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I responded to this offline because Mark sent me an email with no indication
that it was also a post. Sigh. THis post is a copy and amplification of those
offline remarks.
EVERYONE, Please, PLEASE, stop this annoying and wasteful habit of sending
people posts in email and posting them at the same time. It is a **huge**
waste of time and effort and adds no value, in my opinion. I'll see your post
and respond. If you don't see a response from me, feel free to at that point
send me an email with the URL of your post and ask me to take a look. But
usually I respond before you would have time to do that...
In lugnet.org.au, Mark Harrison writes:
> First of all, the address I sent him was extremely clear and
> all he had to do was
> cut it out of a hard copy of my email to him, and stick it on
> the parcel.
>
> Secondly, I never at any stage gave him my home phone number
> so I do not
> understand why he used it in the mailing address.
>
> Thirdly, one does not need to have any grasp of a foreign
> language to at least
> make sure that the country to which the parcel is to be sent
> is written on the
> parcel.
All valid points.... but:
> "Dopey" is the kindest way I can describe this person.
However, why call him anything at all? Why is it necessary to assign a label?
You could just have as easily made those points in a non judgemental way. They
are good points that all sellers should heed. However, I think the scope is
larger.
I repeat my central point... if the seller wants to get paid, the seller has
to make sure it's clear how payment is to happen, including the method,
mechanism, and all details needed to get it to happen. To not make it all
clear in excruciating detail (and this is what boilerplate is good for) is to
invite mishap.
If the buyer wants to get his goods, the buyer has to make sure it's clear how
shipment is to happen, including specifying all shipping and insurance options
desired, and including all needed details. That includes the country. Again,
to not make it all clear in excruciating detail (and this is what boilerplate
is good for) is to invite mishap.
In this case Mark points out that he thinks he did that. Fine. Maybe he wasn't
quite clear enough to someone who doesn't speak Eenglish? If you buy stuff
from auction sites where you don't speak the language, you really really are
taking a foolish risk, I feel. It's not fair or prudent to expect the seller
to puzzle out stuff in a language he didn't intend to use in his transaction.
I know Mark did a lot of buying from ebay.de where the language is German, and
tried to carry out his transactions in English. I don't see that as prudent.
ebay.de is for German speaking buyers and sellers, it's a site that is IN
GERMAN!!! If you can't speak passable German, don't bid there and don't sell
there.
That might not be this transaction in particular, but I do know of a number of
other ones that almost went awry were it not for Horst Lehner, my German
factoree, acting as an interpreter at great length, something which he didn't
intend to do and which he spent a fair bit of his limited free time on. I
think I might have not been copied on the note where Mark thanked Horst for
that pretty extensive uncompensated extra effort on Mark's behalf.
On the other hand if you as a seller go to sell something, one piece of
boilerplate that you might want to add to your sale listing is that you speak
only English and you expect your deals to be done in English (or german or
whatever it is that you're willing to speak). That puts the onus where it
belongs.
> I do not understand why you are defending someone you do not
> know over some you do?
I'm not defending. I'm not attacking. I'm just trying to be equanamible.
You're the one that appears to be attacking and I think that's regrettable.
Why does everything have to be an attack or an affront with you?
What I *am* trying to do is draw generalizations from your experience that
might benefit other buyers and sellers, not attack either of the parties to
the transaction. (calling an action "imprudent" is not an attack, just an
observation)
FUT market.theory because I think this item has wider applicability than just
to Oz.
++Lar
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Dopey ebay seller!
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| Hi Larry, First of all, the address I sent him was extremely clear and all he had to do was cut it out of a hard copy of my email to him, and stick it on the parcel. Secondly, I never at any stage gave him my home phone number so I do not understand (...) (24 years ago, 17-Aug-00, to lugnet.org.au)
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