After more than 25 years, I decided to quit. | Questions and answers among users

alcaseltz · 2025-11-17T18:52:10.362000Z

I’ve been on this platform since 1999, when it was called iBazar. In over 25 years, I’ve seen its rise and its slow decline.Today, selling on eBay no longer means offering an item: it means exposing yourself to people looking for loopholes, excuses, an easy refund. Even for a hi-fi worth 50 euros, even if you write “not working,” “for parts,” “no warranty,” “sold as seen.”They message you to ask whether “everything works,” whether it “reads discs all the way through,” whether “it should be fine anyway.”They don’t read — or worse: they read and try to get you to write something they could later use against you.I’ve accepted a purchase offer and then, immediately after the sale, received absurd requests:• Adding third-party addresses, outside the sales contract.• Photos of damage that have nothing to do with the item sold, but are used to go after the courier and cover themselves in case of possible damage that could occur during shipping.• And the worst: items intentionally damaged on receipt, reported as “not as described” to trigger a refund, without even any prior contact. Clearly premeditated actions.My reports to eBay had no effect at all.It’s obvious: eBay protects the buyer, even when they’re in the wrong.I’m a private seller, I don’t make a living from this — and precisely for that reason I’ve chosen to stop almost entirely selling and buying on this platform.Selling means locking down every listing as if it were a notarized contract.Because today, selling on eBay means defending yourself, not trading

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After more than 25 years, I decided to quit. | Questions and answers among users | eBay Italy