22 April 2015 The Kindness of Strangers Online

I’ve been looking for something for more than 12 months.

Two weeks ago I finally found it online. But the retailer only shipped within the United States. So I setup a international mail forwarding service and made the purchase.

The next day it was refunded because the retailer “didn’t trust forwarding services”. I didn’t mind taking the risk, but she was insistent. So I asked if she could make an exception and ship to Australia. When she finally agreed, she couldn’t work out how to invoice me the shipping cost. I suggested I could just send her the money through PayPal. Of course, she didn’t trust PayPal.

Crazy cat lady aside, I persisted. And so I turned to a complete random on the internet. Using /r/favors on Reddit I asked if anyone would be willing to let me use their address, and then I’d send them some money to forward the item to me in Australia. Within minutes someone offered a hand.

Unfortunately the paranoid retailer still wouldn’t process the payment because the delivery address was different to the billing address.

So I asked the Redditor if he could do me a solid and not only forward me the package but make the purchase as well. And I sent a complete random person on the internet $220.

And today, the package arrived.

That internet thing ain’t so bad.

Posted by Zac Martin
1Comment
  • aurizon
    Posted at April 27, 2015 9:48pm, 27 April Reply

    I am wary of this if it matures, becomes more commonplace and attracts the attention of crooked people.
    How then do you differentiate between the rare honest person amongst these crooks.

    This rare first time lucky would be swamped by the many crooks who would emerge.

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