Staircase Postscript

I indicated in a previous blog entry that, though I had managed to sell the staircase on eBay, I was not confident that the winning bidder was going to go through with the transaction. And so it came to pass.

It took a while for him to contact me, and when he did, he claimed that I had advertised the staircase as being located in Nottingham, then subsequently changed it to Stroud. Of course, I vigorously denied this, and in the end he backed down and admitted he had made a mistake (bidding on too many items in one night, I suspect).

I sent eBay messages to the second placed bidder, but got no reply for more than a week. It appeared that either my winning bidder was going to have to be forced to come all the way from Lincoln to collect, or I was going to be stuck with the staircase after all.

However, finally my second placed bidder got in touch. She was so disillusioned with eBay, having lost out in the dying seconds, that she had not logged in and read any messages. She was still very keen so I went through the "second chance offer" process, which is the official eBay method of selling to someone other than the winning bidder. It worked very well. Basically, the item gets listed again, and the chosen bidder gets to purchase at their previous bid price. Meanwhile, the "dispute console" is used to agree a mutual decision between me, as the seller, and the first winning bidder, not to go through with the original transaction. This allows me to recover the "final value fee" so I am not out of pocket.

The new winning bidder came to collect today, with a 7.5 ton horse box to take it away. Five of us managed to carry it out of the basement room, up the sloping garden, and into the horse box without too much strain. Finally it is gone and we have much more working space in the basement.

Another tick in a check-box.