Nightmares on Ebay

[Orrery]

Have you been a seller on ebay and were you a bit shocked at the outright demands of buyers, abuse, and downright deviousness that some people get up to?

I recently cleared out my parents loft and discovered an old box of well known plastic horse toys from the 1980s. I scrubbed them up, took some photos and decided to see what they would sell for. HOW I WISH I HAD GIVEN THEM TO CHARITY OR CHUCKED THEM IN THE BIN!!

Of the 16 or so items, I've been bombarded with emails, been charged by paypal for people to use their credit cards to pay items worth a few quid, run back and forth to the dam post office umpteen times, made expensive phone calls to customer service lines, and have had no fewer than 4 direct complaints because the items did not come up to buyer's expectations, despite posting clear photos and not a single buyer asking me a question about the state of old toys that were listed as 'used'!

I've had one person directly lie to ebay about the state of the packaging to claim a refund (at my expense), another is claiming a package hasn't arrived and they've 'checked with their local delivery office' (you can't actually do this, I've checked), and another that has sent me no less than FIVE threatening messages to claim a refund of less than £3!!

All in all, accounting for time, printing, postage, ebay and paypal fees, stress, and what I thought I would split with my sister for letting me sell her old toys, I reckon I've made a net loss.

My advice? Stick to car boot sales, jumble sales, donate to local charity or simply recycle. NEVER AGAIN.