Recently I bought (yes, again) a lens on ebay. This time it was not Pentax or Zeiss, but it was a lensbaby composer. Brand new for $199. The seller also offered a fisheye lens to go with it for another $100.

The guy had a plenty of positive reviews, and didn't think twice about it. He sent me an e mail saying that they will arrive in just few days.


Then a week went by, and then several more days. So I sent him a nice message saying that I have not received the items.


It took two more days for him to respond. What he said on the e mail was so horrid that it literally took my breath away. This poor man lost his house to a fire. Almost the entire house was lost, although nobody got hurt. I have heard of many excuses before, but this one just didn't sound like an excuse. It sounded real. Because he felt bad about not being able to send them out, he wanted to directly talk with me, leaving his cell numbers.

So I called him. It turned out that he was a retired vet in Montana, and has been taking photos of school kids who play sports years, just to be nice. He said that he used to shoot Pentax but not for the last 2 years he has slowly migrated to Canon land to the point of having in his collection 5 L glasses, all of which were lost in the fire (jesus). He had amassed over 20,000 shots or something like that over the years. Yes nearly all were backed up, but there were many many pictures who had been framed and signed by the kids, and they were forever lost. Yes, lenses can be replaced, he said, but not the prints with autographs and so on.

You could just hear the agony and despair in his voices, and I felt so very bad for this man. Thankfully, nobody got hurt, and he was fully insured. The lensbaby composer was ok (except that part of the box has soot on it, he says), but the fisheye wasn't. So he said he ordered another one for me from the company. He also said that he would refund me fully because it would probably take him a couple of weeks, if in fact that was what I wanted.

Of course, I told him to take his time, and ship them to me when he gets a chance.

Sure, he could have been lying through his teeth, but I seriously doubt it . . . . .


So sorry that this happen to you, man . . . . .

[Adam]

Usually people on the net can be quite good at making up stuff like this, but this one sounds genuine. Good luck to him.

[ve2vfd]

Nubi ... It's pretty easy to check his story... check out his towns local newspapers/media (specially smaller weekly neigbourhood or borough papers) for the date of the incident...

You can also give a quick call to his fire department... they probably won't give you details, but will certainly confirm if there was a fire in a certain area on a certain date.

Of course if you are getting a refund and the other lens then this may not be an issue.

Pat

Agree with both of you.

Here is the latest. I got the goods, and indeed the box that housed the composer looked as though the sooth had been wiped off.

I am curious though. But I am not sure if I am going to check into it now that I got the goods . . . . .