Just a little ebay story I wanted to share. It didn't end badly, but I guess it could have so I thought I would share with the community.
So I bought a Dancing Butterflies off ebay, and the ebay auction photo showed a very pretty Dancing Butterflies plus her backcard! I was really excited that I got both for $15 (including the shipping). The auction info stated that the lady had these ponies sitting in her attic for a long time and just wanted to get rid of them.
When I paid for the auction, I sent a message in the note field that said "please be careful with the backcard while shipping, thanks!" because I was worried about the backcard getting bent in the mail, especially since this was not a collector and just someone selling childhood toys.
The response I got back was kind of snippy. She said "The backcard was not part of the auction you won, I am just including it to be nice. I don't even know why I kept it, I guess I was a weird kid. Some other buyer got mad at me because their backcard had writing on it."
At first I was a little miffed at her overblown reaction because I really didn't mean anything bad by my message, I just wanted her to be careful shipping the item. But then I can totally understand her point of view too, if she was currently dealing with a difficult buyer and then saw my message and thought "Oh no now I have to deal with this." (On the other hand, if you don't mean for the backcard to be part of the auction, then don't put it in the photos, eh?)
Well I didn't respond to her message and just waited for the item to arrive. It came in a bubble envelope and thankfully both the backcard and Dancing Butterflies are in great shape.
Dancing Butterflies is a little tacky, I think I've heard of this from plastiziers breaking down, so I'm going to give her a careful wash and hope that fixes it.
In conclusion! I should have checked the auction more carefully (she doesn't mention the backcard in the auction title or the auction info, it's just in the photos) and asked questions before buying. And she probably could have just said she would try to be careful and leave it at that. But everything turned out okay.