Paypal @ MindSay

30 years ago today my mom was flat on her back pushing me into this world.  I don't think I'm ready for Carosel yet, and I hope that the Sandmen don't catch me.  But that's a different story.

I made out pretty decent on b-day loot so far.  Got money for a 2nd computer chair from my parents, $20 gift certificates to the local movie theater from one of my sisters, and Supreme Commander & the Escaflowne boxed set from Farrah.  I also got a really nifty gift from PayPal.  My money back.

For a while I've been building a new PC.  Mostly cutting edge components.  Dual Core 64 bit CPU, nVidia 8800GTX graphics card, etc.  Only problem is that the first CPU I bought, I got off of eBay.  BIG mistake.  It didn't work.  That was almost 2 months ago.  I argued with the seller trying to get my money back, and he refused.  So I escalated it to PayPal.  They took their sweet damn time, but came through.  They ruled in my favor.  I'm to ship the worthless hunk of metal back to the guy, and as soon as he recieves it I get my $465 back.  That's a nice hunk of change, and I'm trying to decide what to do with it.

Anyways I'm waiting for the UPS guy today with some better memory for my new computer that will hopefully fix all the crashes and memory related error messages I keep getting.  After that it's off to see a matinee of TMNT before the kids get out of school for the day, and a friend is taking us out to dinner.  30 isn't all that bad so far.

Apart from the increasing amount of white hairs I'm getting in my beard.

So I bought $66 worth of American Apparel clothing (wholesale) from this guy through Paypal... and I'm rather worried that he'll run off with my money or something. I emailed him two days ago asking whether he received my order, and so far, no reply. I think I'm going to wait one more week, email him again, and then one more week, and if I don't receive anything by then, I'll file a report on Paypal. I don't know if that's right. Not quite sure what to do if that's the case. Next time, I think I'll just order from the lady selling American Apparel on Ebay. Her prices are rather expensive however, compared to this guy's. Oh well, better be safe than sorry.

Feeling miserable. I'm not sure why. It's something like feeling sick and stressed at the same time. But the thing is, I haven't been doing anything these past couple of days!!! I spent the last five days (yes, including 4th of July yesterday) playing the damn Altador Cup on Neopets. I think that must've emotionally and physically drained me. I literally played all day except for breakfast/lunch/dinner/shower/sleep breaks. Haven't seen the light of day much. Perhaps that's what I need: a healthy dose of vitamin D. Usually a mug of tea fixes me up pretty good, but not this time for some reason.

I think as a "reward" for my idiotic determination to reach my goal on Neopets (and then eventually reaching it), I deserve a tray of sushi to consume. Yes. They serve sushi about three or four blocks down from my house. The problem is, my mom is completely overprotective about EVERYTHING, and she doesn't let me leave the house unless it's to the backyard. Good grief. I think I'll call her up at work in a bit and try to convince her to let me walk just a couple of blocks to get lunch. And if she's that worked up about it, I'll make a deal with her that I'll stay with her on my cell phone the entire time I'm walking there. *face palm* ... Why did I have to be so lazy last summer!? Why couldn't I have taken driving lessons then so that I'd have my license now!?

Lets see how it goes.

I left my purse at home today. The purse with my wallet anyway.  I assumed it was in my Windows Media Bag.  Anyway, I used to keep a spare credit card in a spare wallet, but I had nothing. Nada.  Just my paypal debit card and like 34 cents in various places (under the seat etc/didn't really want to reach under the seat).  I had exactly $8 in my paypal debit account, so lunch was no problem.  I decided to go to Starbucks for a number of reasons, including I won't be able to grab dinner, because I'm going straight to a movie. So if I have Starbucks in addition to Burger King, I won't be hungry until after the movie.

So I present Starbucks with my Paypal debit card.

"Paypal is evil." the guy said and I almost said, "Well, so is Starbucks". That was almost my knee-jerk reaction. I probably opened my mouth to say the words, but then I'm like, no, what if he spits in my coffee. Or like overturns all the tables.  So I decided not to. But I mean, yeah, paypal sucks, but so does Starbucks.  So we talked about how Paypal had both done us wrong.

