I considered titling this post many things.

• Ebay: 15 years of asshole buyers
• Paypal: Your game is up and it’s about damn time
• I’ll never get screwed by Paypal again!
• I’ll never get screwed by Ebay again!

In the end, I went with the above. If you’ve read Live For Free you know how badly eBay and Paypal can (and often do) screw people over, myself included. So when I saw this announcement today by Google, I knew what it meant to me personally. I’m done with Paypal, forever. Consequently, I’m done with eBay, forever. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the economics of the secondhand electronics market have changed drastically since I wrote LFF. Quitting eBay 5, or 10, or even 15 years ago would mean a loss of income. That’s no longer the case. So much time and effort (and fees, so many fees) are wasted on eBay due to fake buyers, buyers who don’t pay, foreign buyers who are allowed to bid on US only auctions, etc. Paypal only exacerbates the problem with its terrible customer support and awful service. eBay doesn’t even allow you to directly email anyone without going through a ‘guided help wizard’. Ridiculous.

I mean seriously, there’s a website purely to help people fight Paypal screwings. Gotta love their campaign though:

OPY: I dumped all my eBay stock.