Cranky Collector

Remember that other hardback Phantom Lake that I bought from a dealer on eBay? If you recall, I was a bit wary as to whether it would be hardback, as the advert listed it as both paperback and hardback, published by Collins. Anyway, to be sure I was getting the right thing, here is the email I sent to the seller:…and here is his reply: Got that? Good. On the basis of this emailed reply, I went ahead and bought the book. Guess what arrived:This really does undermine your faith in the ability of eBay sellers to give anything approaching a decent standard of service. This must go down as quite the most fucking useless arsehole I have ever had the misfortune to deal with on eBay. What the fuck was he thinking of? Anyway, the plot thickens. I emailed him and told him he was a fucking useless dick and that I wanted my money back. Here is his reply: Did you notice that? EXACTLY THE SAME EMAIL WORD FOR WORD AS THE ABEBOOKS SELLER WHO ALSO SOLD ME A SO CALLED HARDBACK PHANTOM LAKE LAST WEEK! Clearly, I haven’t found two useless twats dealing on the internet, just the one useless twat, operating under two different names. Well, folks, I will live and learn. Since this happened, I have asked several Abebooks and Amazon dealers to check if books they had listed as hardbacks were in fact hardbacks. Only one has replied, to tell me that unfortunately, it was only a paperback. Not that he updated his advert though. What a bunch of useless arses.

And there we have it folks, the two hardback Phantom Lakes were in fact not. Back to the old drawing board, that hardback Phantom Lake must be there somewhere…