The great oversized day-bed swindle

When it comes to interior design there’s no two ways about it; I’m rubbish. I simply don’t have the eye for it. I used to think I did. I used to think I was a shoe-in for the final four on Top Design. & then I met Picky and she put me straight. 

Picky came round to my apartment for dinner just after we’d met. I was desperately keen to woo her. I cooked dinner and bought a nice bottle of vino. During the afternoon I even tidied up my apartment a bit too. That’s how keen I was. I stuffed all my socks and other assorted odds and sods into a cupboard, and I put the toilet seat down. In my book that counted as 'tidying up a bit'.

When Picky arrived she wasn’t so much woo-ed as blinded. 


My apartment consisted of seven rooms. Seven multi-coloured rooms. The hallway was orange. Bright orange. Orange like ... er... an orange. My lounge was a two-colour split; mustard yellow at the bottom with bright yellow above. The kitchen was green. Pea green. The main bedroom was baby blue and the spare bedroom was deep maroon. I'd left the bathroom white. For impact. 

The bathroom certainly had an impact. Picky spent most of the evening in it to protect her eyes from the glare of the walls in the other six rooms. It was a good job I’d remembered to put the toilet seat down.

When me and Picky eventually moved in together, she politely suggested that we should re-decorate ‘our’ apartment. I thought she just meant re-painting the walls. She didn’t. She meant repainting the walls and replacing each and every item of furniture that I owned. 


My multi-coloured apartment was, apparently, a 'bachelor pad'. Picky wanted a 'love-nest'. I thought about putting up a fight. But the truth was that I was sitting on my oversized day-bed in front of my wall-mounted plasma TV watching the English Premier League in full Dolby surround-sound through my Bose home entertainment system. And I had a beer in my hand. Picky on the other hand was standing up. She had no choice. My bachelor pad had just one piece of decent furniture to sit on. The oversized day-bed. It took up most of my lounge. My mustard and bright yellow lounge.

It was time to go neutral. We painted the orange hallway first. It needed four coats before it even approached neutral. Covering bright orange, pea green and deep maroon with neutral tones of white and grey is no mean feat. After each coat I was convinced we’d hidden it all, only to find in the morning that the orange or pea green had peeked through. It was a right old job. It took weeks. I’ll never paint a wall orange again. 

Once the love-nest was neutral, it was time to farewell the furniture. The oversized day-bed was photographed and uploaded onto eBay. I used a wide-angled lens, and I still couldn’t get the whole thing in one photo. It was like photographing a car. Or a bus. 

Last week was National Fraud Awareness Week. Apparently Australians are e-scammed out of more than $85m every year. 


I reckon we’ve all received the classic ‘I’m the executor of a massive Will. You’ve inherited $10million from old uncle Eric, please send me your bank account details and password for on-line banking and I’ll pop the entire $10million into your account forthwith” email. And we’ve all deleted it quicker than you can say “my password is 389721’ (it isn’t by the way, before you think you’ve struck gold).

But there are other scams knockin' about too. Scams you wouldn’t even imagine. Scams you wouldn't know were scams. Scams you'd struggle to spot no matter how un-scammable you think you are.

Or maybe you would spot them. Maybe you have spotted them. Maybe you’ve been scammed yourself. Maybe National Fraud Awareness Week brings back terrible memories for you. Maybe it makes you shake your head and go a nice deep maroon colour with acute embarrassment. 

My oversized day-bed wasn't on eBay for long. A ‘lady from Perth’ contacted me and offered $500. Just like that. My first thought was ‘I’ve struck gold here’. My second thought was, ‘what else can I sell her?’.

We only communicated by email. She said that she really wanted my oversized daybed. My oversized daybed sounded like the answer to all her prayers; the solution to all her problems. It was the only thing she desired in life. She lived in Perth. She was going to have it collected and shipped all the way over from Sydney. By road. That’s 3938km’s. 

I was stunned. She was paying me $500 for a used daybed and shipping it nearly 4000km's by road. She could quite easily have bought a brand new one from Bay Swiss in Perth for $800. Brand new. No shipping. No slight red wine stain on the right arm. I pointed this out to her, but she was smitten with my daybed, and my day-bed only. 

Fair do’s. I tried. I did the right thing. More fool you, lady. 

More fool me.

On the morning of the ‘pick-up’, 'she' emailed me nice and early with a link to my Paypal account. Excited, I clicked on the link and saw that she’d transferred a cool $500. Bingo. Deal done. Bye bye day-bed, hello seating for Picky and distinguished guests.

The removalist rocked up. Removalist. Singular. He was all alone. Poor chap. The poor 'lady in Perth' could only afford one removal guy. I felt sorry for him. My apartment was up six flights of stairs. I'm a nice guy. I took my t-shirt off and grabbed one side of the day-bed. I think it was the side with the red wine stain.

It took us a good 30-minutes to get the damn thing down six flights of stairs. My oversized day-bed was a big bugger and the angles were all wrong. When we reached the bottom I was sweating buckets. I needed to rest but he was keen to get off. He had 3938kms ahead of him. I took a few breaths and helped him to load it into the back of his van.

Back in my apartment I was exhausted. I needed to sit down. There was no-where to sit. Still, it was worth it. I was $500 richer. 

The next morning I woke up and walked into the lounge. I stood and stared into the space where the oversized day-bed had once been. The apartment felt empty.  And, strangely enough, so did I.

Why? Why? Why?

I couldn’t put my finger on it. 

As I stood in my newly neutral lounge and stared into the void left by my oversized day-bed, I wondered how ‘the lady in Perth’ had managed to send me a link to my own PayPal account. It seemed just a little odd to me. How had she done that?


She hadn’t. 


'She' had created a mock-up of my PayPal account and had emailed me that mock-up. It looked real and it looked like it had $500 in it. It didn't. My real Paypal account was empty. As empty as my lounge. I’d been scammed. It was daylight robbery. I'd been robbed of my oversized day-bed and what's more I'd taken the shirt off my back and helped the thief carry it down six flights of stairs and load it into his truck. I’d even waved him off my driveway. And he’d waved back at me. Bye bye. Bye bye badman.

There's a lesson for us all in this sorry tale. Somewhere. 


I think it might be this; if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. The other lesson is this; if someone's going to nick your oversized day-bed don't help him carry it down the stairs and don't help him lift it onto the back of his truck. Let him do the work.


National Fraud Awareness Week. Be aware and be alert. Or lose your day-bed.

hope you had, or are having, a super weekend. pip pip