Well, ebay is still quite popular though like you said it full of dishonest traders, I am glad I am not and ebayer

the fundamental idea is brilliant but it relies mainly on the honesty of its members... now.. if each and every person was thoroughly checked out first with a proper ID then people would maybe think twice about ripping others off but as it is anyone can do more or less as they please.

Ive never bought anything off Ebay, and I probably never will.. I dont trust people

eBay is like Marmite, you either hate it or love it

The policies are stupid are ridiculous and we can't stand them but its not a bad place as some people make it out to be. Yes it does have dishonest traders, Yes it does have a bad reputation but some of the things you will find there are unique and very hard to find and at a bargain price.

There are many honest traders there (eg. us ) but its the dishonest traders who give everybody a bad name.

eBay is a market place that you have to know everything about, if you don't then you will definately get ripped off.

I hate those scammers who ask for goods to be delivered to places like Nigeria and say that they have already transferred the money into an account when they have not.

A lot of people fall for this trick and send off the product.

True but some people get a little excited very quickly and do stupid things.

We have many people who want goods shipped to various countries and would like to pay via a payment method which we do not accept.

99% of the time they are scammers, so we play them at there own game and they eventually get fed up knowning that they are not going to get anywhere and give up.

It's amazing the amount of companies that now rely on ebay..

I went for an interview for a job some years ago that basically specialises in delivery of large and/or expensive antiques sold on ebay.

They had converted two huge barns and had a central HQ etc etc..

Many people wheel and deal on there and many also have given up on the idea of opening an actual shop because of rent, rates etc and trade as an individual, problem with this is that you have no come back as a customer.

Many are genuine shops like for instance.. my parents bought a wood burner from from a shop that advertised on ebay, the shop did not have it's own website and so you couldn't find it online but they used ebay as their online shop front, I prefer to see both, if a company is trading on ebay I like to know they have a website externally of ebay also.

We have started trading on eBay, not a very good place for computer software because of many people selling fake copies.

We don't rely on it though.

I think ebay is useful for certain things. For example, in a property we renovated, we found a huge cast iron Victorian range, which was falling apart and covered in rust, but we thought would be useful for someone.

We put it on ebay with some photos, and unbeliveably someone bought it. They drove about 80 miles to pick it up. They had been looking for a while, as they had an existing one they were restoring. We were happy to help, and they were happy they had found what they were looking for. Ebay is great for this sort of thing.

However, I would never NEVER buy tickets from ebay. Fake Glastonbury tickets have been put on there for years, but you would never gbe able to use them for the festival, as they scan your ticket when you go in, and you now have to have photo ID.

I think it is a site where you need to trust your instincts about what is on offer.