Funny Tale of Street Justice

[Paul Hsieh]

Here's a funny real-life story of street justice, "How I got an uncooperative eBay buyer to pay for her purchase".

Here's the setup:

I had tickets to a sporting event and couldn't attend. I made a 1-day listing and clearly stated that the tickets must be picked up in person within 24 hours (the game was the evening after the auction ended, so there wasn't any time to ship the tickets).

A woman won the auction for about $600. The auction had ended at 10:00am and by 5:00pm she still hadn't responded to my emails trying to organize the exchange. Finally, at 9:30pm, I got a one-liner email: "I overbid and my husband won't let me buy these. Sorry and enjoy the game! :)"

I first tried explaining that I wouldn't have the time to resell the tickets (I already got turned down by the losing bidders). She said, "... that's not my problem. It's eBay, not a car dealership. I can back out if I want." I still don't understand the car dealership reference.

I was pretty upset. I was basically going to be stuck with tickets to an event that I couldn't attend. That's when I got the idea to convince her to change her mind...

You can read the rest of his post to see what he did.

My immediate reaction was that this was a perfect example of unofficial "street" justice. But the author of the post does ask the legitimate question, "Was it unethical?" If anyone wants Diana to cover this question on her webcast, they should submit it through this page.

(Story found via Keith Schacht.)

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[Lasse K. Lien]

If someone attacks you physically, you have the right to retaliate physically.

Thats selfdefense.

Seeing as there where no other steps that seemed optimal to the man in question here, it would seem like a form of intellectual selfdefense. You scam me, I scam you back - to the extent you have caused damage to me.