Originally Posted by
009jim
I've seen this before and my understanding is that the seller doesn't want to give you their address because if there is any dispute you could settle in person, rather than having to rely on ebay's system which from my experience vastly favors the seller. Hence, this is a reason to be suspicious of this seller. There's no point in checking their "feedback" score because that is meaningless. A seller can never get negative feedback because a seller never leaves feedback until the buyer leaves feedback. Most buyers don't want negative feedback so they give the seller positive feedback (or like me, no feedback). It should be compulsory for the seller to leave feedback as soon as they receive payment.
Sorry Jim, but the eBay system greatly favors the
buyer, not the seller. If the buyer is unhappy with a purchase eBay may and often does intervene on their behalf and give them a refund, taking money from the seller's Paypal account to do so. The latest eBay policy, in effect this month, requires sellers to guarantee the funds to do so, even if they intend to sell with a 'no returns' policy. (What eBay is doing is taking the ability to set those policies away from sellers.) And sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers, not for some years now.
And has been pointed out several times, the seller doesn't have to give his address to the buyer, but could arrange to meet in another location.
Aside from that, excellent post.
(It is of course possible that eBay.au has different policies that are more evenly balanced between buyer and seller.)
(Also...REALLY not trying to start another eBay thread.)