Goodness me. Milestones. There are milestones everywhere.
Sooooo… the 50 birthday auctions are all live. The last one went online at 5.35pm. And since then my phone has been buzzing like a mad beehive with all the bid notifications. That can only mean one thing: We are passing the milestones at a rapid pace. Well, at least one milestone: The fan-fronted auctions passed the €1,000 milestone within the first 30 minutes or so of being live. And at the time of writing this, I am stunned to tell you that we have *almost* reached the next milestone. I can see on my eBay overview that our current total is €6,426. The Guy jacket commands €4,450. That means we are merely €24 away from actually having €2,000 worth of bids on the fan-donated auctions.
Guys, you are amazing!!! Thank you for the stunning response to the auctions so far. Yes, we have *more* individual auctions on offer than before, but nevertheless, I don’t think we have ever started so strongly and so quickly.
Or maybe that is because the unexpected delay of the fan-donated auctions created more of a demand and more urgency? Don’t worry, it’s not a strategy that I will ever employ voluntarily. The saga with eBay really had me on the brink of a nervous breakdown 😂. I can only thank you all for remaining so calm and understanding.
You may wonder how it all got resolved in the end. Well, here is the end of the story. I had basically given myself (or eBay Germany) until 3pm today to get back to me. I sent them a couple of reminders in the morning and after lunch, suggesting that maybe we could talk over the phone to get things done, but there was still no movement. Eventually, at 4pm, my patience ran out. Even though my account is with eBay Germany, I decided to get in touch with my local eBay platform – because eBay Ireland happens to offer a live chat. (eBay Germany only offers communcation via DMs on Twitter, no live chat. And their call backs are only available for customers with a German/Swiss/Austrian phone number. RIDICULOUS!) Since I accessed the live chat while logged in in eBay, the customer service agent immediately had my account on her screen and greeted me by saying “I see you are looking to raise your selling limit today.” She asked three questions, I answered, pointed out I was organising a fundraiser for charity and was not a commercial seller, and she immediately agreed to bump up the selling limit to €6,000. I asked whether that included the then current high bid of €4,300 on the Guy jacket. She said “Yes, hold on.” And a minute later came back with “I’ve raised the selling limit to €10,000, just to make sure.” It was a matter of 10 minutes. No stupid bureaucracy but common sense. She wished me luck with the auctions (and sweetly added “You have a good heart.”)
I could hardly believe it. WTH had eBay Germany been faffing around with? I logged out of the chat, checked my eBay account, and my new selling limit was there. And then everything went very quickly. I immediately started uploading the listings – just in case eBay Germany somehow got wind of it all and decided to intervene because they were still missing vital information in form 24B. Thank goodness for my prep from last week – I had prepared the listings as templates, so basically only had to do a last check, turn templates into drafts and then click to list. By 5.35pm everything was done.
So hooray for eBay Ireland – uncomplicated, fast, extremely friendly and able to make decisions based on common sense. I left a glowing review for CS agent Claudine. She deserves a bonus for making me – and presumably many others – very happy today.
Right, sorry for the waffle. While I am droning on here, I can see the bids continue to come in. Since I wrote the first paragraph of this post, we have actually passed the €2,000 mark. Hoooooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The total of the auctions, including Guy’s jacket, is now at an unbelievable €6,462. Guy’s jacket hasn’t moved, but the other auctions have. So the fan-donated auctions have now garnered bids to the tune of €2,012.
You are amazing!!! Thank you all for your fantastic response!
Before I need to correct numbers again, I better get this online. Sleep well, everybody – I’ll be back with a morning update in a few hours.
Guylty Pleasure 
Huzzah! What exciting numbers. And dear Claudine is right: you do have a good heart. 💜
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And so does Claudine. Man, I think we were lucky that I encountered her in the chat… Maybe a secret RA fan, too? In any case – good vibes into her general direction.
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I think you’re going to need more then 10,000. (Seriously.) So if (when) you call back CS agent Claudine, tell her that if she wants to join us next time RA is on stage in London, her theatre ticket is on me.
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Nice idea 😊. CS agent Claudine is definitely our favorite CS agent!!! She really deserves a glowing review.
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Big time. I praised her to the high heavens in my feedback form.
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LOL, nice thought. And fingers crossed that we now needn’t worry anymore. The upshot from the first breakthrough through the sound barrier/seller limit was that the bidding continued despite reaching the limit. The only issue was that no further listings could be activated. We now have *all* items online, and I was reassured by three different people that bidding would not be suspended if a seller limit was reached… Fingers crossed!
