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I don’t sell things often on Ebay. I don’t know why; maybe it’s because, there’s something inherently dicey about buying or selling to people you don’t know, can’t see, and generally can’t trust. That’s the key word, isn’t it? Trust.

It’s possibly a flaw in my character, but I don’t naturally trust people. I’m the kind of guy who is naturally suspicious of a good thing – I don’t just look gift horses in the mouth, I send off for the full dental records. Caution has always served me well and in an online sense I can hold my hand up and say I’ve never been hoodwinked. At what point do we call common sense paranoia?

There’s a very thin line between a legitimate anonymous pers

on on the Internet and a lying, conniving swindler. Much of the time it comes down to nothing more than a few lines of opinion or feedback. For example: user bigsmith62 comes across as nothing more than a charlatan when he sends an email to you insisting that you fill in some random form with your bank account details to help clear up some ’suspicious’ activity on account, but drop him into an Ebay situation, give him a pretty star and a few lines of feedback and suddenly he becomes Mr Reputation, Mr Trust.

Call me a cynic, but that is seriously worrying. Like all good researchers and writers, I didn’t feel right putting this piece together without any solid research, so I decided to kill two virtual birds with one stone. I needed a new laptop and needed to offload this terrible Asus Netbook that I purchased on a whim and which rapidly became something of an albatross around my neck. So what I did do?

You guessed it posted it on Ebay. Here’s how it went down: I placed a Dinky model in good, boxed condition on Ebay at £80 and my Asus netbook on at £70. The Dinky sold for £176, which was a bit of a result; while the Asus sold for a total of £96.00, including shipping, which once again, on the face of it, seemed like a good result. But then came the rub.

The guy who purchased the Dinky paid up and as soon as the money hit my PayPal account I shipped the goods. Great, no problems. The Asus transaction was a little more complicated and this was where my worst fears were to be realised.

The funds did not clear into my PayPal account straight away. Instead there was a message that read ‘Holding, please post’. In other words: post the goods and we’ll release the funds. Fair enough, I thought, you can’t trust everybody online and this seemed like PayPal and EBay’s ingenious way of protecting the buyer. Apparently I had to ship the goods and then wait either for the buyer to acknowledge receipt by leaving me positive feedback or 21 days after delivery before the money would be released in my PayPal account. Great. So where is the protection for the seller? I had two problems with this. First, there’s no guarantee the buyer will leave feedback, which would effectively leave me dangling in the wind with no laptop and no payment. Second, Ebay want their fees paid – I don’t eBay often, so what I tend to do is mark my goods up a bit to ensure I make enough cover the fees. That’s no good when EBay’s sister company won’t release the money. As I sit and write this piece one week later I still haven’t had the funds and I’ve had four reminders about my Ebay invoice.

Which brings me to Ebay customer services. How difficult would you imagine it is to get through to Ebay customer service, and PayPal customer service for that matter, that they are withholding the very money with which you want to pay your bill? Exceedingly. The round-robin goes something like this:

Ebay: This isn’t our issue; we recommend that you speak to PayPal about this.

PayPal: This isn’t our issue; we recommend that you speak to Ebay about this.

It’s an absolute nightmare. So far the only thing I have been told with any authority is that these measures are put in place to protect honest, fair-minded ‘Ebayers’ such as myself.

So would I ever feel inclined to sell through Ebay again? I’d rather run my fingers under the cold water tap and then place in the nearest electricity socket.

Buying was a completely different matter however. Now, you would think that after being messed around in the selling stakes, the last thing I would do would be to wade into the Ebay arena armed with my Visa card. I’m a bit of a sadist.

Purchasing a laptop on Ebay is pretty risky. I don’t suppose anybody enters into such a transaction lightly, but I wanted to spend roughly what I made in my sales – if I ever see all the money that is – so I set about searching. I found an offer that seemed far too good to be true: 1.66ghz, dual core, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD for under £300. Like I said, too good to be true. Everything about the page seemed genuine, even the return address for repairs on the alleged 12 month warranty. I went for it, hoping against hope that it wasn’t a scam.

One week later and here I am, writing this piece on possibly the best laptop I’ve ever owned. It arrived within 2 days and works like a charm. So would I ever buy from Ebay again? From Argos Clearance Bargains, without a doubt.

So, I suppose there is some silver lining to this tale after all. But I do feel that there’s a certain amount of gambling to be done when it comes to dealing in the online market place and it serves to keep your mind, your ears, and your eyes open.