Epic fail

Today we've had a bit of a tidy up/sort out, and I decided it was time to buy a book case.

I said to wife, we'll do another half an hour of sorting, then we'll go to the BHF furniture shop in middlesbrough to see what they've got. Time sort of sneaked away a bit and buy the time we set off, it was 4PM. I figured by the time we get to boro, get parked up and walk to the shop, it will be 4:30pm, not much time to have a look. So, I said, let's just go to Ikea.

So, thinking I'm a know it all, I drove all the way in horrible weather to Team Valley retail park just outside Gateshead, where I know Ikea is. We got all the way there, and no Ikea. So I went on the t'internet on my phone. I was right, sort of. Ikea is in the retail park just outside of Gateshead. Just not the retail park I had driven to.

So, we decided to bin off that idea, and just have a look round the shops that were there. The lad got some new over priced stuff from the craft shop, and we bought a new dinner set for a fiver from Asda because wife broke the last spare plate just the other day.

So, in short, after driving for a total of about 2 hours, about £30 on fuel, we came home with goods that cost less than fuel we'd used to get there, and no book case.

 

Oh dear Clueless 1,
Go to your nearest auction room, they can not get rid of quality book cases, and I mean quality
old and modern

Jack McH

 

Excellent idea Jack. I wish I'd thought of that. There's one at Saltburn. I've even been in it a few times just for a look, yet I simply never thought of it this time for some reason. I might pop along tomorrow and see when its next on.

 

Get onto Ebay, search, and sort by 'nearest first'.

 

I'd do that, if not for the fact that I no longer use eBay since PayPal decided to take £200 out of my account for absolutely no reason, with no explanation.

 

Ah. Not the easiest people to deal with when something goes wrong, in my experience.

 

I had some problems with paypal when I first started using it, I had to get onto my bank, the young man on the phone advised me after I had explained, open another account, which he could and did for me, exclusively for paypal/ebay transactions, so when I buy something I transfer the money from my "proper" account, before I pay, into there and there is never more than a few pounds if there was a problem.

 

Did you get it back?

 

Yes. It didn't actually leave home, so much as went on its holidays for a week. The thing that annoyed me though apart from the total lack of communication from PayPal, was that they never bothered to ask if I'd lost out financially through things like interest or bank charges or if their blunder had meant I couldn't pay my bills or buy food etc. I.e. it was a case of me report it online, an automated response to say it will be investigated, and another automated response to say they're giving it back and case closed.

 

There are so many advantages to being able to use PP to buy stuff on eBay that I'd be inclined to give yourself a little while to get over the trauma and then recommence normal activities.

It's worth bearing in mind that if you buy furniture on eBay and go to pick it up you will probably pay in cash anyway, thus bypassing PP.

 

There's more and more of these faceless entities, bit like trying to email Virgin Media, you can't.

 

A few years back, I had to start legal proceedings against one online retailer a few years back after a car stereo they sold me malfunctioned and nearly set my car on fire while driving at speed one day. I was shocked to find that there was no way to contact them by phone, email or post. I found them with some effort, and in the end we agreed on a settlement that basically involved them sending a courier to collect the faulty item and giving me just what I'd paid for the stereo back. Absolutely no consideration for the fact that it had cost me money to fit the stereo in the first place, and at no point did I actually get to speak to a person on the phone, which is my preferred way of resolving conflict (speaking either in person or on the phone).

From that day forth, I vowed that I would never hand money over to anybody unless they published proper contact details somewhere easy to find. I don't mind that they don't make it obvious. It costs them money to have to deal with routine things that could be done online, but they have to give people the option to deal with non-routine matters.

I no longer apply that rule rigorously. I deal with Amazon for example, and I don't think they've published contact details, but on the few occassions when I've needed to contact them via their online feature, they've always responded quickly. PayPal on the other hand have demonstrated why my original rule is valid, so for them, the rule applies.

Normal activities for me is to rarely buy from eBay anyway. I've found that almost all over the stuff I've bought via eBay has been a bit rubbish and not what I was expecting. I usually find what I need on Amazon anyway if it can't be found in regular shops, either online or otherwise.

 

Real life is getting to be a bit like a Monty Python sketch,