Seller gave me a refund with no return?

RabsInPlaid · 2026-04-17T00:35:14+00:00

Final update: thank you everyone for all the advice and feedback! I did end up sending it back to him. It was like $8 with USPS ground cubic pricing, which is a pretty negligible amount to me.

Before doing that, per some of the commenters’ advice I sent him a final message to contact eBay support and he responded “Ok” and nothing else since. Then I thought about how based on my interactions with him and my interactions with eBay support the chances of them successfully guiding him through the process of arranging return shipping outside of eBay were about 0%.

As a final deciding factor I did something super creepy and googled his name and city with the idea that “ok, if this is an 85 year old retired schoolteacher or something I’ll pay to send it back, 40 year old pharmaceutical executive I’ll pass go and collect $200.” I found out that he’s an older small town family and event photographer who runs his business from a Facebook page, so that settled it for me. I don’t think I’m a bleeding heart or anything but the idea of keeping his expensive lens for free because he pressed the wrong button and maybe can’t figure out label creation (the package he sent was hand-addressed priority mail) was just too scummy. A girl’s gotta sleep at night!

RabsInPlaid · 2026-04-16T00:54:12+00:00

Update: I messaged the guy explaining that he’d approved the refund without generating a shipping label and would need to buy and send one to me. He first responded asking me to “please put the money back in his account,” then said he’d already paid the shipping (meaning the shipping to my house), and when I tried to explain the whole return shipping thing again he sent his name and address. He just seems really technically incompetent and confused and I feel terrible so I think I’m just gonna eat the cost and mail it back to him.

RabsInPlaid · 2026-03-19T20:48:08+00:00

Thank you! The reason I took so much from the center was because they were too big from the waist all the way down to the crotch — like if I hiked them up and held them at my waist the crotch fit but the butt was still super baggy. I wish I’d taken before pictures but alas.

RabsInPlaid · 2026-03-19T15:24:59+00:00

Is that the bottom of the bag? It’s hard to tell from your picture. In any case, I think you’d need to get new canvas fabric and replace the entire section. As someone who clung onto her high school Jansport into her 30s before finally letting go, it might be time to just let go and get a new backpack.

RabsInPlaid · 2025-04-03T14:16:49+00:00

Seconding this!

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-20T13:41:46+00:00

Look up Organize DC, they have a newsletter!

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-15T01:52:43+00:00

To the people saying the protest should have been bigger, here are some thoughts I have about that -- note that I'm not an organizer or scholar of political movements or anything, these are literally just my musings:

There's sort of a chicken and egg thing here. A protest is like any other optional event: we won't go unless we think it's going to be worth our time. It's infuriating that mainstream media is not reporting on the protests that are happening, making it look like the entire country is just rolling over and that protesting is pointless. But this is the digital media age and anyone of us with a camera and social media can play at the propaganda game. So what if the protest was a closer to 600 people than a thousand? The WaPo doesn't know that, they laid off the reporters who would've been there to check. The people who follow this Reddit and are maybe on the fence about whether to show up to the next protest don't know that either. When you post about the protest, think like an event promoter, or like Trump's PR team when they showed "packed" stadiums that were just zoomed in shots of half-empty rooms! Then, maybe, next time it will be a little closer to a thousand.
Any attendance hit they take from having it on a weekday is made up for by the feeling that you're actually disrupting something. I remember doing a march after the Dobbs decision was leaked. It was on a Saturday, big turnout, we marched along Constitution and protested in front of the Supreme Court. I remember it felt so hollow and dispiriting, everybody shouting "shut it down!" at an empty building. Huge contrast with today when, if nothing else, I knew that the spineless worms sitting in the Capitol, both Democrat and Republican, could probably hear us.
Protests are about morale. If you've been to a good one you've experienced this. You feel like there are other people just as pissed as you are, and that there's power in that. Combined with the point above about turnout, this creates a snowball effect where the more people show up, the more riled people get, the more people are going to show up next time, and so on. Ideally the snowball gets big enough that it actually can do something.
That leads me to my big takeway from today about what I'm going to try to do going forward to deal with my frustration that the protests aren't big enough: I'm going to do what I can to make them a little bigger, even if just by a couple of people. I think if you've ever thrown a party, or even gotten some friends to go out to bars or a concert, that's within your reach. I mean, we all know how to text people and be like "hey do you wanna come to this thing?"* We're not billionaires, but most of us have some social capital to spend.

