I'm not bitching about the seller; because after he pointed it out to me.. he was in the right. But..

I won THIS auction a couple of weeks ago.

I've been on eBay for over six years now and I learned early, and the hard way about checking for things like feedback percentage, payment expectancy and such before I bid. This guy also wanted $6 for priority.. no problem.

A few months ago (may have been longer) I started noticing the term and time under the entry: "Domestic Handling Time" in a seller's "Shipping, payment details and return policy". I never paid much attention to it and always thought this referred to a guesstimate of how long it would take for the shipping of an item to reach you. Since I hardly ever have any problems with shipping waits or the method I choose to pay for postage.. I didn't give it a second thought; nor even noticed it this time. I paid this guy on Fri the 2nd with instant PP transfer. I figured he'd mail out Monday and I'd get my DVD some time last week especially since he's using priority.

Fast forward to last Fri.. still no DVD. So I PM him and ask if he sent it. Got a reply yesterday; and in the meantime checked out his feedback more thoroughly.. some people had complained about slow shipping.. ah well. In his reply he said:

"Hi and thanks for your extreme patience in waiting. If you will be kind enough to re-read the auction it states that I have an up to ten day domestic handling time period to get things
packed and shipped, then the priority mail service that you paid for takes approximately 2-3
days for the postal service to get it to you."

<excuses edited out for brevity>

"I will be shipping over 100
items tomorrow 6-12-06 and am sending a copy of this e-mail to the 4 people who are concerned
about their packages. I will be leaving for vacation on Tuesday. While I am gone your
packages should arrive to you."

OK.. cordial.. if not curt. Then I noticed what that term was:

"Domestic Handling Time
Will usually ship within 10 business days of receiving cleared payment."

..AHHH.. I says.. this is how long it takes HIM to get his packages out (Actually.. I had seen this when I myself listed an auction and you can pick how many days go in here. I always picked 2 or 3 because.. once again I thought it meant "transit time"; and yes I know eBay now lists that too right beneath that according to delivery method).

So it's my fault but it still irks me a tiny bit that my only postage option is to pay $6 for expedited delivery while he has up to ten days to get off his arse and mail it. I'm surprised he hasn't got even more negs than he does. If he is going to give himself a 10 day leeway to mail.. he really shouldn't be using priority.. it's an oxymoron and of course you can send a DVD priority for LESS than $6 but I never complain because I always pay what's asked.. or don't bid if I feel I'm getting ripped overall.

Sooo.. next time I'll pay more attention. I'm not gonna' neg the guy because he's right.. and I should have paid more attention. I'd really like to buy from him again though; and this time I'd wait ten days to pay.

My bad.. from now on I'm gonna' look at that too.

It's kind of funny because the other day before this all happened I was thinking.. it probably wouldn't get a seller any bids but what if you stated something like: "You have 7 days to pay for your item. The promptness of my S&H is dependent on how quick you pay me. Pay in 1 day.. I will mail out your item in 1 day. Pay in 5 days and I have up to 5 days to send your item out.. etc. Am I the only one that thinks up annoying cr*p like this?