As for the movie tonight, I've already pre-registered for it.  This place is usually pretty cool and they don't ask for ID. If they do... forget it, I'm going home movie-less. It's not their fault. It's mine.

On my to do list:
1) Keep an extra credit card in my bag.
2) Check to see if I have my purse before leaving the house.

Our new computer comes with a 160 GB SATA drive. In fact, the motherboard only accepts the SATA drives, the next generation of connecting an internal hard drive to one's PC. It's easy, fast, and renders the two 40 GB drives we have from the old machine pretty obsolete.

For this reason I searched on ebay for an "enclosure" for one of the hard drives -- to convert it into a USB-capable drive that I can plug into either the new desktop or the not-as-new laptop. I found one for a good price and reasonable shipping. The seller was prompt and professional and sent the drive right out. I paid, as I have for the past several years, using PayPal.

In June of 1998, I moved in to a new apartment with socKs, my beautiful bride to be. We were married several months later, and we liked living in our apartment in our Melrose Placesque little community. It was very close to public transportation and some great restaurants. I even had a co-worker who moved in downstairs. Great place. We moved out in March of 2001 into the house we live in today, about seven miles away.

I sometimes get nostalgic about my old neighborhood. But I usually just think about it and don't bother heading in that direction.

My PayPal account, however, decided to take a trip down memory lane last week. I've used the account numerous times over the past five years we've been living her without incident. But for some reason, my last transaction to buy this hard drive enclosure included my old address. The apartment. And that's where the seller sent the device last week.

I was confused when he sent me the email which mentioned this. I checked my PayPal account -- sure enough, I only have one shipping address listed -- the house where I currently live. My billing address is up to date as well. I even checked ebay and found that my primary shipping address there reflected where I live now. But for some reason, PayPal decided to figure out what life was like for Shiny in the late 1990s.

The delivery confirmation slip (the seller was very organized!) showed that the package was received by the rental office on January 24 at 10:20am. I called the rental office and spoke to a woman named Barbara whose "How can I help you?" had a heavy tone of "Don't even think of starting trouble." I explained the situation and was wondering if the package had been stored there for the past week. She looked and said it wasn't there. Then she added: "we returned it."

Or so she thought. It was their policy to send packages back if they were mailed to folks no longer living there. I asked if there was any confirmation number, a time or date that it was dropped off -- any kind of logged notes so I could gauge when it would have been sent out. She replied by SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING AGAIN BUT SLOWER AND LOUDER. Thanks, lady. That was helpful.

So -- hopefully it's on its way back to the sender. He agreed to resend it back to me (at the correct address) if he gets it and as long as I pay actual shipping. Nice guy. But the question remains: where did my old address come from? Why did it pop up just now? And -- most importantly -- if I lose my merchandise because of this, whom can I yell at?

So I called the PayPal phone support line. about 35 minutes before I was supposed to leave work to pick up av. Big mistake...

The area code for PayPal's service center is 402 -- which is the area code for eastern Nebraska. However, it was quite obvious by the phone tones and quality of the call that I was no longer being connected to someone in the US.  I spoke with Ann -- who, like many outsourced customer service representatives, spoke very good English and was eager to help. That being said, It took a while for her to comprehend my question -- which was "why did this shipping address show up instead of the one I have set as a default."  And when she did, she put me on hold -- but first politely asked if it was okay if I could be put on hold.  And after holding for about ten minutes, she came back to politely ask me if she could put me on hold again.

Long story short -- she couldn't help me. She said that my old shipping address had been placed there because it was in my ebay profile (albeit hidden away and not set as a primary address), and that there was nothing I could do except for delete that address.  I asked if there was any way I could file a claim against PayPal; she said I could register a complaint against the cool guy I was buying this enclosure from (who has been great this entire time). After that, I said "thank you," and she asked me if I would mind holding again.  I held. Then I hung up after five minutes.

Worst case scenario is that I'm out twenty bucks and I just have to buy another one of these. That notwithstanding, it's nice to know that not only do I miss my old neighborhood, but my websites do as well. Perhaps they miss the Xando Cafe (now a Cosi) which would allow you to make S'mores. Or the wacky elevator with a mind of its own which went to our parking garage.  Perhaps this will prompt me to visit someday.