The buyer is presumably registered in the UK, but has provided a fake address in Germany.

Summary: zappydooyoo shares his frustration about a buyer on an online platform who has listed a fake address in Germany. Despite multiple attempts to get in touch, the buyer does not respond, and the platform apparently shows little interest in resolving issues like this. roter_rauch advises canceling the purchase, but zappydooyoo sees little point in that, since similar situations are widespread and the platform apparently sees no consistent need to take action. There is speculation that this could contribute to a loss of trust in the platform.

Hello folks

since calling ebay is becoming more and more pointless and this has now become a real waste of time,

I’d like to share an interesting case with you:

I sold an item that can only be picked up in person. The buyer isn’t paying and isn’t responding

either. When I sent the payment information, I noticed that he had used a false address in

Germany. So he hasn’t entered a first name or a last name either.

The street field just says "Street" and there isn’t even a house number. When checking

the username, ebay says the user is in London, UK.

Have you also had this happen, that the staff simply don’t care at all

whether the member has entered a deliverable address and casually offer that you can just

cancel the purchase? Do we all have too much time for these pointless processes?

Unbelievable stuff. They don’t care at all what’s going on here. I suspect they don’t check this

and don’t ban people like that either.

The loss of trust in this platform must be immense.

zappydooyoo

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Posted Jul 14, 2026 at 6:51 PM · Edited Jul 14, 2026 at 6:51 PM·Last reply 3 weeks ago

8 comments

roter_rauch

·Jul 15, 2026 at 2:56 PM

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Hello,
there are jokers like that everywhere, and what you've found out about addresses or not, etc. won't help you any further. The important thing would be for you to cancel the purchase with the reason "does not pay". That way he'll get a note on his account, and if it happens again, he won't be able to buy anything here anymore -- or something like that, read up on it again.

zappydooyoo

OP3 weeks ago

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Hello roter_rauch,

that's wishful thinking. I personally know 2 people who bid on items, and if it's cheaper somewhere else, they keep bidding there. Only the one that's cheapest to get gets paid for. If the other auctions also go in their favor, the items simply aren't paid for or, even better, the purchase is canceled because of "mistake" or other claims. They look very closely for item descriptions that may contain an error or where the pictures don't match, etc. That makes it really easy to justify the cancellations. Warnings? Nothing. It's been like this for months. eBay also doesn't care about the German market anymore. Take a look at the annual reports and quarterly figures for this platform: millions of users are being lost in Germany and new users are being gained in other countries. Whether that's due to the overregulation here or the massive loss of trust, I can't say for sure. The only reason there are still so many people active here in Germany at all is the insane decision to promote selling as "free" on TV. That will be the downfall. What else they can still come up with now, apart from a thorough cleanup to restore trust here, I don't know. The fact is: what I've experienced here in just this first half-year is enough for me.