Yesterday I made my most accidental sale of all time. Someone had emailed me earlier in the week asking for bank details so they could pay for a book, the eBay id didn’t ring a bell but sometimes people ask so they know ahead of bidding/buying whether you bank with some obscure building society that doesn’t have a branch in their town. Some people just won’t do any banking on line and I don’t blame them. On-line financial transactions have a certain degree of risk. From my perspective providing a bsb and acct no. is safe as people can only deposit not withdraw, so I blithely send her my details.
A couple of days later in my acct appeared a deposit for $9.32 with an eBay user Id. An odd amount indeed. $9.45 or $9.95 I would get but not $9.32. I checked my sales just in case, nothing. I emailed the sender asking if they were sure they meant to pay me. I duly got a message back saying no it was someone else and could I transfer it back? Of course I thought with a sinking feeling. Here is the rub. My bank has a security measure whereby I have to add the recipient’s account as an authorised transferee then I have to obtain an SMS code to approve the transfer. This works really well if you have a mobile phone, I don’t have a mobile phone. I was using my daughter’s old phone just for this purpose but had a strong suspicioun I needed to pay something to keep it active. Or at least charge the battery. It’s been months since I have done either. No problem. I would just call in at a branch and deposit it over the counter. I read the email again to check her account information. She banks with an obscure building society that doesn’t have a branch in my town. Okay, I thought, I’ll see if I can ring the bank and get them to change the mobile number to an active one belonging to an offspring. How about a Money Order the erstwhile buyer suggested. Hmm I thought $5 to purchase a money order and a 60c stamp to post back $9.32. How about I sell you a book instead? I suggested. Okay that worked. I had one she wanted and I have packed it and posted it off. The $9.32 gets to stay in my account.
This means that my dismal online sales yesterday got boosted to 4 books. This morning I got up shortly after 4am yesterday hoping that someone might have bought something after I went to bed. It doesn’t matter than on Tuesday I sold 21 so am keeping up my batting average. I like to sell 10 a day on-line. Every day. It’s not that many really. I don’t think I am being overly ambitious. Anyhow at 4 am not surprisingly I had not sold any more so naturally that was a signal to add some new listings. At least I had put on warm pants so that wasn’t quite as onerous as it could have been. At one stage after peering at an ISBN by the light of the computer screen I decided that switching on a light was also a good idea. I then listed 7 books. Feeling virtuous another bright idea popped into my head, this time to transfer the previous day’s eftpos transactions from my b&m into my offset loan acct.
My credit card balance seemed higher than it should have been; darn I forgot to pay the CC by the due date. Now I will have to beg and plead with my bank to reverse the interest charge, which was considerably more than $9.32.
They might say no, as I think I missed the due date a few months back. I get every bill I can direct debited but this is one of the very few I have to do myself. I wonder if they would send you a SMS to remind you to pay your account. I might have to buy a phone, a cheap one like Nora suggested, because the remembering to pay my credit card by the due date part of my brain is malfuctioning.
I had better get listing, I need some more of those $9.32s,
Therese Holland
McLeods Books
10 Station St
Nunawading 3131
Vic, Australia
Glad to know I’m not the only one to get up shortly after 4 AM and wander over to the computer. Although I do fix a cup of instant coffee first. Way to go on the accidental sale! Now do that 10 times a day.
You do better than me. At 4 am I am chilly, cantakerous and clumsy. Nor can I contemplate me, a computer and a cup of coffee all in the same place. At 4am or any other time. It’s not feasible that I would not somehow seek to unite said coffee with said computer. Besides, where would the coffee go ? All available surface area within a 6 kilometre radius is covered in books.
Therese who got up late this morning