For years eBay has been one of the best places on earth to sell laptop components or buy used electronics at bargain prices. Chances are if you had it you could find someone on earth who wanted it, or if you wanted it you could find someone on earth who had it and the price usually worked out.

However, in recent months and years eBay, in their eternal quest to be user friendly, has been implementing unbalanced buyer protection policies that have presented huge threats to sellers, throwing off the balance and making the site a risky place to try and offload used, but working electronics.

PayPal is a big part of the problem.  Right now in cases where a buyer receives an item and wants a return, claiming that it ‘did not match the item description’ PayPal will side with the buyer 100% of the time, going so far as to freeze the payment immediately upon receipt of the dispute and going into bank accounts to retrieve the value of the item if the buyer refuses to admit a refund right away.

This has created a massive string of scams where individuals can order an electronics they want, trade parts or pull components, and the claim the item did not match description with 100% assurance that they will win any dispute short of legal action.

What can be done?

Sellers who want cash for laptops or other old electronics need to be very careful: just posting that you don’t accept refunds on your posting means NOTHING if a claim is filed. Legal action is a possibility for big ticket items, but for casual sellers the safest course is to avoid eBay whenever possible and instead turn to new companies with fair prices for components or devices. If I want to sell my laptop, old phone, desktop, or anything else that can be taken to parts I personally go with gadgetsalvation.com or look for other resell sites with quality track records—not eBay where buyers cannot leave feedback in disputed cases, preventing them from even warning other sellers that the buyer is not to be trusted.