Chapter 1

I stared at the gold bangle on my wrist, then clicked on another solid gold bangle sold by BallerBling. It was priced at nine thousand dollars.

I took a deep breath, an uneasy knot forming in my stomach. There was a fine line between scoring a bargain and taking advantage of a catastrophic mistake, and this felt way past the line. Listening to my conscience, I hunted down BallerBling's contact information and dialed the number.

The call connected, but I barely managed to utter a few words about an order mix-up before the man on the other end cut me off. "No returns once you've opened the parcel! Don't think you can pull a fast one on us just to get a refund. That's the store's policy!"

Before I could even open my mouth to explain, the line went dead.

I stood frozen, gripping my phone as the empty dial tone buzzed in my ear. I was too shocked to react.

Unwilling to give up, I redialed the number, only to be greeted by a female mechanical voice, saying, "Sorry, the number you have dialed is busy. Please try again later."

I switched over to Temu's chat interface to message BallerBling directly. But every message I sent came back with a bright red exclamation mark.

He'd actually blocked me.

Bethany Greer leaned over my shoulder to look at the screen and immediately burst out laughing.

"Well, congrats! You just scored yourself a free gold bangle," she said, sliding the metal back onto my wrist. "Guess Lady Luck is finally smiling on you. Just let it go. The seller had a crappy attitude anyway. Think of it as a lucky break and just roll with it."

I shook my head and quickly pulled the bangle back off. "No, this doesn't belong to me."

It felt like I'd stolen it. My heart was racing, and just holding it made my palms burn with anxiety.

Bethany pressed her hand over mine, looking at me like I was a hopeless case. "Why are you being so stubborn? The seller was incredibly rude. He sent you the wrong item, refused to listen, and blocked you, yet you still want to go out of your way to return it? Can you be any more of a doormat?"

"But Bethany, I only paid ten dollars."

"That's his problem," she countered. "What does it have to do with you?"

I had to admit, I felt a flash of temptation for a split second. However, reason quickly overtook greed.

The seller would eventually take inventory. They'd realize a gold bangle worth thousands was missing, check the security footage, and see it had been packed into my cheap order by mistake.

He had my address and phone number. If he called the police and they showed up at my door, I wouldn't be able to explain my way out of it, even if I was in the right.

Sighing, I opened Temu's official customer support chat. I meticulously recounted the entire incident, attaching photos of the gold bangle and screenshots of the call records.

"Hi, I received an item that is completely different from what I ordered. Honestly, it's worth more than what I paid. But the seller refuses to talk to me, so I need customer service to step in."

I waited for over ten minutes before a representative finally graced me with a reply.

"Hi there! We totally understand your frustration. But we kindly suggest you first try to resolve this amicably with the seller."

I looked at the red exclamation mark and almost laughed in sheer exasperation. They wanted me to resolve this amicably first? With whom? Thin air?

I sent the screenshot showing that I'd been blocked.

"The seller blocked me, so how am I supposed to resolve it?"

Another long wait ensued.

"We have noted your issue and will get back to you with an update as soon as possible."

And that was the last I ever heard from them.

Bethany stamped her foot angrily beside me. "See? I told you! Stop wasting your energy. Trying to reason with these people is like talking to a brick wall."

Since that approach wasn't working, I decided to try something else.