As a seller, can I really still be sure I’ll get my money? | Sell

xeridar · 2026-03-10T16:44:03.571000Z

After almost 20 years on eBay, for the first time I’m worrying whether I can still safely sell anything here: After another, longer period of inactivity, I’ve now had to realize that I don’t really actually receive “payments received” anymore until the buyer confirms that the item is okay. And with my first sales there was immediately a problem too: a buyer claimed some alleged issues to get a refund via “does not match the description.”In this case, eBay ruled in my favor and I got my money (and the buyer still got a refund from eBay, which also actively rewards such attempts).However, this seems absolutely arbitrary to me and I no longer see any way to sell anything safely on eBay: whether with tracking or whatever, as a seller I can never prove with evidence that a buyer’s claim of “the package didn’t contain the item that was ordered” is false. But in case of doubt, such an argument already seems to be enough for eBay to refund the buyer, and then the seller has lost the item and has no money. I had intended to offer various further items of somewhat higher value at auction, but based on my current understanding of seller protection here, that feels too unsafe to me. So my question:How does eBay guarantee to me as a seller that I won’t be scammed?

Discussions

As a seller, can I really still be sure I’ll get my money? | Sell | eBay Germany