Had a dresser / chest of drawers for sale on Craigslist for a couple weeks. Nothing special, pressboard actually but in nice shape and nice looking $65.00. Got a call from a buyer about an hour away who wanted to come see it. The buyer had to borrow a truck from a friend. Calls back, ok has a borrowed truck and will come. Arranged to come at 5:30. I get a call around 5:00 that they had a flat tire on the truck half way here. Will have to try again another day. They called back at about 6:15 asking if they can still come. Sure! Finally around 7:00 they arrive...in a huge tow truck with the smaller truck with the flat time loaded on it! Tire was shreaded by the way. Saw the dresser. Wife is hesitant, says "I didn't realize it was pressboard". Husband says "After all this we are not leaving without a dresser...we'll take it". Didn't even talk me down. Tow truck driver lowered the smaller truck, we loaded up the dresser, driver raised it back up and away they went!

I know there's been some discussion about this in the past year but I'm wondering how it has been going for those that use it. Last year I unknowingly offered it on some listings. I think I sold a couple items through it and had no problems but stopped using it pretty quickly. Not sure why. Anyway, here we are in a new year and all the sudden it's there again on my listings. Only noticed because I sold a (very fragile) clock for a bit over $800.00 and panicked because the buyer was listed as being in Russia (I think). I always list as US shipping only but there are those that just bid anyway and hope you will ship to them. Then I see he has paid and shipping is very inexpensive. I check and the address is Kentucky. ? That's when I finally figured out it is an EBAY Global Shipping situation. Anyway, I sent it, he got it (pretty quickly actually) and has already given me great feedback.

So my question is, are any of you consistently using the Global Shipping Program and how is it going? Also, my other concern is items over $250.00 which must have signature confirmation. Who signs? The Ebay crew in Kentucky or the buyer at the final destination?

I have listed quite a few new things lately and it seems like no one is buying. Has anyone else noticed a slow down? Craigslist also.

Maybe everybody already knows this but apparently I don't read the fine print...just found out that when you ship USPS and print your shipping from EBAY and pay for insurance you are not getting insurance from the post office. Here I've been trying to track down a package I shipped out on 9/10 (yeah, the post office lost it, grrrr) and the post office told me I didn't purchase insurance. I said I did and have the receipt to prove it. This is were I finally read the fine print. The insurance I purchased is ShipCover through EBAY and not USPS insurance. Not sure if this is good news or bad news yet. I get to file my claim on the 11th to hopefully get my money back. I refunded the buyer a couple days ago. She was very nice about the whole thing and even gave me good feedback. So apparently ShipCover will reimburse me the cost of the item ($330.00) but not the shipping ($50.00ish). I'm filling out a claim form with the post office to get my shipping cost back. Seems reasonable that they shouldn't get to keep money for a service they obviously did not provide.  My post office seems to think I will get it but we shall see....Anybody ever deal with ShipCover? Or USPS lost package shipping cost reimbursement?

Interesting opportunity has come our way. A friend was approached by someone that has a full house that he wants to sell the contents of so it can be sold. It was too much for our friend and his partner to deal with so we were given the opportunity to partner up for the deal. The word hoarder was used. Apparently the man inherited it from an elderly lady friend who had no heirs. She was 92 and had lived there for 60+ years.  A little scary and two hours from home but we figured it was worth a try. I googled the address and the house is 1240 sq. feet. Nice neighborhood.  We went to see it today. OMG!!!!!! Yes you could call her a hoarder. But good news is she was a very clean hoarder. More like a collector really. No trash. Just stuff....everywhere. Boxes piled along all walls so walkways are narrow. The guy selling it has done some sorting and has removed clothing but not much else. Lots of figurines, trinkets, antique clocks, cast iron door stops, figurines and bookends, paintings and prints, furniture, very few books (thank God!), two big bins of jewelry (mostly costume but some sterling), depression glass, antique microscopes, antique opthomologist glasses set with all the lenses, lots of antiques and vintage stuff....I could go on and on but I am still so overwhelmed I can not even wrap my mind around it. The owner says no rush to get the house empty. I'm thinking it will take a month at least. Another thing that freaks me out is the whole partner thing. How in the world can you split something like this?
This is going to be a long process, not just to empty the house but to sell all the stuff. Also our friends don't have trucks or trailers (we do) or a place to store the stuff (we don't really but could make it work). Oh and did I mention that in addition to the 1240 sq foot house, there is a guest house, a garage with attached room, and another storage building that is probably another 1000 square feet. All full of stuff.     

Is anyone else out there suffering with the recent USPS pricing change and the loss of "Parcel Post"? What a pain. It was just so convenient to use parcel post, print the label on Ebay and go drop it on the counter at the post office. Now I have to put a label on the package, go to the post office and stand in line to buy Standard Post (which is not yet available online and is more expensive than Parcel Post was). I've had to switch to Fedex for heavier stuff but the nearest Fedex office is 16 miles away and you can't put Fedex ground in those drop boxes. I got lucky yesterday and received a package from Fedex and the driver was willing to take my outgoing package. He said I can call and they will pick up, just leave it on my doorstep. Not sure if they charge for that but will be checking.  I have been comparing prices on most of my packages and it seems that most smaller stuff is ok at the post office but anything larger needs to go Fedex. USP is always the most expensive (so far). Just really frustrated! I don't like change....

Has anybody run across any auctioneers with shills / fake buyers in the crowd? I've had a couple situations come up recently, involving two different auctioneers, that have been really frustrating. In the first case the rumor is that the auctioneer has people in the crowd bidding just to get the price up. After hearing this we payed closer attention to exactly who was bidding and there was a guy from out of the area that none of the regulars knew that was bidding on almost every locker. The auctioneer was calling him by name and a peek at the sign up sheet revealed that the guy was from the same town as the auctioneer. On the other hand the bidder did win at least two of the lockers so maybe he's legit? One of the regular buyers in our area has had previous issues with this auctioneer where at an auction he was outbid on a very expensive unit (several thousand) and afterwards the auctioneer contacted him to say the buyer backed out and did he still want it for his last bid? He thinks it was a shill and he refused the offer.

In the case of the other auctioneer, I've only attended his auctions twice. In both cases people in the crowds ended up very upset and there were shouting matches between the angry buyers and the auctioneer. Funny, I've never seen this happen between any other auctioneer and a buyer but it's happened twice now with this auctioneer. Anyway, the auctioneer has a couple of guys that stand to either side of him watching the crowd to spot bids. It's very chaotic and loud with them alternately shouting out "here" and pointing into the crowd. Over and over again there is confusion over the amount of the last bid and several times when bidders tried to see who the supposed bidder on the other side of the crowd is it gets retracted by the spotter with a "oh wait, you had the last bid". Hard to explain but basically it appears that the spotters are just getting a buyer to keep bidding himself up. If anyone else reading this has been to this auctioneers auctions you probably know exactly who I'm talking about.