Note To Self: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True.....

I'm far too trusting. Must work on that. Especially when it comes to ebay.

I've just waved goodbye to £35 paid to a certain little scumbag name of "triumphvitty" on ebay. Bought two Harry Potter audio book CD sets from him. He had 100% feedback of 50 odd, so - even though his feedback is "private" and I couldn't read the comments - I figured that would be fine. Paid by cheque immediately. Next thing I know, he's no longer registered on ebay. So I wrote to him asking what was going on stating that if we didn't receive a reply straight away I'd be stopping the cheque. Received an immediate reply assuring me that all was fine and that he'd be sending out goods to everyone who had bought so far once the cheque had cleared. Okkaaay. So the cheque cleared ten days ago. Surprise - no CDs. And since his feedback is private, I can't contact anyone else who's bought from him to see if they'd had more luck. And since one of my transactions was £15 and the other £12 (plus his exorbitant postage rates, natch) I can't even claim via ebay's rather pathetic protection scheme. His CD sets were selling like mad. Guess I'm not the only who's now furious.

Still. Couldn't resist a bargain, could I. And with those CD sets retailing at upwards of £50 each, what a bargain it was too. Not. One of these days I'll learn.

Problem is, I think, that we're too damn honest to be in business. We fall over ourselves backwards for our customers, even the rude ones. We ALWAYS send replacements for the trillions of items royal mail manage to lose, with no quibbles. We don't refuse to replace unless they opted for recorded delivery and all that malarky. I'm sure we must have been scammed dozens of times by people lying about not receiving items, but in my view that's the risk you take if you want to run an honest business. You absorb the knocks. If we send someone the wrong thing by mistake we let them keep it and then send the right thing rather than make them jump through hoops of returning it. If something arrives damaged we normally just tell them to dispose of it whilst refunding their money without insisting they send it back. We charge postage at cost, always. None of this ridiculous £5 for a CD in a jewel case. Nope. We believe in good faith. Treat our customers as we'd hope to be treated ourselves, for instance. What a pity nobody *WE* ever buy from seems to share that vision.

Oh well. In other news: Emily hasn't done any work today as we've all been in and out like mad. This morning she and Jon went off to tai chi whilst I struggled to get newly arrived stock out to people who'd been waiting a while and spent ages matching up each customer to which freebie music cassette I thought they'd like (yep, too soft to be in business). Then I had to dash out with Grandad to his eye clinic - not good news, cataract operations imminent. Meanwhile Jon took Emily off to ballet, which they're still not back from. Spoke to Emily's drama teacher yesterday who said all kinds of lovely things about her :-)) We've arranged that she'll go back to drama in the older class in December once these flippin dance exams are over.

Meanwhile, Emily's cold seems almost gone.....except for the violent coughing fits at night. Here we go again. Bronchitis mark 2, probably. We've bought Jon a contraption for his plantar fascilitiis which looks remarkably like a roller skate without wheel; he has to wear it all night. Too early to say whether it's having any effect. Oh, and I've been told off by Emily for not mentioning that she got a hug from the mascot Scunny Bunny at the last football match and that he gave her a load of SFC balloons. So now you know. And there are more spiders. Everywhere. I shall so NOT be going outside to do weather readings this evening.