Popping My Ebay Cherry
It's not actually my first time to buy something online. My then-boyfriend helped me find my first pda on Bidshot.com but since he was the one who did most of the online interaction, I don't count it.
Anyway, one day I received a forwarded message from one of my friends, my co-class clown in one of our Spanish classes, and it offered free Php 30.00 load if I signed up and became a member of their website. Since I have broadband I went ahead and followed the instructions and sure enough I got my load after a day. I didn't mind the lag time because no other website offered as much free load.
The website was auction.ph. It's similar to other online shops but it has more features like their escrow system where the buyer pays auction.com and the seller only gets the money after the buyer has confirmed receipt of the item. That among other things like their Php 1.00 auction where you can get a cool phone for less than a thousand.
At that time I was looking for a digital camera. Craving was the better word. Yes, same as anyone craving for food, I crave for gadgets (and for food too, no denying that). The last gadget that I craved for was an mp3 player. This carving started with the arrival of summer and with it the plans of my friends to go out and get ourselves sunburnt in Puerto Galera. The last time we went there I didn't have a camera so I wasn't able to take most of the experience home.
I went to Cyberzone first, the big one in Megamall, and checked my favorite store, Compex. This was also where I bought my Neo laptop a year back, they have the cheapest price in all Cyberzone, and even to those in Cubao and Greenhills. The cheapest digital camera that they had was Php 3,000.00. No brand but comes with a year warranty and has decent specs. I counted my money and figured out that I'd have to fast for 2 weeks to afford it. Not gonna happen.
Then this auction.ph came and I found an Aiptek Pencam, actually a webcam that also functions as a digicam sans the monitor, selling for Php 1,450.00. Whoopee! I bid on it immediately. There were others but I chose the Pencam because Aiptek is a good camera brand. After a week I've memorized what was on sale in auction.ph and I started checking other online shops. I checked ebay.ph and I flipped and flopped and made such a noise I'm sure the rat scratching the ceiling got a start. There was this crazy person selling a full-fledged (with a monitor at the back, thank you) branded digital camera for Php 1,500.00! Ok, so it was used, but so was my pda. The first thing I did was to check it online, so I keyed-in Hitachi HDC-303x and out came a gazillion question marks on my browser screen in place of japanese characters. Gee. So that's why the buyer said it was bought from Singapore. This Hitachi model was only released in Japan and probably in Sinagpore. But I found a picture in yahoo.jp and sample shots in a japanese amateur photographer's webpage. Not bad. I asked the seller the most important question, was the menu in english? Yes! Yey! I immediately said I'm buying it, I'm buying it and can we meet tomorrow please? The seller said no because she was in Dagupan of all places (I'm in Antipolo) and won't be home until Friday night. I guess she sensed my excitement so she agreed in shipping the
camera and even paying for the shipping fee! Wheee! Happy dance!
So the following day I went downtown to check on where I can convert my cash to G-cash, our agreed mode of payment. I passed four Smart Padala and Smart Money accredited stalls right in front of the palengke but not one for G-cash. I checked on their website and it said that 7-eleven is an accredited cash to G-cash station, I checked all four 7-elevens, guess which of them has even remotely heard of G-cash? Fortunately, gays exist in the world, and may I say if you know how to treat them well they're the kindest, most accommodating people around and I think all gays should be hired in the customer service field. So there was this one gay who informed me that I had to go to Robinson's Metro East because that was where a Globe Servicenter was. Now, I'm not a fan of Smart even if I've worked in ePDLT and I have Smart bro but gee, kailangan ko pang lumuwas? Give me a break. Anyway, as if I have a choice.
So clad in my just-until-town clothes I rode a jeep all the way to Robinsons Metro East fueled by the thought of getting a step nearer in getting a digital camera. When I got to the Globe Servicenter I was all smiles because thank God, the service was fast. I gleefully sent the G-cash to the seller and she confirmed receipt. I thought she was already in the shipping company right then and there and all I had to do was sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow to a new gadget. Not happening. She sent the camera 2 days after I've sent the payment, which I thought lacked in respect for the buyer. Maybe it's just me but my mom raised me to value other's time and my stint as a customer service rep taught me to manage other people's expectations. Besides she didn't specify in her ebay.ph post that I had to wait 2 days after payment.
