Woe Is Mrs. Wendly Kate

I mentioned the other day that the #1 son listed his iPhone for sale on eBay for $500. It's a nice little phone, unlocked, no defects, with $70 of extra dealybobs to go with it. About 24 hours later, he had a customer who bought it with Buy It Now. He was pleased, having put in a bid on a different phone himself.

About an hour after the purchase, he got an email which requested that he mail the iPhone the next morning, so the buyer's sister would get it on time. RED FLAG #1. Nobody expects an item to be mailed that fast. What's the rush?

Woe is Mrs. Wendly Kate. Seems that somebody has been using her eBay account for fraud, so right after she clicked Buy It Now, she had to delete her eBay account. RED FLAG #2. Never sell an item on eBay to a person with no eBay account.

The email also asked for the total price, with shipping, which was already listed on the eBay page. The buyer, Mrs. Wendly Kate, wanted to know how much and how to pay through PayPal, which was the only method of payment the #1 son would accept. He sent a reply with the amount, and said that he would ship the iPhone on Thursday afternoon if the amount had been credited through PayPal by then. Mrs. Wendly Kate shot back an email that he should just mail the iPhone Tuesday morning, and that if she and her husband got paid Tuesday, they could credit the PayPal account that evening. RED FLAG #3. Only a fool would ship the item before payment.

Mrs. Wendly Kate was quite insistent. She sent the shipping address, which just happened to be in Nigeria. RED FREAKIN' FLAG #4 ! ! ! Why would the #1 son ship an item to Nigeria when his auction specified U. S. shipping only?

Within the next hour, the #1 son emailed eBay and terminated the auction, due to suspicion of fraud. That wasn't one of eBay's choices of reasons to cancel. I think he chose the one about selling an item but not receiving payment. He included the red flags in the comment section. The site said that it could take up to 7 days to terminate an auction. He had a reply in about 5 minutes that his auction was terminated due to the buyer having no eBay account. That means #1 got his listing fees back.

Double woe is Mrs. Wendly Kate. Her PayPal account has been debited for $550! She really needs to know when that item is shipping. I know, because I got an email from PayPal saying that they need the shipping confirmation number before they can credit my PayPal account with the $550 that the verified Mrs. Wendly Kate has been debited. Funny, that email. It had two different fonts in my message. And even though it had some actual links to actual PayPal, and warned me to open a new browser before contacting PayPal...it said, "So now you can ship and send the shipping confirmation number to us."

Mrs. Wendly Kate must have nothing better to do than buy expensive items on eBay and email the sellers. The #1 son received two emails from eBay, since he used his email address for buyer contacts. Wouldn't you know it? eBay said that Mrs. Wendly Kate's eBay account had been reinstated, so now it was OK to mail the item that she had already paid for. Mrs. Wendly Kate is an expert spoofer. She had an engaging replica of an actual eBay email. Except that nobody on eBay's official site speaks in the same style of English as Mrs. Wendly Kate.

Mrs. Wendly Kate must have amassed her large fortune with which she buys eBay electronics by winning a lottery in Nigeria. Maybe she can send me that money for safekeeping, and give me a cut.