My Nearing 100 Year Old Customer on Ebay

My Nearing 100 Year Old Customer on Ebay

I felt I had to write about a transaction I had on ebay that I will never forget.  Many years ago, when I first started selling  on ebay I sold an eclectic mix of items including  china, glass, brass etc before I decided to specialise in silver.

I had a brass ships bell offered for sale which sold quite quickly and I received an email from the lady who purchased it, to say that she had bought it for her husband to go on  his boat.  Included in the email she stated that she was nearing 100.

My Nearing 100 Year Old Customer on Ebay

As stated on the front page of my blog, I do like chatting and always like to treat my customers with a personal touch and will engage in chatty emails.  I sent her an email in reply and thought I would be helping her, by enlarging the font size and made it bold so that it would be easier for her to read.  I told her I was was utterly amazed to think that this dear old lady was not only  using a computer but also purchasing items from ebay.    I said that my Mum who was in her seventies at the time,  couldn’t even switch on a computer and how impressed I was with her abilities to use one so well.

I had an email back from her stating that when she opened up my email, she naturally wondered why it was done in such large bold print.  She continued to read the email and it all became clear.  She then told me she had tears running down her face and she couldn’t contain the laughter.  She got her husband to read my email and he too fell about laughing.  The reason being, she was only 35 and the nearing 100 was to do with feedbacks on ebay not her age.  I had seemingly blanked out the  word “feedback” from her original email and hence made the comical mistake.  She found it extremely funny and so did her husband who was a serving soldier and said that he would keep the story to tell others, when they needed cheering up, as it would certainly raise a few laughs.

Come to think of it, I should have taken more note of the content in her original email, as if she was nearing 100, how old was her husband who’s boat she purchased the bell for?  Alarm (not brass) bells should have rung, but clearly they didn’t.

I now have had over 3,000 transactions on my Silver2treasure ebay shop, having dealings with many different people, and a few who I regularly keep in contact with, but this particular transaction will remain a talking point for ever.

My Nearing 100 Year Old Customer on Ebay