My eBay Rant: The Sad Saga of My Kefir Stainer

I really enjoy buying and selling on eBay. People ask me all the time if I've ever had problems on there. Yes, we've had our fair share of mishaps like Son #3 bought an Ipod that we never received--I'm sure it was a case of fraud. And I've had a buyer not receive something that I shipped--which I ended up refunding their money since "the customer is always right". But for the most part, things usually go smoothly.

Until this past week and a half...

I needed a strainer for my Kefir. So I found this cheap little strainer that looked like what I was wanting and bought it. That was November 7th. I got a notice that it shipped on the 9th but disregarded it until almost a month later.

December 1st I wrote the seller and asked very politely if they had any info for me since I hadn't received the strainer yet. About that same time I realized that I needed to update my feedback and saw that I had bought other strainers from this seller--but they didn't work too well for my kefir since the mesh was too tight--hence my reason for buying the other strainer. Well, when I left feedback for the small strainers this seller thought that it was for the strainer I hadn't received and e-mailed me saying that they considered the matter resolved since I had left feedback. I told them to check out the item. It was for different strainers. Wow, did I ever open a can of worms cause then they e-mailed me and accused me of lying and that I HAD received my strainer, I was behaving badly and needed to stop it--that I would really wait like a month before contacting them (at this time of year stuff can take a long time to get to it's destination unless you are using Priority Mail--which they didn't)? OK?????

So like any good Christian woman would do (dripping sarcasm here!!), I got mad and I was very firm that I wasn't lying, my 100% feedback was very important to me, that they were acting very unprofessional and then I called them a jerk. Oh yes, I really did. Shame on me. I mean whether or not they were, I shouldn't have said that. Sigh.

Lo and behold if the strainer didn't show up yesterday in the mail. A whole month later. The package was ripped open and the strainer busted at the top. So I wrote the seller and told them that I finally got my strainer but it was in bad condition. I also apologized for calling them a jerk. The seller wrote me back telling me they had reported me to eBay for fraud (?????) and that I need to learn to solve my problems other ways than using XXX language (mind you there was nothing profane except that I used the word "jerk") but they would tell eBay that the matter had been resolved since I had said "sorry". Well, that got my blood to boiling again but, having learned from my past mistakes, I decided that I would sleep on it and pray about the whole mess. I really felt the Lord leading me to e-mail them and acknowledge their mistrust and admit that I understood their actions (the seller had talked about dealing with dishonest customers in the past) and that I needed to apologize for my behavior again and let them know that we should put the matter behind us.

It's hard to eat humble pie. Especially when the other party shows no remorse or responsibility for their own actions. But that is what the Lord wanted.

Seems that this is a lesson I tend to end up repeating every so often--I open my mouth and insert my foot--not as much as I used to. I'm a work in progress.