Note: Before reading, it’s important to know that I had a beef with an ebay seller with the broken seal on a small jar of paint when it arrived at my door. I would have easily accepted an “Oh, that’s how it’s supposed to be. Nothing wrong with that.” response as enough to trust their word and assume the paint would be safe to use on my expensive Zippos. However, this lady denied the very existence of any such seal (essentially calling me a liar or a raving lunatic), and went on a bitching-streak about the insignificance of my concerns and “OMG you disputed something and now my reputation with Paypal/ebay is ruined, you’re a terrible person” which I really question the validity of. This is a record and a testament to the kinds of people that really are out there (and how vindictive I can be).
Long and short of this story:
- theplayerscove has a great feedback history
- they shipped me an opened/unsealed pot of paint
- apparently this is standard practice and nothing unusual
- Sabrina Killingsworth is either incompetent with ebay’s auto-responder system, or is cheating it with her “I’m not here but I actually am if you try to get your money back”
- she denied the existence of all problems without evidence or consideration
- I have photographs and logs of the entire exchange
The full exchange and logs are after the cut. Will be lengthy and probably boring for most, but might be fun for those who like to read about examples of extremely stupid people saying excruciatingly stupid things and acting ridiculously childishly.
A little back story on what happened:
- I purchased a pair of awesome satin chrome Zippos got off ebay (jagrfannj you rock).
- I purchased a pot of Reaper Pro paint from ebay, from theplayerscove.
- When the paint arrived, I assumed the best and gave theplayerscove a good feedback.
- A day later, when I went to test the paint out, I opened the pot of paint only to discover that the seal on the inside of the lid had been broken.**** This isn’t really a huge issue, except that I had researched before and found that specifically Reaper Pro paints are great for metal surfaces and they are known for their reliability and quality. My concern with the opened paint was more to protect my investment in the expensive pair of Zippos (time searching and money spent) and not so much to rain justice down for a cheap little pot of paint. I don’t want any additives or tampered paint to have any reaction with my Zippos that might ultimately ruin the finish.
- I went to ebay to try to contact the seller, and received the following email from ebay:
—————————————————————–
eBay sent this message to Carl Wong (xxxx.username.xxxx).
Your registered name is included to show this message originated from eBay.
Learn more at http://pages.ebay.ca/help/confidence/name-userid-emails.html
—————————————————————–
theplayerscove is out of the office
—————————————————————–Hi xxxx.username.xxxx,
theplayerscove is out of the office until 12/31/2010 and may not be able to
respond to your message.Message from theplayerscove:
Hi,Our weekends are often not Saturday and Sunday. Please allow 70 hours time for a response. Check the store’s FAQ ? policies page for some immediate answers on the most asked questions. Thank you.
K. Killingsworth - Not to be dissuaded, I followed the link within ebay to go and dispute this/”resolve a problem”, which led me to Paypal where I could start a dispute about the case. I know from experience (with my credit card provider) that if you do not act immediately/within a short duration of time, the chances of you getting your money shrink exponentially, so I acted immediately. I certainly didn’t have 3+ months to wait around for a response.
- I then got a message from this lady which apparently Paypal did not save, but it said something like “Why didn’t you ask me about this problem first before claiming a dispute? (NOTE: I did, and ebay told me no one would be home until year-end) Is this how they do it in Canada because here in America, we TALK TO EACH OTHER first.” It also included some sarcastic comments about how cute it was that I thought Paypal might disappear tomorrow. Possible, but unlikely obviously, but that timeframe for disputing charges could very well disappear tomorrow. So, score one for sound reasoning, zero for wannabe wise-cracking sarcasm.
- Upon reading this, I first thought to myself “Um, this person seems to be confused because clearly they are not out of the office if they can immediately respond to a dispute. Also, I’m probably dealing with a teenage American with a bad temper and even worse people skills.” Turns out this is an adult woman with a husband and everything.
- Anyway, I responded to this ridiculous and hostile snap at me by pasting in that same email that I had received from ebay (see above) into the dispute resolution messages on Paypal. The following was the rest of the exchange that Paypal did log (completely unedited and I only bolded the date-stamps, and just to clarify, I am the buyer and this Sabrina Killingsworth person is the seller):
- 8/24/2010 16:29 GMT-04:00 - Seller: Funny..did YOU YOURSELF just paste in my automated message that states :”Please allow 70 hours time for a response.” while you had to file a dispute right away anyway, even though there was NO HURRY for it whatsoever?I am not suppose to be hostile when someone files fraud charges and harms my standing with Ebay in a totally uncalled for dispute over a $2.50 buckst of paint I am being accused of being “unpure” because some seal was broken??
