Deception

I've been selling a bunch of my brother's old clothes on EBay recently. Last week I had a woman named 09momoftwo buy some of the Hollister and Abercrombie clothes I was selling. She requested that before I list anything again that I email her because there were some things she wanted before that someone else bought. In my naive mind I took her screen name "mom of two" and assumed that she was searching EBay for inexpensive clothes for her two boys. So, I emailed her right before I started listing the rest of the Hollister and Abercrombie clothes I had so that she could start watching. She immediately bought item after item as I listed them. I thought, wow, she must have a child that wears the exact same size that my brother does (I'm talking shoes, hats, pants, shirts, jewelry - she bought it all!) I got a little excited that she was buying every item I listed, so I listed a pair of shorts for $5. I felt bad because she was a Mom of two buying for her two boys (that's what I had envisioned) so I went back and changed the price to $4. I then gave her a big shipping discount (which I didn't have to do) and also gave her great feedback....

Yesterday, I decided to browse around EBay and see what she was selling. To my shock I found listed "Mens/boys 43 piece lot hollister abercrombie AE, hurley" with items she had purchased from me, including my original pictures!! She is reselling everything that she buys from me! I know this is completely legal and shouldn't be a big deal. However, I can't get it out of my head. I think what bothers me is that I try to be incredibly honest and detailed when I sell on EBay. I sold an Abercrombie shirt that had a rip that was sewn and included a picture of the rip and detailed it in the listing. This woman, not only is using my pictures without my permission, but she is being dishonest about it. All of her listings say "cleaning out the closets" and then list other people's items. She is reselling that same Abercrombie shirt, but her listing has no mention of the mended rip. I wrote in my listings that some of the shirts had stains; in her listings she says "worn a little but in good shape". How does she know how much it was worn, it's still sitting in a box at my house!?!

I really like to see the good in people. I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I don't usually hold a grudge. I truly believe that people have a good heart somewhere deep down. But the truth is, there aren't many people you can truly trust. People lie. Lying bothers me more than anything (even more than loud chewing noises!!) I felt some compassion towards this "Mom of two" and my helpful nature thought about listing the clothes for as cheap as possible just to help her out. Now, she’s taking my clothes and lying to others about them, using my pictures without my permission and selling the clothes for triple what I sold them to her. (I don’t blame her for the resell. It’s a pretty ingenious idea actually.) I just don’t like when people lie. I don’t understand the point.

My brother and I joked that I should change my EBay name to something like "Homeless mother of 12 who has to sell these clothes to feed her children" and then list my items for really expensive.

I bet Mom of two would do it.