Finally I received a text message that she has sent it via LBC and she gave me a tracking number. I eagerly went to LBC's website to track it. I tried a lot of times. Always got an error message. I thought I must be doing something wrong or maybe I got scammed and the seller gave me a fake tracking number. I said goodbye to my Php 1,500.00 while I was typing an inquiry to LBC's customer service department. I got a prompt reply stating that I can only track a day after the package has been sent. Uh, duh. They do advertise 24-hr delivery. It must mean only one thing, a lot of packages are delivered late! I replied with a suggestion but no one ever acknowledged receipt of it. So the following day I tracked it, firefox kept on saying that LBC's server was down. I spent the next day waiting for their tracking to be up and running but it never did. I sent another email to their customer service department asking when their server would be up but I guess their email system is running with the same server because I got no response. I emailed all branches within my vicinity and the ones in the sellers, just in case. Can you feel that I was getting paranoid? And then, the day after that I checked on LBC's website and it displayed a huge message that their browser was down and it would be up not later than 9am eastern time. They should've put up that message 3 days ago. I wanted to shoot them in the head.
I had to do things myself, so I wen to town, did my groceries in Shopwise and went to check on an LBC outlet, we had two in town and I was lucky to find that they were operated by the same person. After much ado, the lady behind the counter found my package and when I asked her what happened to the 24-hr delivery promise, she said that someone had come to deliver it but the notation said 'house closed.' Well, yeah, duh, no one leaves their houses open for everyone to nose their way in and out. I'm not managing a museum. Ok, that was sarcastic and I didn't say that out loud. I told her I was at home all day and I didn't even take a nap and the house sure is not big enough for a louder-than-a-mouse's-squeak to not be heard from the front door. Ok, that was a double negative, but who cares I was upset, inwardly. I smiled at the lady. She was nice. I hoped the delivery man bumped his coccyx on an edge.
So I went home happily, my heart singing arias.
I got a digital camera! Yey!
But there was no manual, it only came with the camera, a usb connector, and a case. I'm not complaining though, I still thought it was a steal. The next day I learned how to use all of its features thanks to the illustrated japanese manual I got online and today I took overexposed pictures of my father's paintings and set up an online gallery for him. I'm ready for my own online shop.
After my first buy, I bought a few ebooks, elder and eragon, god of small things, and a series of unfortunate events 1-13! All for Php 25.00. Hah! Those were paid by share-a-load, relatively effortless and was received by email, definitely convenient.
Ah. There's no good ending for this. Not very creative right now. Today is not a very stimulating day. I'll talk about it next.
Anyway, one day I received a forwarded message from one of my friends, my co-class clown in one of our Spanish classes, and it offered free Php 30.00 load if I signed up and became a member of their website. Since I have broadband I went ahead and followed the instructions and sure enough I got my load after a day. I didn't mind the lag time because no other website offered as much free load.
The website was auction.ph. It's similar to other online shops but it has more features like their escrow system where the buyer pays auction.com and the seller only gets the money after the buyer has confirmed receipt of the item. That among other things like their Php 1.00 auction where you can get a cool phone for less than a thousand.
At that time I was looking for a digital camera. Craving was the better word. Yes, same as anyone craving for food, I crave for gadgets (and for food too, no denying that). The last gadget that I craved for was an mp3 player. This carving started with the arrival of summer and with it the plans of my friends to go out and get ourselves sunburnt in Puerto Galera. The last time we went there I didn't have a camera so I wasn't able to take most of the experience home.
I went to Cyberzone first, the big one in Megamall, and checked my favorite store, Compex. This was also where I bought my Neo laptop a year back, they have the cheapest price in all Cyberzone, and even to those in Cubao and Greenhills. The cheapest digital camera that they had was Php 3,000.00. No brand but comes with a year warranty and has decent specs. I counted my money and figured out that I'd have to fast for 2 weeks to afford it. Not gonna happen.
Then this auction.ph came and I found an Aiptek Pencam, actually a webcam that also functions as a digicam sans the monitor, selling for Php 1,450.00. Whoopee! I bid on it immediately. There were others but I chose the Pencam because Aiptek is a good camera brand. After a week I've memorized what was on sale in auction.ph and I started checking other online shops. I checked ebay.ph and I flipped and flopped and made such a noise I'm sure the rat scratching the ceiling got a start. There was this crazy person selling a full-fledged (with a monitor at the back, thank you) branded digital camera for Php 1,500.00! Ok, so it was used, but so was my pda. The first thing I did was to check it online, so I keyed-in Hitachi HDC-303x and out came a gazillion question marks on my browser screen in place of japanese characters. Gee. So that's why the buyer said it was bought from Singapore. This Hitachi model was only released in Japan and probably in Sinagpore. But I found a picture in yahoo.jp and sample shots in a japanese amateur photographer's webpage. Not bad. I asked the seller the most important question, was the menu in english? Yes! Yey! I immediately said I'm buying it, I'm buying it and can we meet tomorrow please? The seller said no because she was in Dagupan of all places (I'm in Antipolo) and won't be home until Friday night. I guess she sensed my excitement so she agreed in shipping the
camera and even paying for the shipping fee! Wheee! Happy dance!
