Our Most Recent Disappointing eBay Purchase

I mentioned in my November Pet Expenses post that we had an issue with a recent order that was supposed to be a Puppia harness for Venus. I've been trying to find a decent quality harness for her for quite some time now as she's gotten too chubby for her puppy harness now, and found a great deal on a Puppia harness for $15 on eBay. A little cheaper than retail, but a noticeable price difference than the cheap overseas harnesses from Hong Kong. I was excited that eBay had brought me yet another great deal and placed my order.

Super quick shipping brought on some extreme initial excitement, until I opened the package to find a thin pink Puppia-look-a-like without a Puppia tag. Uhm, yeah... if I wanted a knock-off, I would have paid $6 for one from China, thanks. I contacted the seller and received no response. I tried opening a case for a partial refund, but was only given the option to open a case and ship the item back for a refund. I refuse to pay to ship back a misrepresented item, though, so that's out of the question. I have no way to contact eBay directly, and eBay removed the listing so I can't even leave feedback.

I decided I would suck it up and just use the harness and deal with the fact that I overpaid. But that isn't the end of our story! After using it for about a day, the thin misrepresented piece of crapola that is this harness started to stretch out, and is now completely unusable! Little fatty Venus can slip right out of it! At this point, I was outraged. I opened a case on eBay, and left a note explaining that I would not be returning the item on my dime, but I demanded a partial refund to cover the difference had I just risked buying the cheap harness from China. I expected a fight from the seller since I did use the harness and I wasn't exactly nice-as-can-be since I never received a response from my first email, but in return got a completely understanding response to the case offering to send a complete refund and that I could keep the unusable harness.

So, we now have a somewhat happy ending. I have to wait for a refund e-check to clear from eBay/PayPal (estimated to clear on December 10th), but then I can try my luck at ordering yet another harness for Venus. By the time all this is straightened out, it'll end up in her Christmas stocking! Hehe >.<

So that's that. New harness recommendations anyone?