The eBay user known as billsmithautoparts is at it again. Not only did they jerk me around the last time I did business with them (which I throughly documented in that link), but now they’re continuing to harass me, as shown in their comment to me.
Yes, their original comment was from the name “Eat Me”, and was just a one-liner stating that I was a device used to introduce a stream of water into the human body, and introducing me to a rugby song. However, I felt extremely confident renaming it, since the comment was not only posted by the same email address they use for their business as posted on their eBay page (usedcarparts@comcast.net), but they have their very own IP block leased from AT&T WorldNet that this particular message came from. So I have two pieces of evidence that this message was, indeed, from them, not to mention it follows the writing style they use when they’re annoyed at someone.
So if you’re watching my blog now, Melissa O’Brien, George O’Brien, or Amanda Dehn (the three people listed on the billsmithautoparts eBay profile), know that your little stunt on my blog has gone noticed, and I’m bringing it back to people’s attention. Smart businesspeople know that anything said or done on the internet can and will come back to bite you. Your salvage yard may have been in operation since 1929 (as your website proclaims), but your internet sales image needs a little improvement.
This is one of the people they tell you to watch out for on eBay. At first, it looks like a nice operation run by decent people. However, once you have a bad experience with them, they become a nightmare. Sure, they do have a 99.7% positive feedback on over 8000 transactions, but the problems they DO have are significant.
I was one such victim. After purchasing a wheel from them, there was no communication - it was like they simply disappeared off the face of the planet. I even sent a question to them literally 3 minutes after I paid requesting tracking info. Silence. That was Monday. Friday, I finally got fed up with waiting for them to answer and bought another one from a local retailer. 10 minutes after I walked out the door, the wheel shows up - and 2 and a quarter hours after that, the email comes from PayPal with my tracking information. Naturally, I left negative feedback - communication is key - and not only do they leave negative feedback in return, but they file an Unpaid Item dispute with eBay! Of course, it was completely groundless, as I had used eBay’s own service to pay, and I prevailed.
Their prices may look appealing, but don’t be fooled - billsmithautoparts needs attitude readjustment to conduct business in today’s marketplace effectively.
[update 06.09.08] Bill Smith Auto Parts has left a comment on this post. Look below for their enlightening words. Now I ask you, when a company feels the need to leave a comment such as the one they’ve left here, and won’t even sign it with their own name but instead resort to “Eat Me”, is that really a company you want to be doing business with?
Apparently the blog is working again. That’s always good news.
The reason it broke (forgive me if I go into technical terms here, and I don’t stop to explain) is because I had some older versions of plugins running on this site. When Wordpress did its nightly update, the functions that these plugins were using became obsolete. Therefore, it had to wait for the current version to update first.
Now, we’re running the bleeding edge (v2.2) of Wordpress. It may crash occasionally, but I will do the best I can to remove the software that causes crashy behavior, because I really hate seeing ANY of my software inaccessible.
Right, so this is the last time I’m writing before I wipe Windows out.
The next step is wiping out Winblows, reinstalling Winblows, and reinstalling all the apps.
First I gotta figure out what I actually want on the system when I reinstall it.
So anyway, that’s about it with my system’s issues.
I’m very tired, and coughing, and being slightly nauseous, which is never a good sign. Especially when others you’ve been around all weekend have had the same symptoms.
Well, gotta go… y’know, limit time on the infected system, so as to limit the damage.
Right, so this virus I have on my computer?
It’s proving to be a VERY difficult virus to cleanse from the computer.of Matt.
So, if I can’t remove it in the next few days, I’ll just simply make a list of software I want to put back on, and wipe out Windows. That’ll teach the little buggars!
The system is dying.
This day, it is a virus. Death shall come soon to this honeypot.
Yes, very soon.
(Update 5/31/06 01:18 -0600 MDT: It is the ever-popular SpywareQuake program… from what I’ve read, it doesn’t look very harmful - just a piece of adware. We’ll see how difficult removal is.)
So, I’ve been looking at the CPU usage reports that DreamHost generates for all shared users, and I found a disturbing trend: I use somewhere around 25% of the CPU minutes on the machine known as Caesar. What do I use it on? Well, on a day when I don’t access my site via SSH, I see awstats.pl running for 5424.4800 CPU seconds, attempting to generate readable statistics for me. Other big users are php.cgi at 552.6800 CPU seconds, and perl at 24.0800 seconds. That 5424.4800 CPU seconds ALONE is worth 22.608% of the CPU seconds utilized by ALL users on Caesar that day.
They’ll probably move me to a different (hopefully, more powerful) server at some point… y’know, where there might be 5 high users on the same machine, and we duke it out for access to the resources. Either that, or I can try to reduce usage. I think I might try that… perhaps running the stats every hour IS a little too much… but I actually do use that info. So who knows what I’ll do?
So I show up for my Network Security Fundamentals class tonight, and only one other student is there. Two minutes before the class is set to begin, and there was still only the two of us. So I look at my syllabus, and lo and behold, there is no class tonight.
So now I’m upstairs in the “Writing Center”, cruising the net and watching American Idol on the 50″ TV. That’s right, the writing center has a 50 incher, just so people will have something to watch while they’re being lazy.
That, and I’m finishing downloading the 8 CDs of Debian Linux. Yeah, I’m a geek. So what?
Right, so the forums are online again.
I’m still trying to figure out why they broke, turns out it was .htaccess’s fault.
Whatever.
Now, I’m painfully going through each forum that I haven’t been to in forever and posting.
That’s why I shoulda brought a mouse…
*insert selfless year-whoring here*: Happy 2006!
*must stay alive to beat level 5*
Welcome to internal.mattfast1.com!
That’s right, the next portion of mattfast1 has been built on this pre-significant day: The internal network with an awesome computer as the interface and the gawdawful son of a whore as the connection/file server.
What does that mean for you? Absolutely nothing. Except, perhaps, a more updated website, since I will be battling a crappy computer less and cruising along the information superhighway. Blarg.
Finally got my new computer, the PIV/1.6GHz/256MB/20GB/WinXP monster that allows me to actually run some of the stuff I own (heh heh…).