a spade by any other name

I will write the Dragnet version (short.sweet.to the point) of this auction until the need to embellish ...

Bid and won Kate Spade handbag.

Received.

Too small for belongings.

Posted on Ebay to re-sell.

Bumped off EBay by legal team for Kate Spade stating it was a fake. Notified original seller.

Seller requests return and will refund my original payment.

Now this is where the story gets good.

I sent the bag back to the seller in a town near Sacramento, California with delivery confirmation (a note to ebayers--ALWAYS use delivery confirmation) and after she emailed me to let me know she received it she told me that she would refund via Paypal (takes about 60 seconds at the most). For the next 3-5 days I waited for the refund...nothing. I contacted the seller. She writes back and says that her husband has had an accident and was now in the hospital! Oh my gosh! I felt terrible...thinking she was a thief..and here...her husband...in the hospital! The seller also let me know that as soon as she had a free moment she would refund.

I let it go for another week and contacted her once more wishing her husband well in my email (after all, I may want my money back but I am a gracious and caring ebayer...) and again, asking for that dangling refund. I receive another email from her.

Hold on to your seats.

She states that her husband has NOW DIED and she is making preparations for his funeral and the out of town family that will be arriving for the service. Now, color me crazy, but I started thinking something was amiss...a little funny...something was not right in ebay-refund town. So, I did what any curious/suspicious woman would do.
I checked the obituaries.

I checked them in Sacramento, I checked them for all the towns/cities/communities surrounding Sacramento and even into San Francisco. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was then I remembered an earlier email where it stated this seller's place of employment/address and phone number....yep, I did it. I called up her work and asked if "such and such" worked there and would she be available to accept flowers in regards to her husband's funeral. "I'm sorry, you must be mistaken? Such and such has not had any death in her family".

AHA! GOTCHA! I know...seems a bit obsessive for me to go through all this....but along with taking my money she also had me on an emotional roller coaster with her stories. This is the 1% that makes ebay a bummer and I'm glad I don't run into them all too often.

In conclusion, I confronted her and let her know that there were "facts in her story that were not as they appear..." and received a refund the very next day.