Imagine my surprise and delight this morning when I got this email from Ebay!
It’s all yours, now you just need to pay.
We hope you enjoy your latest purchase. The next step is pay the seller. Don’t wait. Pay now to get your item as soon as possible.Pay with PayPal, the safe and easy way to pay for your eBay purchases.1 hc sofa for Habbo UK GBP 1.99 Quantity:50 GBP 99.50
Why that’s great! I won a … what the fuck? 50 hc sofa for Habbo UK?
A few questions started to peak at this point. How did I win an auction in which I had not in fact participated? How was it possible that a bid was made by me at 12.02AM for fifty of something that appears to be a couch for some computer game? If I had such game what would I do with FIFTY virtual couches? What is Habbo?
Soon after:
Thank you for shopping on eBay! Your total amount due is £99.50. More details about your purchase are included below.1 hc sofa for Habbo UK 50 £1.99 £99.50
I was thrilled! I wrote back and got some more details on my latest acquisitions:
Please note that this is a system generated email; please do not reply to this email because it won’t reach us. You can contact the Customer support using the help section from the navbar.
Listing Violations > Fraudulent listings (illegal seller demands, you didn’t receive item etc) > You suspect that a listing is fraudulent (you didn’t bid)
Message: Did not bid on this item – I have no idea what it is about. Do not want it or to pay for it.
It was just like Christmas around here! But it was going to be a while before Santa got back to me. So I needed to think about what might have happened.
Possibly I am a sleepwalker, and during the night I got up and went to the computer to log onto Ebay and order what I secretly really wanted, which was 50 virtual couches. This is plausible except that I was in fact awake at the time the bid was made, doing 3D stuff.
Perhaps a fugue struck at my mind – I thought I was doing something else but was really unconsciously logged into Ebay on the prowl for couches. The problem is there is no record of my visiting Ebay at the time. Which also accounts for ghosts, gremlins and trained attack ferrets.
Could be a parallel universe has crossed into our own where couch ordering is part of everyday life. Could be Captain Kirk has used time travel. Could be the matrix.
Could also be that Ebay allows con artists to place fake bids as a means of shaking down suckers into paying for things they never bought, in which case their so called ’security measures’ are completely SHIT.
When I get back from work:
Dear REDACTED, REDACTED has sent you a request to cancel the transaction for 1 hc sofa for Habbo UK.Reason for request: The seller says that you have purchased the item in error. Please click the Take action button to accept or decline this request.
Yes, error. I was in the shower and slipped on the soap and accidentally fell on the computer making it buy 50 couches. Note in this mail it says ONE couch. In this case all I can do is accept the cancellation, but as far as EBay is concerned the case is closed, it was my error.
May the market collapse, taking Ebay to bankruptcy, may the CEO catch an embarrasing disease, may the person that played this scam find an urgent need to transgender themselves with a blunt knife. A pox on all their houses. Fuck them and burn their swag.
As a parting shot 21 emails sent to me by the university at which I study, having mysteriously vanished into the aether over months suddenly disgorged themselves into my inbox this evening. Mails I needed urgently for my application, mails that asked me to complete forms, mail inviting me to a night out but needing me to respond yesterday. Plurrp. Hello.
Bloody Internet.