With eBay integrating Skype with its auctions, I thought I would by myself a corded USB phone to start getting used to it. I thought it would be a cool way for me to offer phone support without people calling me in the middle of the night like usually happens with eBay.

I didn’t want to get a really cheap cruddy phone so I opted for Mini-Call which seemed a few steps up from some of them on eBay, but still pretty good. It has full display and caller id so it seemed cool. With shipping, it was a little over $20 for the phone and I purchased 2 (one for my mother).

I just opened it up when I got home from vacation today and the thing looks great. The software was easy to install and I called a few people with easy but no one was home so I left a lot of messages.

Then, when the people who I had left messages for came home, I got phone call after phone call telling me the phone was beyond horrible and that they couldn’t understand a single word I said.

I left myself a message on my cell phone to check it out and, sure enough, you cannot make out a single word said through this phone. As my brother put it, “it sounds like your voice is being filtered through 15 drive thru window speakers and then through a toy robot voice synthesizer while you stand next to a waterfall.”

My hub suggested maybe I just got a bum phone so I opened the one I bought for my mother. I actually think that one was worse than the first one. This phone is completely unusable.

So I went to check the auction and this guy’s return policy is that you have to pay for shipping to return the phone to him and he doesn’t refund shipping costs. Nevermind that he charged me $13 in shipping when we all know they cost $3 to ship, I am definately not going to still be out $20 once I return these two peices of garbage.

I emailed him first to give him the benefit of the doubt. I explained that I want a full refund for the full $50 I paid him and if he wants these phones back, he needs to send me a shipping label. I said that if he did not want them back, I understood as they are garbage and I will just throw them out.

I am going to give this guy 24 hours and then I am filing the PayPal chargeback. I am really hoping that PayPal will really protect buyers as they say they will and I will be in the clear. If not, I guess I could always resell these phones on eBay. The problem is not that I don’t think I will get the money back for them if I resell them, the problem is that I don’t feel right about reselling these busted phones to another unsuspecting soul.

Anyway, email has been sent off to the seller. More to come.

I think it’s kind of weird that Karen, Katie and I all posted big entries about trying to figure out where our lives were going in the last few weeks.

I wonder if it’s just the time in our lives that we are at or whether its something going around the world right now.

Either way, I thought that was a weird coincidence. . .

I am placing the order for the weddng invites today! (Well, the paper that I will make them from at least.) Only a few more wedding things to do now!

(Incidentally, bonus points if you can ID the title without the help of Google)