In all his years doing radio, Clark has come to learn that listeners love it when he shares stories from his own life about how he’s messed up with money. It’s important to air these kinds of stories because it lets listeners know that none of us are perfect. We all make mistakes and we’re all in this together!
Ditto even for our brilliant executive producer Christa. Christa placed an eBay bid for a giant sink and won the auction…and then she watched as her money almost sank down the drain of life because she had not read the seller’s offer thoroughly enough.
Confustion arose because the seller — who was an inexperienced eBayer — had conflicting info posted about shipping. At the top of her page, there was a drop down box where bidders could select a free shipping option. But in the text of the offer, the seller stated clearly that she would not ship the item outside her state of residence at all. It had to be picked up in person.
So Christa won the bid but had no way to get the item because she was thousands of miles away! That’s when she decided to try uShip.com, a service that Clark had spoken about in the past where you post your moving job online and let shippers bid for your business.
Our executive producer was able to see the reputation of everyone who bid on her job, from huge freight companies to small one-person operations. As the bid progressed, the offers got lower and lower.
Eventually she found a man who was willing to drive the sink down to her home in Georgia. He wasn’t the cheapest, but he did seem the most trustworthy. He drove in late at night, slept in his truck in her driveway and then loaded the sink into her house the next morning!
uShip.com isn’t necessarily a service you’d use to do a whole house move, but it can be great a way to move smaller items across the country. Seeing the online reputation of all the movers allows you to improve the odds that you’re getting a decent vendor.
See the write-up on ClarkHoward.com.
