There have been a lot of “the one that got away” moments, but two stand out to me:
I BINed a lot of accessories that had a Sweet Scoops charm in it. I got it for a great price, paid right away, and crossed my fingers. Everything was set to go out the next morning.
I got up the next morning to be greeted with a refund and a groveling note from the seller about how their daughter wanted to keep her ponies. This was a total lie. I looked at the seller’s completed auctions, and in it was a lot of ponies where the seller straight up said “my daughter doesn’t want these anymore, and so I’m selling them”. I know there are people who scour ebay for completed auctions for rare items, and if they find something they like, they’ll contact the seller and see if they can get them to sell under the table. It’s happened to me before. “The dog ate it”, “my kid wants it”, “I lost it”, “my husband threw it out”. It’s amazing how cats only eat rare items. Toddlers only want expensive things. Careless husbands never toss Peachys.
I had to let it go. There’s no fighting it.
The second was my straight up stupidity. It’s not uncommon for there to be a clump of something hitting ebay. Something new comes out, some new cache of rare items is discovered, and they’re everywhere for a while. Summer of 2002, that was MIB Greek babies. For a brief time, there was a flood of MIB Greek babies. They were selling for $50 for the ones that were released elsewhere(Baby Blossom and Cotton Candy), and $100 for the “exclusive” ones(Baby Minty, etc). I graduated college that summer, and my (now) husband offered to get me a present. I felt bad about making him pay for one of the expensive ones, so I passed up a $100 MIB BABY MINTY in favor of the $50 Baby Cotton Candy thinking that I could just get Baby Minty later.