eBay, she said.

Recently, an....   acquaintance of mine shall we say, she seemed quite upset.   This post is a somewhat stylized version of the ensuing conversation.   

Some of what she relayed to me was not quite exactly repeatable in polite company, nothing you'd say to the minister or barrister.  Other of what she relayed was almost not or not repeatable at all.    Not that I haven't been known to be quite unladylike from time to time myself in the past of course. 

Although I hesitate to write in certain ways,  I do not feel it's my job nor my responsibility to filter the speech of others, transposed transcripted composed composted or otherwise.   So any quotes will be actual quotes, unedited and verbatim, at least from what I remember of the exchange.   Not that it's anything you probably didn't hear on the schoolyard when you were 8 years of age, but be forewarned.  Although people do, after all, talk this way frequently and few are unfamiliar with it regardless of how much one might disapprove.    This is America after all, and if anything, illustrates expressive speech so highly valued by lovers of freedom everywhere.




Seeing her upset, well, lividly angry might be a better way to put it.   "What exactly," I asked, "Is the matter?   What has you going on about so?"
"Those pig-fucking shit-eating bastards at eBay." was the curt response
I daresay I was afraid things would be broken, shortly.   So I simply encouraged further discourse.  "Do tell," I replied.

Pacing furiously, she almost threw it at me.   "Was bidding on an item, and those sniper feces sucking turds....   God damn them."
I thought she was going to choke, and such a dreadful shade of red.   "Calm down, what did they do?  Please, the ambulance is expensive, and I know how frugal you are.  Here, some water."  I was only half kidding.

She drank, surprisingly enough, she didn't choke on it.   "The item was already at  what you can just buy one for, I've got the winning bid in, and the timer counts down to zero.   But this daughterson of a whorebitch popped in at the last second and ganked it.  Fucking ganked it!    My only consolation is that he/she/it paid as much as buying it outright, I guess."
"Well, if you were consoled somewhat, why so angry?"
She glared.   "The clock went to zero.   Then backed up some four or five seconds! Then fucking started counting down again.   That's when I see afterwards when it seemed my bid was good, that in the last milliseconds, fuckstick got it.    Is eBay dicking around with the clock, is this fucker a hacker or exploiting a flaw and like that.  What the shit is going on."

"Who were they?"  Yes, I asked it anyway.
"Just some stinky smelly anonbidder bitch, 5***i it said.  Few thousand rep.  You know, eBay, they started hiding all the names, bearing no real relation to the username.   5***i was probably something like necropheliacgrannyraper.   That's just so the snipers could bid up all the prices of everything.  They don't even know they're just sad pawns for the sellers, tools for the site, lackies, henches.  Then eBay further pussed out and stopped taking emails.  Jizzimbag fucks; if there weren't bargains I'd never darken my day with their door."
"Ah, well.    I hope it helps for you to talk about it."    I knew the answer already.  It would be a long one.
"Not really."  She sighed.  (It was like a sigh at least, more throaty and violent, with shaking though.)  "I shouldn't have been bidding on it then anyway, the goal was to get it at a discount, not spar with some moron.  Some guy living in his mom's basement, a guy who's never had a woman.  Jerks off to pics of guys and denies he's gay.     They treat the bidding like some contest you win at even if you pay more for something and can't sell it or make a profit on it.    Figuring  out how to screw the other users while lining eBay's pockets with more sucker loot.   It's supposed to be for me just bid and forget; 'if you get it you do, if you don't you don't'.   Because of their pitiful loser mindset, there isn't always a real demand for things;  and those you'll win.   I blame myself for not being able to understand the warped insane motivations they think they have."
"There, there." I hoped the rant was over and more interesting things could happen now.  "Sounds like such a minor thing to get into a tizzy about."
"Oh, that's not what upset me." she hissed.
I was not expecting that!   The hissing, maybe, but not that it was something else that was actually upsetting.   I stared and waited.

