Being Messed Around — VerifyYourBrain

3 people in 1 day is kind of a new record for me.

I came across 1 really good deal, and 2 okay-ish ones. All had decent money making potential, of 2x, one in particular though was at least 3x, if not 4.

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The Best Deal

So, the best one was €80, and it was one of the more modern Xbox 360's, two controllers, a ton of Skylanders figures, and about 40 Xbox games.

The controllers were a good €20 a piece in good condition, the console could easy go for €40+, and then everything else would be just profit. One game alone was worth €40, and the a few more were decent enough. Obviously that all depended on condition and whether or not they were complete.

Anyway, the deal is set, they're happy to post if I covered the cost, they say to pay and they'll get it boxed up and in the post. I ask for their PayPal - which we already agreed to use - and they ask me to use Revolute.

Context:
I never used Revolute, because there's no way to claim money back if the item doesn't come through. Whereas on PayPal you can and it saved me once when things didn't go well.

So anyway, I said that I only use PayPal when dealing with people online. Then they replied saying that they only have Revolute and someone is coming in half an hour to take it.

That's when my Spidey sense tingled and I just replied saying that it's a bit suspicious that we had the deal worked out all morning, only to find out they had a deal in the background with someone who was on their way. They never replied.

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In Other News

I've listed 28 items today, all of the PS1 games I photographed the other day, and all of the Hero Factory/ Bionicle people I had built and ready to go.

I'm going to do the Nintendo DS games I have, and maybe get a start on the Lego Figures I have ready to go.

Then I can start working my way through the Halo Sets, and then all the Xbox, PS2, and PS3 games.

My rationale is to upload everything of each category in one go so if anyone interested in those particular items comes along they'll be able to see all of the other similar bits.

I still have sets to build, and I still have a rake of games to clean and photograph, but in the mean time, I want to pick up some more deals if I see any. I'd also really like to branch into some other territories, and get out of the mindset of, "Oh, I like this thing, so I'll buy and sell this stuff."

Yeah, when the antennae twitch, take notice of them.

I always find that when someone tries to break my systems, it's because they're up to something. Everything I do is set up because it pre-empts something that's been a previous problem.

I did see an unusual one today that I hadn't seen before. I let people pay by PayPal if they have an account, but I identified a massive security hole with the way PayPal deals with debit & credit card payments. So I use an alternative provider for card payments. I regularly scan the list of transactions to see why failed ones fail. Mostly it's mis-matches between address and postcode, or occasionally "bank declined - insufficient funds". But today I saw "bank declined - stolen card." That was a surprise ! It's a buyer definitely going onto my blocked list....