Always Remember to Open the Box

If you are a seller on Amazon, consider this your PSA for the day.

Or your cautionary “Do not do what I did” tale.

Or your, Geez Deb you are idiot tale.

Take your pick.

I occasionally put something up for sale in the Amazon Marketplace. Not all that often but if I have something that I think will sell I go ahead. I had an old digital camera hanging around, not being used, so I put it up on Amazon to sell. When I say old digital point and shoot what I really mean to say is that it was the first point and shoot I ever had and it was given to me back in 2003 by the parental units. I will be honest and say that the camera sat in the box for three solid months before I got it out to play with it. I didn’t think I needed a digital camera.

I know. Idiot.

Since 2003 I have moved onward and upward in the camera department but I hadn’t ever actually gotten rid of this little workhorse. So I figured that I would put it up on Amazon and see what happened. I had the camera. I had one memory card. I had two batteries and the charger. By the way, I should tell you that all of this actually happened in 2013, before we moved from OCK to Chez Knit. Where was I? Oh yes, so I put the camera plus the batteries and the card up on Amazon and sure enough, someone bought it. A whopping $30 but that is still, you know, $30. So I wrapped everything up carefully and sent it off to the buyer, whose name I do know by the way but won’t actually put up here….although I am sorely tempted to do so.

Sorely tempted.

I sent the camera off and didn’t think another thing about it. We had just sold OCK and were in the midst of trying to pack up the house, find someplace to live and execute a wedding. We might have been a tad busy you know. Imagine my horror when about three weeks after sending off the camera I got this email from the buyer,

Hi! I want to return this camera for a refund because it is defective. 

I took about 100 photos that were put on a memory card which was already inside

the camera.... next, to charge thebattery, I took out the Canon battery that also

was already in the camera and inserted it into the Rechargeable Battery Pack

(wall charger unit) which is what the seller included with this camera as stated....

and finally I put in the extra battery which, likewise, was included with this camera

as stated by the seller. All 3 steps involved periphials which are completely wrong

for this type camera, and as a result: 1.) I've not just lost all my photos since

inside was a FUJIFILM memory card which obviously is not the original-and while it

may have let me transfer my photos to my computer and upload them via the

USB port-- this USB cord was NOT included, and before I could even consider where

to buy a replacement USB cable my photos were already lost so as this type

Fujifilm CompactFlash memory card went completely defective upon switching

the camera battery... as soon as I switched batteries and turned on the camera

I got a screen message "Memory Card Cannot be Read". 

Farewell, photos, and 3-4 hours of worthy time and efforts spent meticulously

shooting..2.) The extra battery, I found out while literally writing this.. 

is not even for this type of Canon Camera - it reads on its backside that its

"For: Canon POWERSHOT S100, S110, S200, S300, S330" and this camera is 

the Canon PowerShot S500. 3.) And, finally, the battery pack included was also

completely wrong--its backside of says its a "CB-2LS" model--again

different/ incompatible with this camera that expressly states it is "Powered

by rechargeable battery pack NB-1LH (included with charger)"..and To Note on

the above-- NO I also did not receive the aforementioned "charger" 

(..??) I'm definitely willing to work w/seller on the refund & leave pos feedback

too as I'm assuming this all may not even be their intention fault(s).Thank you ".

Holy Digital Destruction Batman! I was horrified at the thought that I might have contributed

to anyone losing pictures. But I was also confused as I had used this camera and both batteries

and the charger without any problems. They had all been kept in one spot and weren’t allowed

to breed with any other cameras so the whole business about not being the correct battery 

charger etc was a bit on the confusing side. I didn’t have time frankly to investigate further 

and I felt horrified because I thought that somehow I had made a mistake so I refunded her

money AND I paid her postage to send the camera back. She was oh so grateful. The camera

came back and I promptly threw the unopened box in another box and packed it all up to 

move.

That unopened box has been sitting on my desk in my Woman Cave since August of 2013. 

I kept thinking that I should just open the darn thing and deal with it. I am usually not that

procrastinational about these sorts of things but in this instance I just kept shifting it from 

here to there. Then on Saturday I decided to actually open the box and do something about it.

And imagine my, shall we say, rather volcanic rage when I did open the box and found that

the purchaser had obviously at some point PRIED THE MEMORY CARD DOOR OPEN 

AND BROKEN THE CAMERA. What the ever loving! Oh, and she only returned ONE of the

batteries that I sent her. AND the charger was the correct one for the camera.

She was just a lying person who broke the thing and then wanted her money back. There are

words. There are SO many words. But I am trying to remember that this is a family blog. 

May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits lady!

Of course, if I had opened the box when she sent the camera back I probably could have done

something about it.

Like I said, Idiot. Both she and I.