This just in from Care-a-lot!

Friend Bear has had a sex change and is now a she. For those of you that grew up with a male Friend Bear in the 80′s, we ask that you please try to remain calm.

In other news, rumors are circulating that beloved character Strawberry Shortcake is also looking into getting a sex change and changing her name to Butchberry McSpikecake.

After I emailed the seller about the cruddy USB headset I was sold, there was a lot of pointless back and forth but the end result was that the seller was true to his (eventual) promise to give me a full refund for both shipping and the bid price for both phones. My only complaints about getting to this eventual end were:

1. He kept insisting, initially, that he would take the phone back first and only then decide if I would get a refund. I argued that once he had the phone, there was nothing to stop him from just saying "It works, no refund." I offered the compromise that I would call him with the phone so he could hear the problem and then, once he agreed to the refund, I would mail it back. Eventually, he just got really sick of me and said he would refund no matter what as long as I sent it back.
2. After several emails denying that his headsets were anything but perfect, he suddenly started back-tracking and saying that I was expecting too much quality from them. IE, phones that he earlier said were perfect, suddenly he was saying I should expect to not be able to hear from them.
3. The most annoying thing was this, however:

Seems to me you wanted to try the units, ordered, just don’t want the phones for wherever reason and want to get a full refund.

This doesn’t even make sense. If I wanted to try them out and not actually keep them, why would I order two from a seller with a terrible return policy? And the Whatever Reason is that they do not work at all. I mean, the guy refunded me, so I can’t be all that mad, but it annoys me that he wouldn’t just admit his phones stink or at least be big about it.

I went back and looked at his feedback after all this and, even though they are all positive, most are "delivered refund as promised" so I have a feeling this happens a lot.

You’re going to definitely want to avoid buying this brand of headsets.

I have decided that for the $10 more, it’s worth it to get a name brand so I just purchased this for my future Skype and podcasting needs:

I had this very old Hello Kitty pencil case from elementary school that was this big ice cream truck. I loved it as a kid so I used it to death so the thing was torn in a few places and the entire inside had been totally colored in with pencil (bored in class one day) and then erased off so it was all a light lead gray.

"Throw it out!" said my mom. But since I have a complex about throwing things out, I listed it on eBay for $0.99, no reserve. I figured it would sell for at least $1 and I could feel like someone else would enjoy it.

5 hours into the auction, I get an email asking me to end it early and sell it to a person for $25. This was much more money than I ever expected to get for this beat thing so I was about to do it when I noticed there was a bid on it. I don’t like to cancel an auction once there is a bid so I told the person who emailed that they were going to just have to bid that amount.

The case eventually sold for just under $70.

But here’s what kills me. Weeks later, I get an email from someone else asking me to give her the contact info for the high bidder because she will pay twice as much for it.

Then, in March (original sale was Dec), I get this email from the same person:

Hi,

I had written you a month ago or so about an item that you had sold back in Dec. (the Hello kitty pencil case item). I am so sorry to keep bothering you, but I have been trying to email the person (in Italy) who won and they haven’t written back. I am getting the feeling that they aren’t receiving my emails. I want to offer him/her $300 for it. Do you have their email? Or, could you write and ask for me? I figure because I am offering so much that they would be interested and not bothered.

I am not quite sure why she thinks I would be "bothered" as she likes to say to do this transaction for her when I would be making $0 on it, but I include this as an illustration why you should eBay anything you thought about throwing out.

You really never know!