Gucci shoes #1

I have been away for 2 weeks on holidays with my family. At this time of the year being away from daily routine and work, enjoying the sun and swimming in the sea brings a load of energy for the coming colder and shorter days. Hope to have enough energy for the dull rainy time.
Once back I have been struggling with several Mbytes of spam and sat down in order to organise my e-mail accounts. Had to dedicate some time running the web forums as well as the yahoo groups I am registered to.
During my absence someone has tried to hack my eBay account. These people can really be a pest; they have actually developed some sophisticated computer techniques in order to get illegal access to your data. Bastards!
Next step consisted in organising my eBay account and keep it tidy, as well as checking for the open deals. Before leaving for holidays I have won several auctions and I have struggled to complete all transactions by sending payment for the sellers.
I have also won an auction for a rubber corset from Tentacle and there were news from it on my mailing box. Unfortunately, not very pleasent: it was a letter from the Customs Office stating they had stopped a parcel from the United States with a rubber corset which would be subject to custom taxes. So I have to fill in the papers they have mailed me and declare its commercial value for taxing. In practice that means I will have to pay about 30% more on that item.
Another item I have bought on eBay before holidays was a pair of Gucci shoes for my wife. I cannot consider us being fashionists or fashion victims, nor a sophisticated couple but I sure am a footwear collector. This would be the first pair of gucci's in my collection and I decided to get them because they were being sold at a very reasonable price. No way I could find them at a local store and even if I could be able to spot them at a shop window I would be paying about 3 times more than what I have actually pay. Nevertheless, you can argue that there is a significant risk of getting a fake and not the original designer shoes. Well, that is true but I believe most of the people buying and selling at eBay which have gained experience with many transactions intuitively will look at the original items and skip the fakes and Asian copies. Still, there is a risk but with some precaution you will be able to minimize it down to a negligible factor. Just before I left on holidays I got the Gucci shoes I was so anxious about. I was rather disappointed when I opened the box and noticed the left and the right shoe were of a different colour. Not really a shocking difference but I could never conceive it on a pair of genuine Gucci shoes. Apart from that the shoes seemed to be original and very well manufactured. Leather was superior and the details were very well done. I have concluded there has been a swap, being the shoes mixed from two different pairs; one from black colour and the other one from dark brown (ebony). I had to contact the eBay seller and inform about the situation. The deal consisted in keeping the dark brown and sending the black one back to the States so that I could get back the correct shoe matching the one I kept. Finally back in town the parcel sent from the States was already at the post office where I went to pick it up. At the end of the day I run home in order to carefully compare both shoes. Bingo! Very beautiful shoes: a classic design sandal with a 3 1/4 inch heel very stable, wide and covered in leather, a slight platform of 0.75 inch descending to 0.5 inch in the front of the shoe also covered in the same supple leather and a ankle strap with a metal buckle. What I like most on Gucci is that they have managed to keep it classic and add modernity to their models. Working with the finest materials and using specialised hands for the manufacturing.