 "See, I bid on another one of the same ending later; ha, they paid more for that last one than just buying it elsewhere, so whatever.    Fuck it, right?  Lock and load, fire and forget.  I do.   Then I forget about it, and when I remember go back after it's over, and am somewhat surprised and a bit pleased, stop looking at me like that, because I won it for about fifteen percent less than I'd been willing to go for used.  A nice discount."
I've written of this before, people selling for or bidding at say $80 on an item you can but outright for $75.   I'm sure she's aware of that, so I just toss in "And?"
"Another different but similar dicklicking B&D anuspirate S&M babyhumper kittendrowning barfeating whore sniper had taken my what would have been winning bid and boosted it up like twenty bucks in the last second of the auction!   My autobid covered it, but they cost me money, and they didn't even win it.  No winner there, except for eGay and their lezbo buddies all circlejerking over pictures of their dads."  
I had to calm this down, it was making no sense even for her.   I expected rabid frothing at any second!    "Here, more water, please!"   At this rate, we'd be at this all night, and it's not exactly conducive even still.
 "Okay" {deep breath}  "I should be okay since I paid some  percent less but it's the other person making that not be another some percent less.    $135 turns into $120 that could have been $100 for example, you know?     All because of thumb up the ass and lick it vasoline king and his kingdom of butthole.   j***a with a few hundred rep and a body covered with his own filth at the glory hole as recipient.   And then I-"

At this point, she let out a horrible shriek, then noise filled with much babbling and incoherent rambling that what little of I understood I won't even consider quoting.  Nearly tearing the place up, and screaming insults and profanities to all the gods and Gods here and long gone,  detailing impossible physical acts, and more.   Suffice it to say that it's impossible for any one person to be that many nationalities, races, ethnic groups, religions, sexual orientations and kinks at once.  Although I was surprised she both knew so many insulting pejorative slurs and insults and that she could string them altogether so.  After about an hour, and a few cosmos, she was just calm enough to continue.

She continued, going faster as she went along though.    A lot of this is almost guesswork, pieced together later, she went so fast..   "I made the mistake of looking at another listing I was watching on this same item, which sadly had gone for less.   It was the same it piece of shit getting it!!  Not just last second, at the exact end of the auction.   eBay knows the system is like this and they laugh all the way to the bank.   Getting upset at them, they suck their dads and eat out their moms, oh well that's them.   The other sniperfag though.      This j***a thing didn't get other one for as little as it sandbagged me with, but just a bit more, but  the itemcost them  less than it made me pay for mine!!   It's not that mutated freaks like that get things for less than I do, it's that it was less than it fucked me over for, and not in a good way.   I tell you   they can shove their arm all the way up themselves until it comes out of their mouth, then they can rip off their faces and shove it back up their cunts, fucking twat fucker fucks..."

There was more,  but at this point I feel I must stop for the sake of my own sanity and yours, dear readers. 

She eventually calmed down, in many good ways, but I fear the upset angry feelings are not gone.   I can only conclude that there's very good reason bidders are anonymous, and that while there's not any untoward hanky-panky going on with bidding clocks and software, there's certainly an economic benefit to sellers (and hence to Ebay themselves) at having it work in that manner with the sniper programs and behaviors.   

The true key is to just bid on things and be patient, when you lose one, as you always will, just move to the next.   Please don't make the error of checking your watch list to see what indiviual bidders are doing in the auctions you're in or otherwise.  

And please don't become one of the inhuman beasts that prey upon the other users (bidders) in the quest to save a few dollars by kicking up auctions in the last second.   The software talks about being victorious by finding last second deals, but what you're really doing is hurting other users.    It may result in sellers getting a higher price (although not always) for the seller,  but at what price ill-will to your fellow humans doing the buying?    Don't be the monster, especially not when most often you will only be a slave benefiting the coffers of the masters you do the evil work of.

Or at least that's a somewhat more civilized way to look at it, and it requires far less swearing and increased  pulse and blood pressure.