You know you are old when you see this on a survey site.
I tried to buy a sink on eBay the other day. We have a tiny sink in the camper in the corner of the "wet bath." It is made of plastic, and is about 8" by 12" in size and cracked.
I had replaced the faucet but still it looked like crap. We had a similar sink in the Casita that cracked and I recall finding an oblong corner sink in stainless at the time (online) but never got around to ordering it. So I searched online for "RV corner sink stainless" and got dozens of listings for this sink below. I went on eBay and there were literally hundreds of identical listings for the same sink.
Problem is, it is a symmetrical corner sink, and I need an oblong one. What was weird to me was that eBay was flooded with listings for this sink, and it was all I could find on Google. Google thinks that once you click on one thing, that is all you ever want. So you click on one "MAGA" site and that's all you hear forever and ever, amen! Ditto for the Democrats - I am still getting texts and e-mails, several a day, pleading for money from a candidate running for dogcatcher in South Dakota - who has zero chance of winning, by the way.
But I digress.
I kept searching and searching, setting eBay to load 100 listings at a time and scrolling through hundreds of listings of this stainless steel sink before I found anything different. I saw this nice sink on eBay made of ceramic and bought it. It came in two sizes, one 8x14 and another 10x18. The listing showed them in left-hand and right-hand options, so I selected the smaller size, right-hand option.
Once again, I find hundreds of listings for this same sink, mostly in the larger size. Why are there so many listings for the same item? Are they trying to SPAM the system so you buy their product - by drowning out other listings? I see this a lot on eBay - a listing for an item with the notation "only two left!" but dozens of listings elsewhere with the same item, similarly notated.
The seller had contacted me when I ordered, with a long-winded e-mail addressed to "Dearest" so you know it was from China (well, that and all the stray Chinese characters in the listing). All the listings for all these sinks are poorly worded and full of stray characters. The language is often vague ("This is best sink!") and short on details ("See photos!").
So I contacted the seller and asked about the faucet and told them it was reversed. They replied they didn't sell faucets and the "faucet drain" language was an error. They also admitted that the smaller size sink was not available in the right-hand configuration and that was also an error in the listing. They offered me a $14 refund if I would keep the sink.
But of course, I don't need a left-hand sink, I need a right one. So I told them that, and over the period of a few days (their messages always coming at 11:00 PM EST) the offers of refunds increased to $20, then $28, and so on until they reached $50. They begged me not to return the item as it would cost them "eBay points" or something. I filed a return request and told them I would rather return the item for a full refund and they could re-sell it. They refunded my money and told me to keep the sink!
I found another sink, right-hand orientation, open box, from a surplus seller, minus all the mounting hardware. I found the faucet online for $25. So I ordered both. I left positive feedback for the original seller on eBay as I thought they were very decent to me, even though their listing was poorly done and they sent me the wrong sink.
But here's where it gets weird.
I e-mailed the original seller and told them I was not comfortable keeping the sink and asked if they wanted it back and that I would pay for the postage. They refused but asked me for my e-mail address (we had been communicating through eBay), which I ignored. They asked again and again and said they wanted to send me a "free gift" for being such a nice person. The free gift was a MIG welder worth over $100! I got very suspicious about this!
Why does he need my e-mail address to mail me a MIG welder anyway? Why, after giving a full refund of $58 does he want to throw over $100 worth of merchandise at me? I don't get it, but it sounds too-good-to-be-true and we know how that works.
Perhaps just selling my e-mail address? Trying to debit my PayPal account? (good luck with that, there is only $14 in it and no credit card or bank linked to it). Trying to debit Zelle? I don't know. Maybe it is legit and the shipper wants an e-mail address? Sounds implausible.
Years ago, I would have loved to have a MIG welder, but my days of welding things (or wanting to) are far behind me. It just struck me as weird.
Then eBay sent me a "survey" request about the transaction and I filled it out, noting that the seller was communicating well and offered refunds and gave a full refund. At the end of the survey were a series of demographic questions, including asking which of five genders I was, and my age....
.....the latter of which stopped me in my tracks. I am now the "65+" box and there ain't no box after that. So long as I was in the "50-65" I could kid myself that death was a long way off. And the "26-49" range? I will live forever! But such is not the case.
65+
Boy does that sting!
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