BOLO: Perfection

Last week while with my brother, we briefly stopped by a few yard sales before heading out to a sibling breakfast with my dad. We were kind of late in the yard sale world of timing, so I figured we wouldn't find much. My brother picked up a perfection game that was like NEW. Remember perfection? A total 90's kid game.

Much to my brothers disappointment the game was broken. He was going to toss it, and I asked him if I could keep the pieces. Luckily all pieces were there, and I quickly listed them. Within the first hour I had them listed I got quite a few watchers, and then bang... a buyer! Sold for $11.95 FS. (We paid 50 cents for the game).

 

After the listing ended, I even got a few messages from eBayers wanting to know if the pieces sold, and REALLY wanting them. Wow. So this of course sparked my curiosity for how much the game goes for itself.

 

 

Check out this recently ended Perfection game auction HERE

 

Seriously. I see these games alot. Its just a matter of if they have all their pieces intact :)

 



A lesson learned in shipping

On my last post I mentioned that I had quite the experience with the shipping of this item:

So I sold this item for best offer of $25 free shipping. I realized after shipping cost me $11 I didnt make too much off of this adorable peacock costume.

I shipped it FedEx. Why FedEx? I love their rates for large boxes, and as you can see those are some crazy wings on the costume and I didnt want to risk folding them up and ruining the costume.
-If you have something LARGE to ship, go FedEx.

So I packaged the costume up and went to a local satalite postage center. I believe alot of towns have these little franchises around. Its a little store that has UPS, USPS, FEDEX, DHL all in one place. Its the closest thing to my house, so I almost always ship packages out here... especially if I am going Fedex. That day I shipped out the above Peacock costume via FedEx and 3 other USPS packages. These were all prepaid Ebay labels, so all I had to do was hand the packages to the worker.

Now fast forward a few days. I recieve an email from the buyer of the Peacock costume saying that she has not received the package and there is no tracking information available. I quickly find the tracking information and sure enough there were no timestamps. Not even one for the pick up at the location I dropped the package off at. I called FedEx. Filed a claim. I then call the postage satalite center, the owner swears up and down he would never misplace a package and was very insulted I even insenuated that he or his employees might have. (Whatever). I then email the buyer and let her know what is going on. I told her that if Fedex does not find the package in 2 days I would refund her.

2 Days pass. Package is still MIA, and I refund the buyer. She is SUPER nice about this luckily and is totally understanding.

The day after I refund the buyer she writes me, "USPS just showed up at my door with the package. The package has the FedEx label on it. My postman said it somehow ended up with their stuff. I paid $13 to my postman for the shipping, and I can send you $12 for the costume."

At this point I am really annoyed with my postal center. Obviously they sent it off with the wrong carrier. I reply to the buyer and tell her that she doesnt need to pay anything and can keep the refund still. I then call the postage center and ask for the defensive manager I spoke to last time. I explained to him what REALLY happened and he told me it was my fault that I did not tell the employee which package went to certain carriers. Really? They dont check the labels over there?
ugh. I was really frustrated with this. I told him because of their mistake I lost money, and wouldnt ship anymore packages through them. After this he became very apologetic and said it wouldnt happen again.....

So what have I learned? 1. I cant assume postal workers know where to put packages, or even check labels. 2. I need to give directions to everyone that handles my packages... take no risks! 3. USPS will steal a package to make an extra buck $$ (policy is that they are supposed to return the item to its original carrier) 4. There are some good buyers on eBay that dont want to leave you negative feedback for fun.