{"id":963,"date":"2011-07-07T01:30:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-07T08:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/?p=963"},"modified":"2012-05-21T13:36:42","modified_gmt":"2012-05-21T20:36:42","slug":"beautiful-iphone%e2%80%94a-tribute-to-the-lameness-of-ebay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/general\/beautiful-iphone%e2%80%94a-tribute-to-the-lameness-of-ebay\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful iPhone\u2014A Tribute to the Lameness of Ebay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago I happened upon an incredible find: a leather-bound quote book printed in 1910 entitled Old Friends Are Best<\/em> which contains quotes selected and arranged by Richard Brooks. I love the paper, the letterpress design on the pages, and the well-worn cover. But even more, I love the quotes inside. Almost every page contains a treasure, revealing the care and attention to detail the compiler took in arranging this book. <\/p>\n

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So, with something so old and so rare, what better background for a few images of something new and ubiquitous, yet equally as well designed 101 years later: the iPhone. I took these images with an ebay auction in mind. I find that my attempts to create above-average images of my occasional for-sale product usually fetches me a higher price, and the extra few minutes it takes almost always turns out to be an enjoyable distraction. Below you can enjoy the images of the phone and the book. <\/p>\n

And if you like, you can scroll down below the images for the story of how lame ebay has become.<\/p>\n

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EBAY SUCKS:<\/h1>\n

I thought I’d try selling my excellent-condition iPhone with a highly coveted baseband<\/a> on Ebay in order to supplement my purchase of an officially unlocked version<\/a>. <\/p>\n

My only hitch? Ebay sucks Llamas teeth. <\/p>\n

A few hours after I finished listing my auction, I received this email:
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Followed shortly by this one:
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But before you jump to judgement, try to understand this from Ebay’s perspective. First, I did log in with my own password. Second, I was also asked to verify my identity by answering a security question. Third, I uploaded these really generic-looking images that easily could have been mistaken for images like those often lifted from any company’s product pages by thieving Nigerian 419 scammers. After all, there are plenty of companies taking product pictures of their near-mint condition iPhone on a one-hundred-and-one year old leather-bound book, right? And lastly, I have an account that is nearly as old as Ebay itself, with 100% positive feedback, and a history of listing things intermittently. <\/p>\n

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Therefore—given the circumstances—there is only one logical thing for them to do: DELETE<\/strong><\/em> my auction, refund the clearly fraudulent .50¢ listing fee charged to my credit card, and disable my ability to login, forcing me instead to answer the same security questions all over again in order to verify my identity so I can then re-list the same auction a day later than intended while fighting off the impending feeling of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu. Perfect.<\/p>\n

Of course, their reset password feature is broken, so all this is for naught even after I get customer-non-service on the line.<\/p>\n

In the end I must give up and say no thanks, Ebay. You can keep your crappy auctions and crappy customer-non-service, your crappy policies and crappy overzealous fraud department. I’ll take my business elsewhere—even if that means I’ll lose money. At least I won’t lose my sanity dealing with you inebriated monkeys.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago I happened upon an incredible find: a leather-bound quote book printed in 1910 entitled Old Friends Are Best which contains quotes selected and arranged by Richard Brooks. I love the paper, the letterpress design on the pages, and the well-worn cover. But even more, I love the quotes inside. Almost every page contains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p20FV9-fx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1066,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/1066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iamron.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}