Permission to Scream: Authorised

Well, I finally sold the Honda. I suppose that should be a cause for celebration seeing as it’s been the source of quite a bit of stress over the past week or so. Ever since I bought the Suzuki, I’ve had the burden of entering the murky world of vehicle sales looming over me like some kind of sentient shadow. A bit like Count Dracula’s in that shit movie with Neo Anderson from The Matrix in it. But hold the champagne – the celebrations haven’t been given the all clear just yet. One word: Paypal. I’ll come back to that in a second, but first let me explain why getting rid of the Honda has been such a pain in the ass.

The first and most important thing I had to contend with was actually getting the bike exposed to a buying public. I advertised it on eBay as a classified listing and had exactly zero phone calls for about a week, before noticing (quite by chance)that eBay had placed a totally random telephone number in the ‘contact the seller’ section. I clearly remember entering my actual phone number, so where this random string of digits came from, I don’t know. I know some services offer a ‘number masking’ thing, where buyers only get to see an 0800 number to protect your identity, but eBay never offered one: this random telephone number seems to have been entered seemingly at random. Odd. Suffice to say, that after entering my correct details I had a call within an hour that led to the eventual sale. But we’re not at that point just yet. Due to the lack of interest from eBayers, I decided that putting the bike up for sale on several websites would garner more exposure, so off I popped to Gumtree.

I’ve sold things on Gumtree before, but the kinds of people who respond to Gumtree ads tend to be the ones who bring a certain odour with them when they turn up to buy stuff: that of sweat and faeces. Why? Who knows, but they do. Anyway, I tried to post an advert in the motorcycles section of Gumtree, but every time I did, the advert appeared in the ‘cars’ section. This happened about 7 times, and every time I tried to contact customer services to ask why, I was met with an automated response with a different (stupid) name attached at the bottom. People like ‘Gary Sultana’ then started to bombard my inbox with requests to take a customer satisfaction survey and such like. Here’s my customer response, Gary Sultana: take your ridiculous name and go fuck yourself you prick. Your service is nonexistent and your website is a fucking joke.

I’m pretty sure one of the emails was from an actual person – somebody calling themselves ‘Liam Henderson.’ I wrote a lengthy and polite email to customer services explaining that I was trying to place an advert in the motorcycles section and that my advert, once accepted, would continue to be placed in the cars section, ergo anyone searching for a motorbike would not see my advert...because it was in the wrong section. You get the idea. Liam Henderson sent me a reply saying this: “Your advert is in the section ‘Cars, Vans & Motorcycles – Cars – Honda’...seems like the right place to me.” FUCKING MORON! At this point, I realised that trying to communicate with this online entity was like smashing my head repeatedly against a submarine hatch, so I admitted defeat and put a filter on any future Gumtree mail sending it automatically to the ‘junk’ folder.

I also paid £15 to have a third advert placed on the pages of MCN (that’s Motorcycle News, for those not in the know), and I didn’t actually have an issue with it, other than a few calls from people who were from hundreds of miles away asking if I could deliver the bike to them (erm...no. That’s not how buying a vehicle works).

Even in the face of this web-based adversity, various time wasting phone calls, and several visits from people who were clearly trying to get the bike off me for a fraction of the advertised price, I managed to sell the bike. The guy rang and emailed yesterday (after I amended the aforementioned eBay contact info issue) and seemed like quite a keen, decent buyer. He turned up, looked at the bike and we agreed a price (slightly lower than the asking price, but a sensible offer and one I was only too happy to accept after the developments of the past week). The only problem was that it was about 7pm and the banks were all closed so he couldn’t get the cash out for me. We decided to use the Wi-Fi in my flat so he could send the cash to me using PayPal, which seemed like a perfectly acceptable method at the time. That is until a) I realised that PayPal had siphoned off about £50 for the pleasure; and b) I got an email from them saying that my request to withdraw the payment to my bank account was ‘pending’ until they had reviewed it. REVIEWED WHAT?! The guy was sat in my house chatting with me when he did the transfer from his bank account to my PayPal account. We shook hands, and he left a happy man. Why does PayPal feel the need to stick its fucking stupid face in? I’ve queried this, and been told that it’s for my protection. Eh?! From what, exactly?! 

So that’s the current state of things. I’ve sold my Honda and the buyer is happy with it. I’m happy with the price he paid. But I still haven’t got my money because I made the massive mistake of letting PayPal become involved. And there isn’t a single fucking thing I can do about it.

The morale of this story has several layers. I propose the first one is this: do not sell a vehicle unless it is a matter of life and death. The stress levels you will encounter are (probably) similar to those endured when moving house or losing a loved one (as those are, apparently, the two most unsettling events you can go through in a stable, developed country...although evidence suggests that’s bullshit). Secondly, the internet fucking sucks...or rather, the people tasked with running shit that is based on the internet suck. Ultimately, people are people...and as I stated in a previous blog post, quite correctly in my opinion, people are cunts to each other. The last one is this: PayPal seems to be a company that creates its own rules and regulations and generally they fuck with people’s lives. I’ve had a look at the community forums to see how long they generally take to release users’ cash, and there doesn’t seem to be a definite answer other than: when they want to. Which is quite a big flaw, actually. The closure of my account will be pretty swift once I get my cash – well done PayPal.

I’m quite relieved that this whole ordeal is (almost) over, and when I finally get my money released, it’ll be a good few years before I dip my toe into the world of vehicle buying and selling. I’d like to dip my fist/boot into Gary Sultana or Liam Henderson’s face though. And PayPal’s collective face too, if possible.

In a sudden and rather unexpected change of tack, go here to read my blog post over at the National Archives blog. It’s about Digital Preservation, so not going to appeal to everybody...but go have a look anyway. Expand your horizons and all that shit.

Update: I've just been looking at my PayPal account and it appears I have a limit on the amount of money I can withdraw or send through my account. I've just been on the phone with them and they said that this shouldn't affect the transaction from yesterday and that my money will go into my bank account in the next few days. Gah! If only I'd insisted on a cash payment. Hindsight: what a fucking amazing invention. I'm not holding my breath - I expect a bloody, drawn-out war over this. My Afghanistan, if you will. Further updates as they happen.