So the following day I went downtown to check on where I can convert my cash to G-cash, our agreed mode of payment. I passed four Smart Padala and Smart Money accredited stalls right in front of the palengke but not one for G-cash. I checked on their website and it said that 7-eleven is an accredited cash to G-cash station, I checked all four 7-elevens, guess which of them has even remotely heard of G-cash? Fortunately, gays exist in the world, and may I say if you know how to treat them well they're the kindest, most accommodating people around and I think all gays should be hired in the customer service field. So there was this one gay who informed me that I had to go to Robinson's Metro East because that was where a Globe Servicenter was. Now, I'm not a fan of Smart even if I've worked in ePDLT and I have Smart bro but gee, kailangan ko pang lumuwas? Give me a break. Anyway, as if I have a choice.
So clad in my just-until-town clothes I rode a jeep all the way to Robinsons Metro East fueled by the thought of getting a step nearer in getting a digital camera. When I got to the Globe Servicenter I was all smiles because thank God, the service was fast. I gleefully sent the G-cash to the seller and she confirmed receipt. I thought she was already in the shipping company right then and there and all I had to do was sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow to a new gadget. Not happening. She sent the camera 2 days after I've sent the payment, which I thought lacked in respect for the buyer. Maybe it's just me but my mom raised me to value other's time and my stint as a customer service rep taught me to manage other people's expectations. Besides she didn't specify in her ebay.ph post that I had to wait 2 days after payment.
Finally I received a text message that she has sent it via LBC and she gave me a tracking number. I eagerly went to LBC's website to track it. I tried a lot of times. Always got an error message. I thought I must be doing something wrong or maybe I got scammed and the seller gave me a fake tracking number. I said goodbye to my Php 1,500.00 while I was typing an inquiry to LBC's customer service department. I got a prompt reply stating that I can only track a day after the package has been sent. Uh, duh. They do advertise 24-hr delivery. It must mean only one thing, a lot of packages are delivered late! I replied with a suggestion but no one ever acknowledged receipt of it. So the following day I tracked it, firefox kept on saying that LBC's server was down. I spent the next day waiting for their tracking to be up and running but it never did. I sent another email to their customer service department asking when their server would be up but I guess their email system is running with the same server because I got no response. I emailed all branches within my vicinity and the ones in the sellers, just in case. Can you feel that I was getting paranoid? And then, the day after that I checked on LBC's website and it displayed a huge message that their browser was down and it would be up not later than 9am eastern time. They should've put up that message 3 days ago. I wanted to shoot them in the head.
I had to do things myself, so I wen to town, did my groceries in Shopwise and went to check on an LBC outlet, we had two in town and I was lucky to find that they were operated by the same person. After much ado, the lady behind the counter found my package and when I asked her what happened to the 24-hr delivery promise, she said that someone had come to deliver it but the notation said 'house closed.' Well, yeah, duh, no one leaves their houses open for everyone to nose their way in and out. I'm not managing a museum. Ok, that was sarcastic and I didn't say that out loud. I told her I was at home all day and I didn't even take a nap and the house sure is not big enough for a louder-than-a-mouse's-squeak to not be heard from the front door. Ok, that was a double negative, but who cares I was upset, inwardly. I smiled at the lady. She was nice. I hoped the delivery man bumped his coccyx on an edge.
So I went home happily, my heart singing arias.
I got a digital camera! Yey!
But there was no manual, it only came with the camera, a usb connector, and a case. I'm not complaining though, I still thought it was a steal. The next day I learned how to use all of its features thanks to the illustrated japanese manual I got online and today I took overexposed pictures of my father's paintings and set up an online gallery for him. I'm ready for my own online shop.
After my first buy, I bought a few ebooks, elder and eragon, god of small things, and a series of unfortunate events 1-13! All for Php 25.00. Hah! Those were paid by share-a-load, relatively effortless and was received by email, definitely convenient.
Ah. There's no good ending for this. Not very creative right now. Today is not a very stimulating day. I'll talk about it next.
Labels: auction.ph, bidshot, ebay, g-cash
posted by mavicity at
11:53 PM
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