Well I've read all your whiney posts lately, and maybe it's just that you're all going back into winter and are reflecting your grey skies in your negative posts, so I thought, as the weather in the Southern Hemisphere is continuing to warm up, and my prospects for motorcycle riding, spanner twirling and tank painting etc are looking rosy, just for a change, I'd share a POSITIVE experience with you all, just to illustrate the better side of human nature.
Last weekend I was trawling thru Ebay looking for trick stuff for my CB750 based racer project when I came upon a listing for late model GSXR Rearset footpeg assemblies, complete with all levers, and even master cylinders, rear calipers and torque arms, going for a measly 40 bucks! I quickly bid 50, and was just as quickly outbid. Hmmnnn........
Now I need a set of rearsets to pretty much complete my "wish list" of parts that I needed, and there aren't any really good looking "period" rearsets around, the only company that still makes them is Raask, and they're f*cking horrible, so even though I want to keep the "period" feel to this bike, I was prepared to compromise, in my quest to actually get the ball rolling, so to speak.
Now the seller had not one, but two sets for sale, so I reasoned that if I put some big bids on them both, even though there were several bidders on each auction, with luck I'd win one set? I also bid on a set of GSXR front brakes from the same seller, which included a great pair of 4 piston calipers and a remote reservoir master cylinder, complete with adjustable lever, sweeeet........... With an hour and a half to go, I couldn't hang around to see if I was gonna win, so I put my trust in the Great Pumpkin, and promptly forgot about it.
When I checked back that evening, I was initially excited, then horrified to see that I'd won all three auctions! Ooh ah, hmmnn, what do I do now? Do I ask the seller nicely if he'll let me off one set of rearsets? Within minutes of starting this particular ponder, I received an email from him notifying me that shipping (depending on which mode I'd prefer) would run from $55.00 US to $99.00! Oh Lord, I think I'm gonna puke........... Needless to say, I opted for the $55.00 "when it gets here" option, hoping that I'd see the stuff before Christmas, and asked the seller to send me a paypal invoice.
Next day (Monday here) I went to work, and when I got home, there were three emails from the seller, two invoices, and a demand for payment! Well I saw red, so I fired back an email to him to ask why he was saying things like "Hand it over" less than 24 hours after the end of the auction? I've had over 340 Ebay transactions with 100% positive feedback and felt that he was being a little "over zealous", so I suggested that if he didn't apologise for his comments, he could keep his parts, and i'd keep my money!
He initially sent me an email telling me "not to be so pissy", but must have decided that perhaps he'd been too abrupt, because he sent another one apologising, so I sent him one back with the traditional Aussie placater "No worries Mate" and paid him right away, hoping all the while, that he wasn't going to cut my parts up into tiny pieces before packing them into a box (from 20 feet away) with no packing. Paypal guarantees a refund but there's a time limit of 30 days, so no good for me with a 3 month wait for "slow boat" shipping.
Well that was last Tuesday or Wednesday, so you could have knocked me over with a feather when I got home tonight after work to find a (rather heavy) box on my doorstep, all the way from San Diego! I didn't have my glasses on and wasn't sure what it was as I've been melting plastic on Ebay for the last few weeks and am waiting on quite a few packages from the US, so when I got my specs on I was almost brought to tears, "Mister Grumpy" from last week, had turned into Santy Claus and sent me those parts Airmail, at his own expense!
I opened the box and the parts are all in very good to excellent condition, so I'll take the pick from the two sets of rearsets, and sell the other set on Ebay.com.au to help recover my costs. I sent the seller an email thanking him for his generosity, and left him some positive feedback too, it's not often that a seller dips into his own pocket to the tune of 50 bucks, (I assume) as a further apology for his initial rudeness. It takes a big man to do something like that, and I am humbled by his gesture. There you go folks, anybody else got a good one to share? Cheers, Terry.
