[AliG]

Oh on a completely separate issue which I haven't even bothered to complain about yet, because it seems to common and has happened at least 6 times to me is as follows:

I purchase "UGG BOOTS" for my girlfriend advertised as "GENUINE, BRAND NEW, BOXED & SEALED" on eBay. This was on Dec 15 or 16th 2007 with a promise of "Delivery in time for xmas". Genuine UGGS only sell through UGG Australia for a fixed price. I paid that price for these boots, if I'd paid half price, I would have known I wasn't buying genuine boots.

Sure enough they were delivered on time for xmas, and I give them to my lovely partner. She opens them. They are fake as hell, if you go on google and search for "Fake UGGS" there are about 20 points to check on your boots. Well these boots fell in to about 15 or the 20 categories, i.e. flat foam base rather than proper sturdy indented base. Short height, bad stitching, etc. These boots were not really worth more than about $30 and I'd just paid the equivalent of $250 for them.

I contacted the seller immediately who told me that he'd bought them from a wholesale store at a quarter of the price and put them on ebay for $250 because thats what he saw the others selling for, he ***ured me that no one else had complained. He told me I could have them for half price.

I told him that these fake boots were worthless and I had no intention of paying for them when they'd been advertised as "GENUINE" and I'd paid the price accordingly for "GENUINE" boots.

Seller stops responding sure enough, paypal claim follows, you know the story..

Its now the 5th FEB!! and paypal are still 6 weeks later "reviewing" the case. It seems pretty simple and straight forward to me and probably anyone else but as I think we've all seen with paypal, they dont have time to read through the cases, my best bet is that some halfwit in some customer services department in the far east goes and flips a coin to decide who wins the case..

Oh the seller managed to log on to give me negative feedback on ebay for the transaction! Apparently I didn't communicate enough with him. Theres my first negative feedback in about 80 transactions ever.. oh and guess what, according to ebay I can't even contest this negative feedback as its part of the community feedback system, I just have to get over it.

As a savvy internet user, I've always told people that there are certain things that you just dont buy on ebay and buy online but theres plenty that you can, I change my mind on that now, its just an absolute joke. I'd rather pay more, and go to a real store with real people speaking real english and selling real products, rather than dealing with a load of faceless online companies that don't seem to be held accountable to any laws in any countries.

Lets wait and see..