Rare as hens' teeth

Monday 14th June 2004

It's a dumb title, even though it happens to describe these What's News. But it also describes one of the imbeciles I've got to report. Self-describes, in fact. Here's the story....
A couple of months ago, about the time the film was released, I started buying a few things--mostly at eBay.com, which is usually a good idea. I get all sorts of cool stuff there, especially when I'm not supposed to be able to get it; for example, I got a Venom figure which declares 'I'm gonna eat your brain', despite the whimpering of parents' groups. So that works out for me, most of the time.
This time, I was going after posters, since I collect those too. Like this one:

This one's four feet wide and six feet tall. Also, it's somewhat destroyed, since I'd got it the day before the flood occurred here. But that's the fault of other morons.
At about the same time, I happened across this one, from rare-as-hens-teeth in the UK:

As the image suggests, I wound up winning the poster. Of course, shipping wasn't really desribed for this thing, so I EMailed the guy to ask about that:

The guy replied, back when he lived on our planet:

That level of illiteracy being uncommon in London [if not necessarily the whole of the UK], I figured that his shipping estimate of eleven quid was probably also a typo. But, I wanted the damned poster, so I went along with it:

And I won:

So I sent the guy the money: £6.99 plus £11. £17.99 altogether, which incidentally equates to US$33.06.

Then I waited. For a month.

And for another week or two....

Then I stopped waiting:

And started doing:

