Go Fuck Yourself, eBay!

Living in the UK whilst getting your monthly salary in Euro is a pain in the ass. You try and do your Christmas shopping on Amazon when all your money is in the wrong fucking currency. Of course this wouldn't be such a big problem if Amazon accepted PayPal, but of course they don't, because PayPal is affiliated with eBay. Of course I could order all my shit from online stores which accept PayPal such as game.co.uk, but those bastards charge 180 Quid for a product I could get for 140 on Amazon while I'm writing this.

Amazon

Game - the extra 40 Quid are for the English text on the cardboard box.

So yeah... turns out eBay still exists. Did you know? I mean, have you honestly used eBay within the last decade or so? That website people use to sell you all their broken shit, empty cardboard boxes or nothing at all even though you pay them? And it turns out the place hasn't changed one bit. Have a look at Smash Bros. over at Amazon:

It was 25 Quid a week ago. Thanks, Christmas!

Meanwhile on eBay:

Should I buy the overpriced one or the one that was clearly stolen?

Great. On eBay I can either pay AAA PC Game money on a fucking handheld game or I can save half a Quid, but get my game second hand, with no box, manual or fucking anything it originally came with. Who throws out the fucking protective cases these games come with?

And yes, I did see the seller offering a brand new Smash Bros. for 25 Quid, but they're located in Australia, selling the Austalian version of the game, which takes up to 3 weeks for delivery. The fine print mentions additional fees when the game goes through customs.

And you had better be fucking patient if you want to buy a *New* 3DS XL on eBay. As in, the 2015 version, not the one from 2013. Let's see what happens if we search for New 3DS XL, shall we?

The first page of results is much bigger than this - I have highlighted the only two matches.

Of course this is as much Nintendo's fault as it is eBay's - out of well over a dozen results on the first page, only two actually show the new 3DS XL, the rest is different stuff I didn't want to buy. You have to blame Nintendo for giving their product such a retarded name, but it doesn't change the fact that it makes shopping for one on eBay a massive pain in the dick. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, possibly because you're shopping for a friend, relative, child or whatever, you may well end up buying the outdated 2013 model - possibly at the exact same price of the newer, better 2015 version. Gee, thanks so much, eBay!

So I set up an eBay account, linked my PayPal with it, got ripped off (the current exchange rate is 72 Pence per Euro, PayPal gives you 69), bought articles from 4 different sellers, all of which stated, "Item will be dispatched today if you order within the next XX minutes." They all took my money straight away, they all gave me a positive rating (mkay), none of them, not one, have sent out the item today.

Instead, I get a message from one of the sellers:

Okay, I had to give all that information to eBay and even more than that to PayPal and have it all verified, but whatever. I gave him my name and phone number and told him I cannot re-send him my email address, because eBay disallows that in private messages. Try it for yourself - you'll get an error message, telling you to remove the email address. Here's the guy's response:

Because apparently my landline isn't good enough and it's somehow my problem that he doesn't trust new eBay accounts without user ratings. Any real shop  that accepts PayPal would have sent me my stuff by now. Meanwhile, this guy wants my blood type, a stool sample and all my favourite sexual positions. So I replied like a dickbag:

So the guy finally called me on my landline and confirmed the purchase. After he accepted my fucking payment. The item is still not marked as 'sent', but he has given me a super positive review, because he's probably afraid I might send him a negative one for being annoying.

I hope this concludes today's entry and I'll just receive all my stuff sometime this week and that'll be the end of that. Next time I'm gonna get my money out of an ATM, pay it into my bank account and shop through Amazon, because eBay is outdated, frustrating, tedious horsefuck.

-Cat

UPDATE, 24 hours later

I have paid for each and every item yesterday (07 Dec). Today, only one out of four items has been dispatched. The remaining three items, all of which are supposed to arrive between tomorrow and Thursday, are still with the seller. Ironically, the one item which has actually been put in the mail is not due until Thursday or Friday.

UPDATE, 48 hours after payment

The games have now been dispatched. So tomorrow we should be sitting on two chargers, two copies of Smash and no 3DS. Nice.

UPDATE - Day Four

3DS was paid for and the order was confirmed on Monday. The mail man delivered this in the morning:

Couple hours later he showed up with this:

Well then! Time to charge my brand new 3DS and try out this sweet, sweet game!

UPDATE - Day Six:
Still no 3DS. The seller told me they should get here next Tuesday. Really? He said he put them in the mail on Wednesday morning and, like me, he's located in the UK. Okay then. Let's wait for Tuesday. I coulda just taken all my money out of an ATM, put it in the bank, ordered through Amazon, saved some money and a lot of time by now.