- 8/24/2010 19:03 GMT-04:00 - Buyer: I just pasted that message from whatever I got from ebay. You can read that little automatic ” I’ll take 70 hours to respond” all you want, but the email does say that you were supposed to be gone until December 31, 2010. If that’s not true, then maybe change your settings in ebay instead of making a fuss to someone who received an opened bucket of paint from you. Maybe you should get pissed at reaper or whoever you got this paint from instead of me because so far, all I’ve done is paid for something new, and received something opened. Sure you can feel like it’s dumb to question a $2.50 bucket of paint, but you’re not the one that needs to use it on an model worth a lot more than $2.50. Of course, you’ve already gotten my ebay seller feedback as good so why would you even care about how to make this right? Really, there’s not much I can do except file a dispute case because plenty of people all over ebay/Amazon won’t even reply to complaints until it’s too late for the consumer to claim the money back, and then they’ve already winked off with the money. It’s not my job to figure out what kind of character you’ve got or worry about how your standing with ebay looks. If you cared so much about your integrity or how ebay views these disputes, maybe you should’ve made sure the paint was sealed before it left your doors. You made me pay for the item and the shipping, so I think it’s fair for me to assume the item would leave your place as described, and that whatever shipping method you picked would be safe from any tampering on the way. Don’t throw a fit at me when I’m the one getting ripped off.
- 8/25/2010 22:49 GMT-04:00 - Seller: Maybe I would have cared if you had ASKED me instead of filing a dispute?Anyways, the paint IS NEW and UNUSED, “sealed” or not. Freaking paint pots don’t even HAVE a seal. Guess what, I just opened another THREE I got here to see what the heck you are even talking about and found no seal on either! NOR will anyone who receives these tell me they are “unsealed”. What the heck is your problem?
- 8/25/2010 22:51 GMT-04:00 - Seller: Paint was new as stated. 100′s of paint pots sold in the past few months. There is no SEAL on these pots. Paint comes straight from distributor who receives them directly from Reaper!
- 8/25/2010 22:51 GMT-04:00 - PayPal: Seller escalated this dispute to a Claim.
After all this back and forth, with me trying my best to be civil, it ended up being pushed to a claim. Yes I was pretty inflammatory at times but really, who can resist a perfect opportunity to turn someone as stubbornly ignorant and in denial completely on their head? I checked with Canada Post, and it’d cost me about $5.40 to send the item back to this Sabrina Killingsworth person for me to get my $5.79 back, meaning I’d be back at square one but down $5.40. This didn’t make much mathematical sense, so I decided I’d cancel the dispute, but not before I fired off a pretty pointed email assuring this woman in denial that I was in no way conceding the point, but just being smart about my cash. I also included this little number:
Here are some highlights from my email if you’re interested (I kept more or less all of it, except some restatements of facts):
Just so you know what I’m talking about and don’t get away with denying everything like a weasel, here’s
a photograph of the seal you are telling me “OMG DOES NOT EXIST”. And only know that I am cancelling the claim because postage to send you your little pot of paint would cost about the same as me just buying another pot, from a seller who actually knows what they are doing, and what they are selling. Please do not mistake my cancellation as any sort of concession on my part.[...]
I mean, who wants to have the whole “I try to contact you, and ebay tells me you’re out of office, and then you magically get to respond immediately when there’s a problem, even though you’re supposed to be out of the office, and then you have to violently deny any wrong doing on your part and then I have to take a photo to prove to you either you’re bullshitting me or someone is bullshitting both of us and then finally the claim goes away simply because it’d cost too much to fix and not because you were completely in the wrong and shipped something that was not as described and you seem to have absolutely no clue about what you sell or how to talk to people”.
[...]
I will understand your manner of speaking and dealing with people if you are either 1) younger than 12 years old, or 2) an American. Apparently, you are for sure the latter (how’s the weather in Texas?), and probably the former as well. In that case, my condolences on your unfortunate lot in life. I’m almost sure being your kind of red-blooded American should excuse you from needing any sort of critical thinking, or reasonable conflict management skills. If you don’t understand something, surely you should just whine about it, ridicule all other parties, and when all else fails, ask “What the heck is your problem?” without ever once considering that maybe you’re in the wrong.
I hope the claim at Paypal really does have a negative impact on your ebay business and standing because, even if the paint wasn’t tampered with and the pots are supposed to have opened seals, your childish antics and obvious lack of people skills ought to rule you out from doing any sort of business (or reproducing) with anyone, ever. Obviously the world isn’t perfect and that’s why people like you are still selling things.
Enjoy being proven completely wrong and clueless by the attached photo as proof of my case. I’ve even labeled the parts for you, in case you have trouble understanding exactly what’s going on.
[next I had attached a copy of the photo above, showing the pot of paint and where the seal used to be]
Now, please try and tell me whether pots of paint have seals.
PS: Our entire exchange on Paypal and ebay may or may not appear on an online publication in the near future as an example of what not to do (and who not to buy from) so here’s a heads up.
Have not heard back from them, obviously, but since then the ebay user theplayerscove has changed their auto-response email to 1) read in German and 2) include a line saying “Hi, I am NOT gone until December. That is an error if you receive that message.” I have received no apology or “Oh yeah, I guess my email responder was wrong.” from this person, and would not expect any such thing ever. Another person to throw into the “stuck-up bitch who can’t admit fault” bin.
I say a pox on her and her kin for seven generations. May her loins never bear fruit, and if they already have, may her children resemble her in character as much as the night resembles the day. Let destruction and pestilence, gnashing of teeth and steadfast weeping be all that anyone will remember of her life and legacy. And in all things, may prosperity and happiness elude her house like the wind at one’s fingertips.
Aside: Maybe I need a book for these.