From: "eBay United Kingdom Customer Support" To: "Gremlin" Subject: Re: FR%X10258 Buyer Purchase Protection [#US UK +07 $UK ?01 -07] (KMM92697839V59557L0KM) Date: Friday, June 11, 2004 8:42 AM Hello Gremlindotnet, Thank you for taking the time to write to eBay. I do appreciate your concern regarding this issue and would like to take this opportunity to assist you regarding item number 3809615269. I have issued a warning to the seller to complete the transaction appropriately. I strongly suggest you request your trading partner's contact information and give them a telephone call to see if this issue can be resolved amicably. Please note in line with our privacy policy, they will also receive your contact information. eBay encourages open and honest communication, and we know from experience that issues of this kind are often resolved by a simple telephone call. To request the other user's contact information, please go to: http://cgi3.ebay.co.uk/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?UserInformationRequest Once there please scroll down to the 'Contact Info, Request a member's contact information' section and enter the User ID of the user whose contact information you are requesting and the relevant item number. Many misunderstandings occur because of issues with user's email account or other computer problems. Your seller may not be able to respond to you straight away for a legitimate reason. Therefore, it is really important to try to give the seller a telephone call. Please note that eBay does not handle the merchandise that is offered for sale in listings. Without first hand knowledge of the item, we are unable to guarantee the accuracy of the listing information. We encourage users who are interested in bidding on an item to email the seller for additional information. PayPal will investigate any transaction where the PayPal service was used to send payment. In many cases PayPal also may be able to provide reimbursement. Keep in mind that complaints must be filed with PayPal no later than 30 days from the date of payment. Information about how to file a complaint with PayPal can be found at: http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/protections-buyer-outside If the seller is not willing to resolve this situation on the telephone, there are other options that are available to you in order to resolve this situation. You may want to consider using a mediation service such as Square Trade to resolve this dispute with the seller. Square Trade is a web-based independent dispute resolution service. To find out more about it, please go to: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/services/buyandsell/disputeres.html If your payment for the item was sent via the Postal Service, you may be eligible to file Mail Fraud Charges. Please contact your local Post Office for more information. Here is a URL you might find useful: http://www.consignia-online.com/ In extreme cases, you may also want to consider contacting your local law enforcement to report this incident, ensuring you obtain a crime reference number. If you choose to contact your local police, eBay will gladly help them with any inquiries they may have. Please have the investigating officer contact us through the webform at: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/contact_inline/report_listing.html The officer will need to select: Stolen property -> I am a law enforcement official (no sign in required), followed by pressing Continue and then pressing Contact Support on the second page. The officer will need to supply the following information: 1. The case number 2. The officer's name 3. The officer's telephone number. Similarly, should you wish to pursue this as a civil matter, your solicitor can apply to us for any useful information at: eBay (UK) LTD, P.O. Box 9473 Dublin 15 Ireland Please also read about our Standard Purchase Protection Programme, which may entitle you to recover a portion of the cost of the item in question. This programme is available to all qualified members at no extra cost to you. For a claim to be submitted, the following must apply: * Final bid amount must exceed £15.00 * Both buyer and the seller must have a feedback rating of 0 or above * £120.00 is the maximum amount of the insurance per auction (less a £15.00 excess) * Claims need to be submitted within 90 days from the close of the listing More detailed information can be found by clicking on the URL provided below: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/fpp.html We also urge you to leave appropriate feedback for this user. To leave feedback about a transaction, please follow these steps: 1. Click the "site map" link at the top of any eBay page. 2. On the Site Map, click the link " Leave feedback on a member." This link is located near the bottom of the middle column, under the "Feedback Forum" heading. You may be asked to log in. 3. On the next page, you can search for the item in question either by User ID or item number. Feedback is the best way to inform other members of the eBay community about your experiences with your eBay trading partners. We encourage each of our users to get to know their trading partners before participating in a transaction. Use the Feedback Forum to check a potential trading partner s online reputation. See what other users of the community have to say about that person. Contact those users who have previously left comments about that potential trading partner and ask them about their experiences. When you have completed a transaction, leave a Feedback comment about your trading partner and contribute something back to the community. You can read more about the feedback forum here: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/new/feedback.html The majority of transactions on eBay end well. We can understand how disappointed you must feel in this situation. Although we will work our hardest to help you resolve this matter, we realise this doesn't take away from feeling let down about the item you were looking forward to. We hope that this information has helped. Working together, we can continue to keep eBay a safe and fun place to trade. We recommend that trading partners try to resolve any problems over a 30 day period after an auction has ended. If, however, after 30 days you have not been able to resolve this matter please contact us again and we will advise you further. It was my pleasure to assist you. We appreciate that you choose eBay. Best wishes, Sinead Stevenson eBay Trust and Safety ______________________________ ************ NEW Account Guard! To learn more about the eBay Toolbar with Account Guard, go to www.ebay.co.uk and click on "Services" this is found at the top of the Home page. Now click on the "eBay Toolbar" link, this is found in the "Tools" section at bottom of the left hand column. ************ Password and Account Protection: eBay will never ask you for your password and will never ask you for your personal financial details in an email. There are several steps that you can take to protect your password: - Avoid using on eBay the same password that you use on your email account. - Use the same precautions for your email account that you use on your -eBay account - carefully protect both. - Avoid using the same password that you use on other websites - Do not share your password with others. - Review the privacy policies of third parties that offer you services to determine how your information will be protected. - If you believe that someone has obtained your password, change it immediately and contact eBay. For more information please go to: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/account_protection.html Original Message Follows: ------------------------- Form Message %32201% 031898 Subject: FR%X10258 Buyer Purchase Protection [#US UK +07 $UK ?01 -07] User Feedback: 16 User State: ?01 Browser Info: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) Topics > Safe Trading > Pay Confidently > > Buyer Purchase Protection; 24.8.18.225; Reporting member: gremlindotnet 16 Member being reported: rare-as-hens-teeth 521 Buyer Status: 1 Item number: 3809615269; UK !43300! 062903 Payment Method: PayPal Date of Payment: 04/20/04 Dispute Resolution: None used Seller Contact: No-The seller does not answer Customer concern: I contacted rare-as-hens-teeth [Mrnjmellows@aol.com] prior to bidding to ascertain the undisclosed shipping charges from the UK to the US. He responded readily: 'pp air mail in packing tube [its big ] is £11' I then bid on the item, subsequently won it, and began to wait. After a month, I EMailed the seller to ask if there had been a problem: 'Question from eBay Member: GIANT MOVIE POSTER - HORROR -DAWN OF THE DEAD (3809615269) Dear rare-as-hens-teeth, A month ago, I won a poster you had listed. I haven't received it yet, or heard any news about it. Has something gone wrong? To view the item, go to: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3809615269 Thank you, gremlindotnet' I received no reply. A couple weeks later, I tried again: 'Question from eBay Member: GIANT MOVIE POSTER - HORROR -DAWN OF THE DEAD (3809615269) Dear rare-as-hens-teeth, I'm still waiting for this poster to arrive. I'm also still waiting for any response about it. Has it even been mailed? To view the item, go to: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/ebayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3809615269 Thank you, gremlindotnet' I still got no reply. Finally, a few days ago, I sent this: 'Question from eBay Member: GIANT MOVIE POSTER - HORROR -DAWN OF THE DEAD (3809615269) Dear rare-as-hens-teeth, This is my third official attempt to ascertain the status of my order. To date, I've never received the poster you've contracted to send to me, or heard anything from you regarding its shipment. If I haven't received it physically, or got a reasonable explanation from you, by Monday, I'm going to contest this transaction officially and pursue international fraud charges. Thank you, gremlindotnet' Of course, to date, I've heard nothing from this fraud since he replied about the shipping charges, and I've never received this item. However, his feedback rating suggests that he still exists and continues operating as a seller through eBay.com. So, I'm turning this over to you. Hopefully you'll be scarier than I am. Sorry about avoiding the dispute resolution services in this case, but I've given this guy too long to talk to me directly, and I now fear that wasting more time going through a third party would just delay this eventuality beyond any applicable time limits. I did what I could in the time I had. Thanks.... --gremlindotnet

