Well it's been a busy week, regarding a problem with an item i "bought" on Ebay.
I've been doing an on-going experiment where i try to remember the earliest possible thoughts. If you can't remember the first three-five years of your life, how are they the most important in developing who you are? (at least that's what the professionals claim).
Anyway, it's an interesting thought experiement, and i encourage everyone to give it a try. There's two parts to it really, one is of course recalling the memory, but the second more important, is to put it in a time frame. In otherwords, you may remember going to a candy store when you a small child, but how little? 3? 5? 7? etc...
Well, I've hit upon a memory that's stuck with me over all these years, and I've been able to nail it down precisely when it happened. (I wish blogger had a spell checker). I can recall seeing a movie when i was a small child. I was sick, and my parents let me stay up late past my bedtime to see this movie. At the time All I knew for sure was a song that was in the movie. "Me and my arrow". I tried going to a few animation websites, but didn't know the title of the movie. I asked a friend how he would go about finding the title of this movie (he's another movie fanatic), and he said he'd start with the name of the song first!. So that's what I did, and thanks to him it led me on the right path... The movie was called "The point"... Based on a story by Harry Nilsson, who was one of the Beatles inspirations.
The original movie was narrated by "dustin hoffman" and i think, from what i can gather from the internet, was re-dubbed with "ringo star" doing the fathers voice/naration. the main character "oblio" was played by "bobby brady!".
ok, so I'm dying to see this movie again, and see why it was something that really stuck in my mind after all these years.
I found it on ebay. prices ranging from $20 up to over $100! (i think because it's a beatles collectible). Well, I tried bidding on the lower priced auctions, but very quickly the prices were boosted up. Then I found one auction that had a feature that lets you "buy" it for a set price. in otherwords, eliminating the bidding process. I went for it. I felt it was a high, but fair price, and didn't have the patience to wait for the bidding wars. So I bought it. I paid for it through an online service called 'paypal" which basically lets you use your credit card to transfer funds over the internet (without having to give out your credit card number to the final user). So, that all went smoothly, and i got the video on monday! Very fast shipping. BUT!!!! it was an obvious bogus copy! It had a color copy paper sleeve that was inserted into a plastic video box. the lables on the tape itself were also printed on a inkjet printer, and a few "fake" stickers thrown on to make it look like it came from a video rental store! A lot of work really to make it look real. Well... I was not about to pay $33 for bogus copy! so I emailed the seller up, and complained. He first told me to send it back and he'd refund my money. I said "That was unacceptable" I went on to explain that i didn't know if i could trust him... I didn't accuse him of making the copy, but i also had no way of knowing if he did make the copy. So I said, if i didn't recieve a refund in 2 day's I'd report him to anyone and everyone (ebay, paypal, and even the federal authorities if i had to). In order to get my money back.
Well, he complained a bit, and accused me of making "hollow threats" which trust me, they were not hollow! But he finally did refund my money.
So at this point, I thought what revenge to scam a scammer... I could now keep the tape, and he'd be out the $33. But, I kept my word. I'm sending it back to him as he's claiming it's is distributor who made the copy, and he was unaware of it.
So as soon as I get his address i'll be shipping it back.
now one more thing before i sign off :) sorry this is such a long post....
I've had fun in playing "detective" I've tried finding out as much as possible about this guy in the event that i'd have to go to the authorities. I've don'e a pretty good job in my opinion :) - I know his name, (that's all i had to go on, but i didnt know if it was a bogus name). I know his age, his town, his middle name, his sisters name. I know the company that sent it is a fake name, located out of a different state. I know what companies do exist with the address given (a subway deli, and a hair salon, and a cigarette store). I suspect the cigarette store is a front for this movie company.
So, It's been a lot of work tracing this down but fun to see how much i can find out about him.

ok.again sorry this was so long :)

cyen out
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