. We didn't know at first that doing that would make the new photo appear on the old auction page. Until we sold something and the guy who got it was pissed that he got what he bid on, and not the thing that later came up on the closed auction page. It went beyond email to phone calls, but he could not understand about image hosting and file names--we ended up taking it back for a refund. After that every photo stayed up for 2 months, minumum, and names didn't get reused for at least 6.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Whatever the actual answer turns out to be, you will be blamed. That was the main lesson I took away from eBay. It's always the seller's falt when the buyer's a moron.

Oh, absolutely. I can't tell you the number of refunds I've given because PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND INCHES.

We used to host our own photos and take them down as soon as the auction ended, sometimes putting up another auction right away and using the same photo name. We didn't know at first that doing that would make the new photo appear on the old auction page. Until we sold something and the guy who got it was pissed that he got what he bid on, and not the thing that later came up on the closed auction page. It went beyond email to phone calls, but he could not understand about image hosting and file names--we ended up taking it back for a refund. After that every photo stayed up for 2 months, minumum, and names didn't get reused for at least 6.

Dude, I number my pictures just to avoid that, seriously. If I have "worryfrog.jpg", I change it to "worryfrog2.jpg" and so on just because I'm so scared of stupidity.

That is the craziest story EVER. What a moron. People can't remember what it is that they purchased, honestly. They don't read the descriptions. And then it's a mess. *nodnod*

[little-tristan.livejournal.com]

If I have "worryfrog.jpg", I change it to "worryfrog2.jpg" and so on

I hope your buyer never sees this. She might take it as evidence that there was, in fact, a frog.:)

We got around the inch thing by putting rulers in the pictures of little things, and tape measures in big things. Although even that doesn't weed out all the stupids. (Is that a standard or a metric inch, they will ask.)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Recently I've started adding a scale pic for some listings, with a penny next to one of the items. I hate doing it because I think it looks cheap, but it's often easier to figure out the scale than with a ruler. Er, at least for me, lol.

[little-tristan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of people use coins. I've found it helpful when buying. We sold more in the line of tools and boat parts and such, so it needed accurate measurements. But whenever we sold a metal detector, we'd pick a silver coin out of the box, toss it in the yard, find it, and then include it with the detector as an example of what kinds of things they could find. It was sad how well that worked. Low end ones would get a quarter from the fifties and higher quality ones might get a Liberty half dollar or a Morgan dollar from the 1890s. Once, the buyer was all excited because the quarter was from his birth year, but we'd lost it while the auction was running and had to go to the coin shop and buy another one. *g*