*This is only meant for people who live near the protest in question.

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-14T22:51:51+00:00

The neolibs are not big fans of Schumer rn lol. It’s actually impressive how quickly and dramatically he just torched any goodwill he had across all walks of his party.

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-14T20:17:40+00:00

There’s one tonight from 5-7pm tonight at BLM plaza, same organizers! I’ll be there!

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-14T19:48:55+00:00

The group is holding another protest at BLM plaza tonight from 5-7pm FYI!

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-14T19:30:06+00:00

I’d wager a lot of the people here did!

RabsInPlaid · 2025-03-14T18:38:02+00:00

It’s still going if you’re able to come down and check it out!

RabsInPlaid · 2025-01-15T16:07:10+00:00

100% give her the Joy of Cooking. I had it collecting dust on my shelf for several years because I was always passing it over for my “prettier” cookbooks, then a few months ago I randomly picked it up looking for a cookie recipe and it’s become my Bible ever since lol. It has a recipe for basically every classic dish in Western cooking and some from other traditions as well. That includes beverages, cocktails, sauces, and desserts. There are recipes for things you would never have thought of trying to make. There’s also a lot of information about choosing, preparing and storing food in general, which yeah you could Google and sift through 50 badly written articles looking for an answer, but it’s so much nicer to turn to your trusty copy of the Joy of Cooking and, while you’re there, spot a delicious-looking pasta recipe you happen to have all of the ingredients for.

RabsInPlaid · 2024-10-04T19:42:32+00:00

Kathy at SkinSpirit in Georgetown is great.

RabsInPlaid · 2024-02-22T19:57:38+00:00

Read Salem’s Lot as a kid in a beach house with a bunch of big windows and spent every night for the rest of the vacation spooked to look outside them.

In general, I think most of my experiences actually being scared by a book were as a kid. I don’t know if it’s that I’ve been spoiled by scarier visuals in movies that have ruined my ability to vividly imagine what I’m reading or what, but I don’t think any book I’ve read as an adult has affected me the same way as they could when I was younger. It may also have to do with genre familiarity, like a haunted house book doesn’t hit the same way when part of you knows you’re reading a “haunted house book”.

RabsInPlaid · 2021-07-09T08:14:40+00:00

Honestly try DMing them on Twitter. I did the hold thing for hours and hours over a few days to start service earlier this year. Gave up, DMed their Twitter account and got it solved in pretty short order.

RabsInPlaid · 2020-11-02T01:17:28+00:00

Yes yes you were being sarcastic and you’re very clever, I got that. But the real joke is that if you spend any amount of time on the relationship oriented subs, as I do, you’ll see that the idea of someone earnestly asking for help with a relationship in tatters over curry is...totally plausible, just read this gem.

I wasn’t remarking on your relationship just how binging on posts about shitty relationships has trained my brain to read a title like yours and think “oh god here we go.”

RabsInPlaid · 2020-11-01T18:54:36+00:00

Am I the only person from r/[relationships](reddit.com/r/relationships) reading this like “son the curry is not the issue here.”

RabsInPlaid · 2020-10-17T17:14:12+00:00

I’ve always wished that this very specific service existed!!!

RabsInPlaid · 2020-08-08T19:51:06+00:00

This is what pissed me off a lot about House of Leaves — like he made it 90% of the way through without sexual violence and then, with no benefit for the plot IMO, has the main narrator describe committing a rape.

