An EBay Story

The last thing I remember doing before I left my hotel room last Saturday to fly to Los Angeles was winding up my cell phone charger to pack it in my luggage. Somewhere in the three feet between where I was standing at the time and where my bag was resting, my brain apparently ceased to function, resulting in a missing charger when I opened my bag in L.A. I hoped to survive the rest of the trip by shutting down power to the phone except for a few times daily to check my voice mail. My laptop-sized phone/PDA combo, a Kyocera 6035 Smartphone, has above-average battery life, but by Wednesday the phone was dead and I was about to lose all my PDA memory.

Because the 6035 is about five years old (an anthropological artifact in the wireless world) and has been replaced by an upgraded model, Kyocera no longer sells its accessories. That made finding a new cord in a retail store a hopeless cause. Enter eBay.

Tuesday night I checked eBay for any sales in progress with a “Buy it now” option in the Sacramento area. I found one 20 miles away for a reasonable price, but the obvious question was how to arrange for delivery. I e-mailed the seller and he sent his mobile number, but he was out of town until Thursday. After we connected over the phone, he agreed to meet me in a SafeWay parking lot in Folsom at 9:00 p.m., and he threw in a couple extra chargers for free and was friendly enough to chat for a half hour or so in the parking lot despite having been up all night in Vegas the night before.

All that to say this: “traderjmf” told me to tell all my friends that not all California folks are bad guys. I owe him big time. If you ever have need for any of his items for sale, you can count on 5-star customer service. This story warms my heart more than any "baby story" or "wedding story." If it doesn't warm yours, then I feel sad for you.