I've had an eBay account for nearly 20 years. Mostly I use it once or twice a year for small, random purchases, but every once in a while I have some items to sell. And while money is a secondary concern - I do aim to recoup about 20% of the original purchase price - my primary motivation is reuse: I'd like to send this stuff to people who want to use it. I have a rating of about +120 with a 100% positive rating to date.
Recently, I listed a few items I had laying around the house. My experience this time has been so jarringly awful that I am never selling anything on eBay again.
It's loaded with bots. I get realtime notifications of bids, and I've been surprised to see a bidder put in 20 bids in a row, all incremented by $0.05 or $0.10. It has happened on maybe 50% of the items I'm selling.
I'm receiving a lot of bids from zero-reputation users. Several of them have been "administratively canceled" without explanation. Also several "oops didn't mean to, cancel my bid" demands.
About 20% of my auctions so far have ended with nonpayment by the winners. One of them sent me several messages through two accounts, and posted to several of my auctions - first claiming "my toddler bumped the keyboard and put in a bid of $50 at the last minute," then badgering me to cancel the auction in exchange for paying whatever fees I incurred via PayPal (yeah, no thanks). The other was just a straight-up no-show.
The kicker happened tonight: I sold a piece of computer equipment and shipped it off about twelve hours later. The winner now claims it doesn't work and is demanding a refund. eBay's rules require not only that I give them a refund - but that I choose between (a) abandoning the item (letting them keep a $280 piece of equipment for free) or (b) paying to have the item shipped back to me. What are the odds that the item will still be working when the winner - who has no incentive to pack it well - ships it back at my expense? I'm going to be out about $50 (fees + shipping both ways) and will probably get a damaged piece of equipment back.
I have no idea what happened to eBay, but it is no longer a place for people to sell things casually in a reasonable atmosphere. I'm done. All of my purchasing will occur through Amazon from now on.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/ebaysucks/comments/aghrqh/my_final_ebay_experience/