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That is great! Both fixing the issue and the amazing results!
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I’m so glad I took matters in my own hands… We are now fully on the way.
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Sonja, you will surely sleep very well after all these adventures 😊 Excellent work 💗
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Haha, truth was – I had trouble falling asleep last night. Too many thoughts in my head. I’ll probably sleep soundly tonight, though!
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Brava,G–I knew you ‘d get it resolved, but good grief!
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Thank you – in hindsight, maybe I could’ve come up with the idea of involving eBay Ireland a bit sooner, but well, all’s well now 😉
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love love love
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Amazing, amazing. I mean, sure, more auctions, more money. But still, it’s skyrocketed. Testament to the supercool items on offer!
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bumper year!
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Hi there! This is the first time I’m participating in the auctions, and I just wanted to let you know that I am having a blast and that I am in awe of how much work you put into this and how well you managed to organise everything. There definitely is no need for you to apologise for anything, you are doing an amazing job!
♡
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Hello Noa – and welcome here. You know, I was just saying BTS that one of the best things about the fundraiser is that we meet new people. So please join us and stay a while 🤗. Hopefully we can make the “blast” last a bit longer! Thank you for being part of it!!
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Aww, cheers, I might just! 🙂
Btw, seeing what just the jacket went for in the end made me grin into my phone for the longest moment. What a success, all thanks to this wonderful event and your dedication to it (and the generous donation by RA, of course)!
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Please do 🤗.
Yep, the big grin was plastered all over my face for the rest of yesterday… And now replaced by a new grin 😄
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Amazing!!! What news to wake up to. 😍
Sending virtual flowers 💐 and champagne 🥂 to Claudine. What a star. ⭐️
And biggest hugs to you. You’re the GOAT. 🤗
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I am considering sending a message to Claudine once the auctions are all over. Just to let her know how *much* she literally helped.
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Reading ‘The happy ending’ and the thought that there are always people with a good heart (you too❣️) made me very happy!
I’m having fun bidding though I have been already outbid on many lots I craved 😅 but I will find a way to contribute 😉
Thank you again for your hard work, Sonja! You are a star ⭐️ 🤩
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Happy ending, indeed, Olga. *phew* That was a bit of a thriller. But all’s well that ends well.
Hope the bidding will go well for you… And if you find yourself outpriced – tomorrow is the opportunity to snap up some cool stuff from the fixed-price sale. Really nice things coming your way!
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Great! Good she has raised the limit. It will be phenomenal this auction. Hold your nerves and prepare a smelling salt for the end
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I nearly needed the smelling salts already, this afternoon, when the Guy jacket reached its end. Dangerous for the heart 😉 And whoa, we would’ve broken that limit with the jacket *alone* 😱
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Sometimes ‘Deutsche Gründlichkeit’ goes a step too far… hooray for Ebay Ireland and Claudine! She deserves a medal for releasing us all from our waiting and suffering. Good thing she raised that limit too… 🙂
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Exactly, Esther. Exactly what I was thinking. Goodness, they obviously must have been matching everything with their list of rules. Whereas Claudine just made a decision, bang.
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Vielleicht war ja auch problematisch, dass du eben nicht in Deutschland sitzt? – Wie auch immer: Schön, dass die Sache geklärt ist und alles läuft.
SEHR GUT läuft! 😀
Ich rechne fest damit, dass Guys Jacke noch fünfstellig wird … Die Hälfte ist ja schon geschafft.:-)
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Jou, mein Wohnsitz außerhalb von D’land war definitiv ein Problem, aber das ist ja GSD nun geklärt 😉
Und mit fünf Stellen hat es zwar nicht geklappt, aber am Ende sind es €6.333 geworden. Und wenn Richard nun auch noch… dann ist es eine echt robuste fünfstellige Summe! A-MA-ZING!!!!
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Ups. Was hatte ich denn da gesehen? Irgendwie dachte ich, dass es noch 17 Stunden wären … Müssen wohl Minuten gewesen sein, als ich reingeguckt hatte … Bin ein bisschen k.o.
6333 ist jedenfalls eine ausnehmend hübsche Zahl. 🙂
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Die Zahl ist schon irgendwie interessant. Ist mir auch gleich aufgefallen 😉
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