ebay: lie and sell practically anything

And I quote

I have been trying to call... couriers please was closed as it was after 5pm, I will call them in the morning and call you and let you know that tracking number.
This is a big of a burden on me as it is you! I know what's been going on in my life has nothing to do with this ebay transaction but it has affected it, and threatening to call the police is not going to make the situation any better for either of us. Before I called you before also I sent you the pic I took of the computer before couriers please came and picked it up but realised my phone did not send the ms till after... but just so u can see what will be arriving.
I will also be calling pack and send in the morning to get their two cents. When I send you the coupon number, you can go to http://www.couriersplease.com.au/ to track the parcel.
Talk soon

What's that, you say? A note from a former lover? A departed housemate? Jilted acquaintance? No. This was one of the (precious few) emails from an eBay seller who has been jerking me around on a $2,500 purchase and getting a wee bit over familiar in the process.

I bought a G5 Powermac off eBay over a month ago now, and I'm still yet to receive it. All I have received are broken promises, lies and more than my fair share of shenanigans. And I hate shenanigans.

This guy has bullshitted me thrice about having sent the computer. He said he'd actually sent it through a company called Pack & Send. When it failed to arrive as promised, I called the stores (both in Carlton, its supposed destination, and Brisbane). They were very, very helpful, but they told me that the seller had actually cancelled the service at the last minute.

I'm not a huge fan of the police, and am loathe to involve them in any dispute, but I just don't have the resources to sort this out myself. I tried calling the seller but he never picks up his phone and rarely returned my calls (only three times in the last month). So, after getting the news about his failure to send the computer again (that's three times now), I resolved to call the po' po' if he didn't get back to me today. So I didn't threaten him, I was telling him (well, his messagebank).

When the seller called, he launched into another tireade of excuses (also lying about Pack & Send failing to pick up the computer), and as he reached a fever pitch (he was literally yelling), I interrupted him and explained that all the things going on in his personal life weren't my [fucking] problem; just send off the god-damned computer.

This is in the context of him telling me that his mother had died, which I'm fairly certain is crap, but I've decided to play it safe and not ask him outright. Still, unless his mother died three and a half weeks ago, clutching my G5, and he was unable to separate her from the casing for an additional fortnight, he still had a whole week to get over it and send it off.

Previous to the "paralysing bereavement" excuse, he offered the feeble "I've been busy at work." Obviously this didn't impress me at all, which is likely why he had to notch it up with the next, dead mum excuse.

I am scarily good at getting someone's address, especially when a whole bunch of my money is involved. The seller lives in a very swank apartment in Brisbane City and has a cushy office job, so I seriously doubt the burden is as large to him.

My trump card, if he fucks me around again, is to email him a photo of his apartment block along with his address and tell him that, if I can find his house in a couple of hours from my desk on a shitty G4 Mac, he can probably arrange a courier to come pick up my G5 in half that time. He has a whole $2,500 budget to make it happen, and I found his address with a –$2,500 budget.

Now I know why eBay has "practically" in their slogan when they say "practically anything," because "practically anything" can just as easily mean "nothing".

UPDATE: It arrived today, and things seem more-or-less hunkydory. Still waiting on the software (which is arriving separately). An interesting addendum was a phonecall I recieved from the seller the other night. After some to-ing and fro-ing, he said that, seeing as I had been greatly inconvenienced by his lateness, he was willing to throw in a couple of games for free. What were they?

Fucking Sim City and Roller Coaster Tycoon.

I said, "Uhhh... No thanks."

Apparently he is also shutting down his eBay account. I think that gves me a license to say the most insulting accurate things possible

Note to self: Next time I spend $2,500 on eBay, perhaps I shouldn't pay by direct deposit. That was incredibly stupid.