A good ending to an Ebay Story

[Guest Anonymous]

A few months back (late November) an ALPINA M10 Oil Cooler flange showed up on Ebay (Germany) and ended up winning the auction, I felt the price was reasonable given the rarity of the item. Okay so long story short I sent money (paypal) in early December and pretty much forgot about it with the Holidays and what not. Remembered a few weeks ago that I had bought the thing but hadn's shown up. Contacted the seller, he offered to refund my money, next day it shows up. Good karma I think. I was greatful to get the item and he apprciated the fact that I didn' hose him on the deal (as in keep the item and get my money refunded). Of course anyone that knows me knows I don't operate that way, unfortanuately many do - so ends a good ebay story. Posted some of the same here (with pics of course).

http://www.alpinabmw2002.com/2011/01/alpina-m10-oil-cooler-flange-olkuhler.html

[tinkwithanr]

Not quite the same thing (not on ebay) but still a tale of randon internet kindness. I used to have a Nikon 80-200 AFS F2.8 lens only when I bought it it didn't have the mounting collar used for putting it on a tripod/monopod. And since it was no longer made, the collars were very hard to come by, selling on ebay for ~$60-$100. Wanting a way to mount it but not wanting to spring for an expensive used one i fab'd my own out of some scrap steel and teflon material (for smooth rotating). I then posted my home-made collar on a nikon forum so other people that were missing it could get ideas for making there own.

After a day or two a gentleman from the Netherlands contacted me out of the blue. Turns out he had a spare collar from an old lens and offered to send it to me for free. I gladly accepted, sent him my address and offered to pay the shipping (I assumed shipping it across the atlantic wouldn't be to cheap). But I never heard anything back from him. a couple of months passed and I completely forgot about it. Then one day a package showed up, and low and behold it was the collar in perfect condition.

I still don't know what it cost to get it to me.

Here's a pic of the old collar:

[

And here's the one he sent to me:

[inkatouring]

so, when, exactly, do you sell it to me?

[Guest Anonymous]

Nice!

I am a firm believer in what goes around comes around (sometimes takes a while but usually does). Besides, the guy probably follows my blog then I would have either been relegated to not posting pics or posting them like a stupid head and then get busted! Aside from ending up with what I purchased really happy that it didn't end up some random person who might have tossed it or "recycled" it. You never know.

Inkatouring....hahahaha! Sometime we will have to let the others in on our inside joke! I am sure you will end up with it someday, be patient my man! (you need to let me spend the time and $$$ to restore it to pristing like new condition, get new lines made up and an appropriate cooler before you steal it away!).

www.alpinabmw2002.com

[fiftytakedowns]

so, when, exactly, do you sell it to me?

nonononono youve mistaken, it was me

[Guest Anonymous]

okydoky

Sorry for all the typo's ( I really can spell ), haven't been able to log in for some reason even after changing my password?

www.alpinabmw2002.com

[RayC911]

Mark,

In my haste, I made an offer for a NLA NOS BMW mudflap last November. Probably paid way more than it's worth but I didn't care and I had a few extra bucks in my PP account. It was a 4 week delivery time from Germany so I completely forgot about it until a few week ago. Tried to contact the seller with no luck so I filed a dispute before it expired. I get my refund but the seller finally emails me yesterday with the tracking info. He's been on vacation but the flaps have been at my post office for 3 weeks. I picked them up and promptly send his money back.

In all my years of ebaying (over 10 years) and doing transactions via forums, I've never been screwed (knock on wood) and find that 99.99% of people are really just good honest people. If anything, the dispute usually comes from one person's point of view in what is "like new" or "great condition". So yea, good karma for you.

[Guest Anonymous]

After I read your post I just remembered the one time I really got F'd from an Ebay transaction - long time ago. I bought a McCulloch MC-91 go kart engine for my kids vintage go kart, got the thing all mounted up (bla,bla,bla), big day comes to fire it up - no go, turns over but won't fire. I send it off to this McCulloch cart engine guru, the entire thing was JUNK - everything, the only thing worth saving was the freaking front cover. The seller had taken things apart, cleaned them up - half assed it back togehter, but went to the trouble of polishing part of the side of the piston (to reduce the score marks) where you could see into the cylinder $400 down the drain. Filed a complaint but back then they didn't have the protection stuff they have today and at the end of the day the dude didn't care (my boys were bummed though).

www.alpinabmw2002.com