10:02 pm, May 4, 2010
THEY don’t make it easy for you, do they?
I’m not technology luddite, nor am I that unfamiliar with eBay, but either they didn’t want our Audi listed or I was doing something wrong.
Talk about obstacles. Listing the first rung on the ladder for our 911 for 2011 feature felt like an online Army assault course.
First problem was the description. For some reason eBay gremlins insisted on changing the title of the advert to something completely different to what I typed. I think the IT department may have been playing silly buggers, because every time I clicked back something else was in the title box.
Then there was the pictures. First the uploader worked, then it didn’t. Then it deleted the best picture, then it appeared again. Then it crashed. Then it was back. Then it crashed again. To be honest, it’s a miracle my laptop is still in one piece after that episode. I kicked a chair instead.
Then there was the description. I umm-ed and arr-ed about what to put in, what to leave out. Then I decided honesty was the best policy – this was going on eBay after all and misdescribing something on there is tantamount to genocide. Anyone would think feedback was given not digitally, but with physical violence.
And I’m writing this just after making the listing live. I’m yet to bat away the ‘I’ll swap you my dog, my auntie’s half eaten cheese sandwich and a Land Rover gear knob for it?’ questions that are certainly going to appear in my inbox in T-minus five minutes and counting.
That does mean I’ve yet to have to decipher the pigeon English the great British unwashed use to communicate via the medium of eBay. No, I am not ‘alrit M8’ and no I do not ‘wan 2 sel it kwik’. This is an auction website where, funnily enough, you place a BID. If I wanted to swap it for your mum’s ‘hardly-used Nova’ I would have said so!
Blimey, I’m beginning to sound like our columnist and battle-hardened used car salesman, Big Mike…
Anyway, enough anger for one day. I’ll leave you with the cheesy video I’ve embedded into the listing – check out the arty ending. Spielberg I am not. Hopefully it’ll help fend off those ‘how many seats has it got?’ type questions.
James
Want to buy the Audi or know someone who does? Here’s the listing
