Bad Ebay Deals!
I have had, as far as I can remember, 3 bad ebay deals, all involving costume stuff.
The first was in probably 2001. I found a nice pair of red Mary Janes that would go good with my Asuka sundress I had recently (also) bought off ebay. This was in the days before I had paypal, so after I won, I sent a money order to the seller. A couple of weeks pass, I don’t think anything about, I’m on ebay again and I find a pair of knee-high red boots for a great price. I think, I’ll buy them for Cath to wear with her Sailormoon, and they can do double duty for me as Wonder Woman boots when I get to it. I bid on them and won, and then emailed the seller for a total. It turned out it was the same seller as the red Mary Janes! (she was selling cosplay stuff) She told me she had not gotten the money order for the Mary Janes yet. I told her I sent it several weeks ago, but I apologized, and went out and got a money order for both the amount of the Mary Janes and for the red boots, and sent it off to her.
I never heard from her again, never got either pair of shoes.
Same year, around June of 2001, I found a very pretty Super Sailormoon costume on ebay, in what looked like my size. I decided I’d buy it (this was in my early days, I didn’t mind buying a costume, now I’d just make it and it would be easier/cheaper, of course). It would be my Halloween costume, I decided – I could make use of the Sailormoon wig I’d gotten for Cath. I paid via money order again (it was a decent price, but a lot for me back then). I was going out of town for a week or so, so I told Cath (who was house-sitting for us) I was expecting a package. Well, it didn’t come while I was gone — I was disappointed when I got back, and didn’t have my new costume to open.
Well another week goes by and it still didn’t show. I emailed the seller, and she said it had gotten sent back to her. I confirmed my address for her again, and she claimed to have sent it again. Well you can see where this is going. It never arrived. I emailed her about it over and over again, and never got a response from her. Even my dad emailed her. No response. No costume, ever.
(Which, looking back, was probably a good thing – I can’t see myself ever doing a Super Sailormoon costume.)
I followed this seller through various incarnations of her website, and last I checked (two years ago or so) she was still fairly active in the cosplay community, and still did commissions. Unfortunately she has changed internet handles and websites so many times, and so much time has passed, I can’t remember her name. I just remember everytime I would see her after that, on cosplay.com or where-ever, I would get so pissed off at her! She took my money man! I have a feeling the costume didn’t go for as much as she wanted it to, so she never sent it to me, and probably resold it ages later.
(Actually, I just dug around and found her online – her website link is dead (at least the one listed on the profile I found) – she appears to have disappeared off c.com and cosplaylab, at least.)
The last one was just early last year, or, Christmas/January 2005. I found a pair of decent looking shoes that looked enough like Team Zissou shoes I decided to get them. Unfortunately the seller was in Germany. I went ahead and bought them anyway, got in contact with the seller who let me know how much shipping would be – it ended up being a lot for a pair of shoes – so since it was so much, I stupidly decided not to spend the extra on insurance. Since I had won the auction right before Christmas, I let the fact they didn’t show up right away slide, due to the holidays and also coming from overseas. One day I realised, it’s been two freaking months since I bought those damn shoes, I guess I’m out. I emailed the seller once, never heard back, so since then, I’ve always gotten insurance, and I avoid over-seas purchases.