Etiquette

Behold! Several sheets of Foundry Roman shield transfers which have recently gone astray on the Ebay trail from UK to Belgium. I got a good price (some may say too good but I wont entertain such thoughts) for them and duly entrusted their safe passage to the Royal Mail. It simply did not make economic sense to send them as trackable and so rather like leaving a boat passenger without a safety vest, I left them to it.

The dread words 'buyer has opened a case' appeared shortly thereafter. I guarantee that everybody's heart sinks at this point. There is nothing you can do except wait and I'm willing to bet that a minority of packages are actually reported as turning up. So I steeled myself to make the forlorn journey to Paypal to reimburse the buyer. The Belgian postal system could offer no comfort and when I was informed that 'no, it still hasn't arrived', I duly pressed the right buttons and returned the complete sum. P+P as well. It's the right thing to do isnt it?

I have no truck with eBay or Paypal. I do not subscribe to 'evilBay' school of thought. I am a grown man and know what I am doing. If I assumed that eBay truly had my best interests at heart then I would be a fool. They provide a service and this comes with an associated cost. The burden of risk is a little one sided but it's hard to find an alternative. Higher commission fees? No thanks.

What really rankles is that the buyer did not even say thanks. Not even an acknowledgement. If I wasn't thinking dark thoughts before this I am now.

Now here's the thing. Almost exactly in parallel I had taken out my own case against a seller who hadn't delivered. They were brilliant and resolved the issue immediately. But were they equally suspicious of me? I hope not but I understand if they were.