The spirit of Christmas is alive and well on eBay

I listed a beautiful Reuge music box on eBay on December 1. It ran for 7 days and didn't get a bid. So I lowered the price and ran it again.

I got a question from an eBay member asking me if the song was the one that they were looking for. She gave me the lyrics. Since it's a music box, I couldn't tell if it was the song she was looking for or not. The woman explained that her mother's health is failing and that the song she is interested in is the song that their father sang to her on their wedding day and before making a bid on the item, she wanted to make sure it was the right song. It reminded me of when my mom's health was failing and I would have done anything to sweeten her remaining days.

So I got my digital camera out, took a video of the box and posted it on youtube.com. I sent the link to the interested bidder. She informed me that indeed, that was the right song. So she put a bid on the music box. Then she wrote again a couple of days ago asking if I thought it would arrive in time for Christmas. I told her I wasn't sure and agreed to stop the auction so we could ship it sooner and hopefully her mother would get it for Christmas. I stopped the auction. I don't like to end auctions early because it isn't fair to other bidders but I had already run the music box for an entire week without a bid and besides, I wanted to help the woman. I imagined her mother's smile while her health is failing would be a sweet one.

After I ended the auction, another ebayer wrote and asked me what happened to the music box. He said he had been waiting to bid on it and that he wanted to complete his collection. I felt bad about it but I also wondered why he didn't bid on it when I ran it two weeks ago. I wrote back and explained about the woman's sick mother and apologized for stopping the auction. I suppose I should have lied and told him it got broken or lied and told him it got lost but for some idiotic reason, I told him the truth and thought he would understand.

Here is what he wrote back to me:

"This box was not listed just a couple weeks ago as I've been looking for these for two months straight every day 4 to 5 times a day. It had a bid on it as well which I was watching to outbid before bidding was over. My bid would have been higher as I really wanted this box. I've just outbid 5 others on 5 boxes in the last 3 weeks so I know this was not out there or I would've given you a bid & won. I was not given the chance to bid which is a violation of eBay policy. One is not allowed to pull an item with bid(s) to sell to the only bidder before the time is over. I sell here as well so I know sellers can see how many bid as well as how many are watching. As I was watching this, it would have shown you that fact. This woman you pulled this for is responsible to wait until bidding is over, so she canceled her bid against eBay rules, too. I'm sorry to say, I've reported this to eBay as required.

- 281gem"

So Merry Christmas to me. I tried to do something nice for someone and this is what happens. The guy is wrong of course. I listed the box on December 1 and sent him a link to it so he could see for himself.

'Tis the season.