integrity and holding good expectations

I’ve written in the past about the glass half-empty or half-full and I am again reminded of the need to see the half-full glass!

I recently made a purchase off of the local craigslist the other day. It was a  Sprint hotspot (internet service tied to a cellular network plan).  I made a call to Sprint before the purchase while the seller was waiting to make sure the device could be activated on my account. Sprint was taking too long to verify validity so it seemed pointless to keep myself and the seller waiting for the over 20 minutes.  The gentleman showing it to me had all the info from the previous account though he himself had never activated it.  When I finally had a chance to endure the 45+ minute phone call with Sprint,…well the outcome was not favourable.  Long and short of it, the previous account holder would need to do an account turnover to me.

One of the risks in dealing with Craigslist is the potential disappointment of a device such as this not being able to be activated.  I was concerned that I was going to have to lose the $50 and the person who sold it to me may not want to deal with me again.  There is a reputation regarding Craigslist buyers and sellers.  The reputation of buyers is that they tend to be ‘flakes’ and don’t show up when they say they will and the reputation of sellers is that they can easily scam you or sell you a dud and you have no repercussion or safety.

My thoughts back on the sales event was that everything seemed legitimate.  At no time did I think I was buying a stolen item and though this was not stolen it certainly had an associated headache which both myself and the seller would need to endure for a positive outcome.  My overall thought in life is to try and find the good and know that good is always around us and an available outcome.

The seller attempted to resolve the situation by approaching her neighbour from whom she had purchased the unit but after a few days of no response she offered to just take the device back and refund me with my money.  Of course this meant I needed to make the 40 minute drive back out to meet her but she was more than happy to meet and insisted on refunding my money .  I just wanted to write about this as a reminder to all that there really are good honest people in the world and holding good thoughts about people really does go a long way.  I am reminded of the thought from my previous post about the need to see the glass half-full and not half-empty!!