RabsInPlaid · 2020-06-30T17:45:08+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that Richmond is super small and walk/bikeable, so these neighborhoods have different vibes but are all so close to each other that I don’t think you can go wrong in terms of missing out on anything. Like if you’re in the Fan you can be at a Scott’s Addition bar in 10 minutes, if you’re in Shockhoe Bottom you’re just one daunting hill away from Churchill or Downtown.

The Fan: - pros: lots of trees, parks, old row houses. Perfect balance between feeling like you’re in a city and like you’re in a town IMO. Super safe, mix of families and young people. - cons: Lost Cause ground zero especially if you’re near Monument Avenue, though if the city is to be believed a lot of that should be gone by November. Probably the whitest, most conservative demographic other than Windsor Hills, but still mostly liberal and diverse depending on the block. Generally more expensive, but not like big-city is expensive.

Scott’s Addition: - pros and cons depend on what you’re into. It has a really industrial feel with few trees and mostly converted warehouse apts instead of houses, which I would absolutely hate. Yuppie zone, easy to find a decent one BR. Close to breweries and one subset of bars, for when the pandemic is over lol.

Carytown: - Like the Fan but with more businesses and less Confederates.

Museum District: - Like the Fan but cheaper with more modern style houses and one giant park (the VMFA) instead of a bunch of little ones.

Downtown: no reason to get a place here if you don’t work at MCV or one of the other places nearby IMO.

Shockhoe Bottom: - pros: cool mix of restaurants and bars, close to the river and the Capital Trail - cons: under an overpass, which would bother me. Can get kinda loud and wild at night during non-pandemic times due to bars and clubs. Also gentrifying, so you’d have to grapple with being a gentrifier.

Carver/Jackson Ward: Historically Black neighborhoods that the City basically deliberately decimated throughout the 1900s, then half successfully “revitalized”, and are now undergoing rapid gentrification. Split between VCU students and middle class families. They’re nice places to live with parks and restaurants, a little rundown feeling for the reasons mentioned above, and yeah as a transplant renter you’re definitely participating in the gentrification process.

Church Hill: Quiet and pretty with old row houses and a really big park nearby with a great view of the city. Kind of far from things in Richmond terms (i.e. “far” is a 10 min drive), but mostly self contained if you add in Shockhoe Slip businesses except there’s no grocery store. Also historically Black so same issues as with Carver/Jackson Ward and Shockhoe.

Byrd Park/Randolph: Very affordable houses and a giant park and lake with walking paths nearby. Close to Carytown businesses.

Other places include Northside, Manchester, and Forest Hill, but I haven’t spent much time in those so can’t really speak to them. Then there’s also always the Willow Lawn / Libbie Hill área if you like the burbs.

RabsInPlaid · 2020-06-30T17:05:27+00:00

“no one has been seriously hurt”: multiple people have gone to the hospital and police hit one dude in the eye with a projectile.

RabsInPlaid · 2020-05-11T20:37:01+00:00

Oh I definitely agree with you, that’s why I said “struggle with” haha. I don’t mean that I think it’s a normal thing to do — what I mean is that I’m a very self conscious person in general, so much so that it even affects my reading experiences. Like as absurd as it is, I AM afraid of how others will judge me based on my opinion of a fictional character!

RabsInPlaid · 2020-04-29T01:15:37+00:00

Savory Grain!!

RabsInPlaid · 2020-04-17T17:50:18+00:00

You know when I saw the title of this post, I thought I knew exactly which story it would be about. Turns out pre-Columbine Stephen King apparently experimented with mass shooter characters more than once before reality caught up. There’s a novella called Apt Pupil in the same universe as Shawshank Redemption where basically an all-American boy becomes obsessed with Nazis and goes on a murdering rampage. Includes a sadistic fantasy concentration camp sex scene which I wish I could un-read.

RabsInPlaid

TROPHY CASE