My failure on Ebay

[thekrenz]

Ok, since this is the OT chatter I hope my post is within the 
boundaries of the group.
I have made 2 attempts to but the HP books on cd through Ebay and 
both have ended in claims!  I am so disappointed. On my first try, I 
bid on a set of the first six books.  I won the auction at a bid of 
$202.  That seemed like a pretty fair price to me and I was quite 
anxious to own the cds.  So I made a prompt (same day) payment 
through paypal and waited....and waited...and waited.  After 2 weeks 
I emailed the seller.  No response.  I emailed him a total of 3 times 
with no response, so after nearly 5 weeks I filed a dispute with 
paypal.   Apparently, paypal put some sort of hold on the seller's 
account which finally got his attention.  I received a frantic and 
apologetic email stating the books had been mailed "forever ago" and 
he would look in to their whereabouts immediately.  "Would you please 
cancel your dispute as it is tying up my account?"  I responded that 
I would cancel the dispute as soon as he provided me with a tracking 
number for the shipment of the audiobooks.  Well, you guessed it!  I 
never got the tracking number and paypal refunded my money.
I was disappointed, but determined to buy the cds.  I began watching 
similar auctions and found some that looked great.  I bid on the 
books individually, and wonder of wonders, they were all being sold 
by one person!  I won all the books for a total of $175.  Cool, even 
less than my first try.  I was so pleased with myself!
That didn't last long.  This time, the seller communicated with me 
quickly.  After 10 days, I asked when I should expect my shipment.  
The seller was listed in Israel and she said it would take about 15 
business days for the books to arrive.  Ok....I am a little wary 
since my first attempt went badly, so I started watching her feedback 
to see how long her other items took to ship.  Guess what?  Right 
after I read the email assuring me the items would arrive in 15 or so 
days, I found a negative feedback in which the buyer stated he did 
not receive some of his cds, and the ones he did receive were bootleg 
copies.  Oh, man, here we go again....
I decided to look more closely at the things the seller had sold in 
the past.  There were nearly 300 items that had positive feedback.  
Hmm.  They all had the same item number.  Huh?  How can that be?  The 
item turned out to be wallpaper.  No, not the kind that goes on your 
wall, the kind on your desktop.  What the .....?  So I emailed the 
seller again.  "I am concerned by the negative feedback you 
received.  Can you provide me with a tracking number and a ship 
date?"  The response was "Oh, don't worry about that negative.  He is 
just mad because other people have filed disputes against him."  No 
tracking number or ship date.  This is not going well at all.  I 
waited a couple more days and then checked my ebay concerning some 
other auctions I was watching.  The seller of my HP cds is now no 
longer a registered user with ebay!  "That does it", I thought.  I 
sent another email to the seller asking why she was no longer 
registered with ebay.  She responded by giving the date she shipped 
the cds, but no answer as to why she was not a registered user any 
more.   Well, yesterday I gave up and filed a second claim with 
paypal.  I hope I can collect my refund, since she is not registered 
with ebay anymore.  Time will tell.
Thanks for reading my rant.  Do any of you know of a reputable seller 
on Ebay from whom I can buy the HP audiobooks?  Or, should I just 
fork over the retail price and buy from Barnes and Noble or someone 
like that?

Cyndi