Not as Tech Savvy as I Thought

As a frugal college student I have used online sites to purchase my class books since I started at Drake. The bookstore usually charges a considerable greater amount for any book than a competitive price that half.com might have listed. I had bought the books online and never sold any books online because I would find younger classmates that needed the books or figured I might need them again one day.

As my bookshelf has filled up over the past 4 years with books that "I thought I might need again" but have never really used even once, I decided it was time to sell some of my books and get back some kind of money. Well the bookstore will usually buy books back and pay you nothing or if you are lucky up to about a quarter of what you paid originally. I will admit sometimes they are generous and will pay back about half of what you paid. Either way, I wanted to get back more than what the bookstore was offering so I decided to sell my books online. Like mentioned above I had only bought books online not sold them. Well I thought I was a smart college student up with the times, but I realized quickly how little I knew about online selling.

First off I had to call my sister to make sure it was ok to sell stuff online and enter account numbers because I was afraid I was going to get scammed...that happens more than you would like to know nowadays. Then after worrying about being ripped off or scammed for about an hour I finally signed up and put in my info. Placing my books to sell was easy and I guess my asking prices were too low because the next day I had already sold 4 books (I had placed 12 to be sold). So I thought it would be easy to just ship the books off and get my money.

Then I was hit with having to sign up for ebay.com along with half.com. So I did. Then I was hit with this Paypal thing, which once again I had to call my sister to ask about after I freaked out for a few moments. They wanted lots of personal information so once again I was leary. Well all was ok except I still was not sure how I sent the books and when I would get paid and how I would KNOW that I was for sure going to get paid. So I was a big ball of worry at this time because I did not want to send out these books and never see the money for them. I looked into my bank accounts and found that both sites had charged me a $1 fee. Once again I freaked out for a few moments called my sister. She thought I was a nut by this time and was getting frustrated with me. I realized that the fee was just for authorization and that I would be getting it back (or so I still think).

I am packing up my books and sending them off. I hope I did everything right and will see some compensation for them. The simple task of selling my books online turned into a 4+ hour job that created a lot of anxiety for me. I know this was a learning experience for me not only in how to use online sales sites but also how to keep my anxiety in check.