My first shopping experience on eBay turned out to be quite unfortunate, encountering an order cancellation. The most frustrating part was dealing with the time difference between China and the US, as well as the low efficiency of American services. The whole ordeal dragged on for over half a month and still isn’t fully resolved.

Here’s what happened:

1. March 24: I purchased a Citizen Blue Angels watch from lePerfect, a highly-rated seller on eBay with a 99.3% positive feedback. I paid $249.99 through PayPal using my Visa card.
2. March 24: PayPal sent me an email titled “Important Notice: We’ve detected unusual activity in your PayPal account,” stating that there were security issues with my account and asking me to verify my personal information.
3. March 24: I quickly uploaded my ID and credit card information as requested by PayPal and waited for their response.
4. March 25: I received an email from *@leperfect.com with the subject “Jomashop Order EW109738 Cancellation Confirmation,” notifying me that my order had been canceled. I was frustrated—this was my first time buying on eBay, and my order got canceled, and it was done under the name of “Jomashop” (another reputable seller on eBay). I was baffled. So, I messaged the seller on eBay, “This is my first time using eBay. What went wrong? Why did you cancel my order? The watch looks great, why won’t you sell it to me?”
5. March 25: While feeling down, I wondered if there was an issue with PayPal. I called PayPal’s customer service, and the representative was very polite. She said there were no major issues with my account, and once I verified my personal information and confirmed that the transaction was made by me, everything would be fine. She then verified my identity and cleared the “unusual activity” flag.
6. March 26: In the afternoon, I finally received a reply from the seller: “PayPal notified us that they canceled the order for some reason. So we had to issue the refund through the PayPal claim. We apologize for any inconvenience.” I was annoyed by the slow response—this kind of delay would never happen on Taobao. The message essentially said, “PayPal told us to cancel the order, so we refunded you directly.”
7. March 26: I checked my PayPal account, but the balance was still $0, and there was no sign of a refund. However, I did see an unresolved dispute case. It seemed that PayPal had flagged my account for security reasons and temporarily frozen the transaction amount.
8. March 26: I called PayPal again, and the representative patiently explained the dispute process. She assured me that the transaction was fine, the money had already been transferred to the seller, and I should continue communicating with the seller to complete the transaction.
9. March 26: I replied to the seller, “Hey, I just spoke with PayPal, and they said the money has already been transferred to your account. Since that’s the case, can you just go ahead and ship the item?”
10. March 27: The seller replied, “Sorry, but this item is out of stock. We should have more in about 2-3 weeks if you would like to check back then.” The item was out of stock, and it would take at least two to three weeks to restock.
11. March 27: Since the item was out of stock and I’d have to wait so long, I thought it would be better to just get a refund and reorder later. So, I replied, “PayPal said the money has already been transferred to you. Since you canceled the order, please refund me as soon as possible!”
12. March 31: The efficiency in the US is incredibly slow, especially since they don’t work on weekends. Three days later, I received a slow-paced reply: “It looks like your order was already canceled and refunded through PayPal on the 25th because of a claim opened with them. You will not be charged for this order.” They claimed that the order had been canceled and refunded on the 25th, and I shouldn’t worry about it anymore. I was furious, but when I checked my PayPal account, there was still no refund. I held back my anger and called PayPal again, “Am I being scammed by this US seller? They keep saying they’ve refunded me, but I haven’t seen any money.” The PayPal representative calmly explained that this kind of situation is normal, “The money has already been transferred to the seller, so don’t worry. If they don’t ship the item, you have a 180-day window to file a claim and get your money back.” She even comforted me by sending a $10 goodwill credit to my account and advised me to continue negotiating with the seller, and if that didn’t work, to contact them again.
13. March 31: I continued communicating with the “reputable” US seller: “This is my first time using eBay. Please don’t scam me. I really haven’t received the refund. Please refund me as soon as possible.” Meanwhile, I opened a dispute case on PayPal, stating that I hadn’t received the item and requested a refund.
14. April 1: The “reputable” US seller sent their final reply: “PayPal canceled the transaction for some reason, and the case number they opened is PP-003-804-456-XXX. You can call them and provide that number for more information. We had to refund the order on the 25th because of the claim, otherwise we would have shipped. Please speak with PayPal because unfortunately, there is not much more we can do once they cancel an order.” They insisted that the refund had been issued on the 25th, “PayPal canceled our order, and there’s nothing we can do. You should contact PayPal.”
15. April 1: I had no choice but to call eBay’s customer service in Shanghai and ask, “Is this seller a scammer?” They replied, “The transaction was successful. The money has been transferred to the seller’s account, and they promised to deliver the item by March 31. Since the item hasn’t arrived, you can apply for a refund.”
16. April 1: I called PayPal again to discuss the refund. They escalated the dispute I had filed the previous day to a “compensation dispute,” stating that “if the seller cannot provide proof of shipment by April 11, the refund will be automatically processed.”
17. April 12: I called PayPal again, “Didn’t you say the issue would be resolved by April 11? It’s been 10 days (even in the US, it’s already April 12), and the seller still hasn’t provided any proof. Shouldn’t I get my refund now?” The representative checked the dates and said, “Don’t get too excited, there are still 3 hours left before the 12-day period is up.” WTF?
18. April 12, 10 PM: Finally, I received an email from PayPal: “We have completed our investigation of your case and have decided in your favor. We have recovered $249.99 USD and have credited this amount to your account. This credit will take up to five business days to process.” Seriously, it takes five days just to transfer the money?
19. Additional Note: On April 4, I bought a similar model from another reputable US eBay seller, “jomashop.” The watch has probably arrived at the forwarding company’s warehouse by now. The only thing that puzzles me is the relationship between lePerfect and Jomashop. When I made the purchase from lePerfect, the seller was listed as “Star Five Group, LLC,” but when I bought from Jomashop, the seller was still “Jomashop.” Why did lePerfect use “Jomashop Order” in the subject line of their first email notifying me of the cancellation?