So. There it is. Ultimately, I can't expect eBay.com, who own PayPal.com, to do anything totalitarian about getting me my money back, since the price before shipping was under fifteen quid. I don't much expect Nigel 'rare-as-hens-teeth' Mellows to give me my money back. And I don't even want the money back, per se; I just want the damned poster. And I kinda doubt that Nigel here ever possessed the bloody thing in the first place.
So, I'm back to waiting to see what happens next. Meanwhile, obviously: don't bid on anything listed by this fraud. Meanwhile also: until or unless this is all worked out to my satisfaction, I'm done playing with eBay.com. A real auction would ensure that a seller would fulfil the contract.
In other news....
I'm still working on a few things here, as always. When I'm not trying to get my damned poster out of this fraud, I'm playing with the new version of gremlin.net, building the city for Deadache, and working on Pandemic. Regarding the latter, I think I've got the front cover figured out now. Supposing I don't change the title [I haven't fully ruled out calling it Paroxysm instead] or the name under which I release it [I've got a few of those by now, each used to release novels under different genres...genera...uh...categories] or the cover design in general [and that could switch to anything at all] then it should end up looking something like this:

For those able to recognise an allosaurid by its silhouette, who might wonder why in hell it's on the cover at all, the explanation is pretty well in the novel itself. But, since I'm planning to release it in September [planning first to finish writing it], I'll go ahead and explain a little about it.

C.elliotti [dinosauricon.com]

The story actually begins, at the prologue, in Pliensbachian Antarctica, centred on a female Cryolophosaurus elliotti. As those who know what an allosaurid is might also know, C.elliotti is known for its weird preorbital crest, which I didn't build into the LightWave model I used for the cover. It's my assumption that the crest would only have been evident in the males, who used it to attract mates. The female C.elliotti, like the female P.leo, might not have had anything to show off in the ritual. So my female C.elliotti is essentially just an A.fragilis with an exaggerated preorbital horn.
Also, the silhouette of the male C.elliotti looks kinda goofy, especially out of any real context; putting that on the cover of a novel might prove to be a severe mistake.
Of course, with my luck, we'll eventually learn that the one C.elliotti we've already found was, in fact, a female, and that the males had crests twice that size. Though I happen to doubt it.
As for gremlin.net, I'm still planning out the new version with the expectation of switching over to ActiveServer. By the same token, I'm planning out Site of the Living Dead in the same way. And that's actually causing things to take longer, since I'm tempted to add in all this stuff available exclusively in .asp files. What I really need to do is figure out a simple version which could theoretically work in .html, but write it as .asp. Then I'll see what other neat stuff I could add, once that's all ready to upload. But I keep not doing that. I don't know why.
I've worked out part of the problem, of course. Part of the problem is that I went 2,475 hours without a damned laptop, in which time I started letting people talk to me in restaurants. Now that I've got a laptop again, they keep doing that. Maybe I just need to find new restaurants; I dunno.
And then there's Deadache. And that's a mess, as always. Here's the problem: I write novels. That's easy. It's kinda like writing a What's New, but trying to have something like, you know, a point. In writing novels, I'm a pure deity: whatever I want to have happen can happen. Not a problem.
In writing something like Deadache, it's not quite that simple. Because I get that, eventually, whatever I come up with in the story is gonna have to exist in reality. Or, really, in virtual reality. If I've got a house in the story, I've got to build the house in LightWave. And, to be fair about it, I've got to build the house next door, and across the street, and throughout the town. On the bright side, I planned ahead and made the town an island, so there are eventual borders.
Meanwhile, any character in the story eventually has to work with someone doing the voice for the character. In order to get that right before the fact, I've got to know who's going to be doing the voice. So that's another paradox. The story relies on the people doing the voices for the characters in the story, wandering into the buildings in the story. There's no good starting place.
Still, it's started. I'm putting together the town. Just...don't be surprised if a given building eventaully becomes something entirely else, when it turns out that I shoulda built something else there in the first place.
I'll get it done. Probably at about the same time that compression ratios and modem speeds match up to make it a viable netcast. At the moment, a given episode is trying to be a couple hundred megabytes, which is a bit much for some people to watch.
More later....
--Gremlin