This is a response on Zhihu. Personally, I believe that the current civil service examination can objectively reflect the true level of some arts and science students.

Several characteristics of the civil service exam: 1. Fairness. 2. Competition occurs within the same major. 3. The questions are the same, allowing for horizontal comparison.

Written Exam: Administrative Aptitude Test + Essay. The aptitude test includes a large number of mathematical calculations and logical reasoning questions, while the essay focuses on current political analysis and writing. Interview: In Guangdong Province, the civil service interview is conducted in a different location. For example, candidates from Guangzhou go to Qingyuan for the interview, and candidates from Shaoguan go to Guangzhou. Additionally, interviewers are randomly assigned to examination rooms before each session, making cheating almost impossible.

I extracted the monthly monitoring data for Foshan City for the entire year of 2014 from the website of the Ministry of Environmental Protection and conducted a rough statistical analysis. In 2014, Foshan had excellent air quality on 36% of the days and good air quality on 52% of the days, totaling 88%. There were 33 days with light pollution and 13 days with moderate pollution.

Additionally, from the website http://air.epmap.org/, I downloaded all the monitoring data from various environmental monitoring stations in Foshan from April 11, 2014, to March 5, 2015, and performed a simple statistical analysis as follows:

Recently, the central government has issued three consecutive documents targeting pension reform, salary adjustment, and rank reform for civil servants. These documents are: “Decision on the Reform of the Pension System for Employees of Government Agencies and Public Institutions” (State Council Document [2015] No. 2), “Notice from the General Office of the State Council Forwarding the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the Ministry of Finance on Adjusting the Basic Salary Standards for Employees of Government Agencies and Public Institutions” (State Council Office Document [2015] No. 3), and “Opinions on Establishing a Parallel System of Positions and Ranks for Civil Servants Below the County Level” (Central Office Document [2015] No. 4). The issuing units of these three documents are different, being the State Council, the General Office of the State Council, and the Central Office of the State Council, respectively, but they all address the same issue—civil service reform.

At present, the local government is investigating work reforms in the field of comprehensive law enforcement, but there are still many questions in various aspects. I searched for practices in other places along the way, and briefly formed a brief introduction.

In terms of comprehensive administrative law enforcement reform, local experience is mainly limited to comprehensive law enforcement in areas such as urban management, cultural markets, agricultural resources, and transportation. So far, no experience has been found to unify all or most of the administrative law enforcement powers to establish “unified administrative law enforcement.” Jiaozhou City, Qingdao is piloting the reform of the comprehensive administrative law enforcement system, but it is currently limited to the exercise of all administrative law enforcement powers at the township level, and no specific practice has been promoted at the county level or above.

My phone had always been jailbroken, and I was quite dependent on a few “pirated” apps, so I never upgraded to iOS 8. Recently, after seeing some new features on my wife’s iOS 8 phone, I finally couldn’t resist and upgraded my phone last Sunday night.

I proceeded with the upgrade with the intention of jailbreaking it again. Early in the morning, I prepared the PP Jailbreak Assistant, then backed up, flashed the system, and jailbroke it. Unfortunately, the worst happened. First, the backup couldn’t be fully restored. Since the previous system was jailbroken, many apps could only be installed after jailbreaking, so I had to jailbreak first to restore those apps. Second, after using the Pangu jailbreak, I encountered the “white apple” screen repeatedly when installing plugins from Cydia. Even without installing plugins, restoring the backup with the jailbreak assistant after jailbreaking also resulted in the white apple screen. Third, when I separately copied out the photos and imported them back into the phone, all the videos couldn’t be played, and the photo order and folder distribution were completely messed up. It’s beyond frustrating.

Last night, I had a brief conversation with a fellow villager about land law enforcement issues and discovered that they currently have a batch of cases involving illegal rare earth mining and unauthorized excavation of kaolin (ceramic clay).

Due to professional sensitivity, I quickly realized that these cases fall into the gap between local administrative law enforcement and criminal justice. Severe cases of illegal mining and destructive mining practices are covered under criminal law, while minor infractions fall under the administrative penalties of the land law enforcement departments.

Today, the Central Committee issued the “Decision on Several Major Issues Concerning the Comprehensive Advancement of the Rule of Law,” which spans over 16,000 words. However, not many of these are directly related to individual work.

First and foremost is the section most closely related to individual work:

The Political and Legal Affairs Committee is the organizational form through which the Party Committee leads political and legal work and must be upheld for the long term. The Political and Legal Affairs Committees at all levels should focus their efforts on grasping the political direction, coordinating the functions of various parties, overseeing political and legal work, building the political and legal team, urging the performance of duties according to law, and creating a fair judicial environment. They should take the lead in handling affairs according to law and ensure the correct and unified implementation of the Constitution and laws. The Party organizations within political and legal organs should establish and improve the system of reporting major matters to the Party Committee. Strengthen the Party’s construction within political and legal organs, and fully leverage the political guarantee role of Party organizations and the vanguard and exemplary role of Party members in the construction of the rule of law.

Writing work summaries is a peculiar task, with two common approaches: one is to plagiarize, and the other is to copy. Hmm, perhaps there isn’t a third option. In this day and age, who still takes the time to write a work summary seriously?

But things often take unexpected turns. Since embarking on this path of endless documentation, I now seem to be entangled in an infinite web of written materials. My modest practical skills are far from meeting the high expectations of my superiors. Thus, I have no choice but to grit my teeth and start documenting my daily activities as required by my leaders, reporting my work weekly to enhance my material writing skills.

This article only supply an Chinese Edition.