[Closed] Peter I'm interested in the parts pieces you want to sell.

I don't know when but...

I have four payments on hold right now. And one just released. But, maybe it is because I was out of eBay for so long, that I had to start over again. I read the rules earlier. "Until a seller has a total of twenty-five sales in good standing, all funds will be held until the buyer tells them that they have received their merchandise."
I can understand this, sort of. But, if I purchase a model from an on line source, I pay for it before they will ship it, right? Just saying!

Ebay makes its own rules...most of which are nonsensical...

Problem is Ebay has a virtual monopoly and trying to get through to find out anything or query anything is like juggling fog. The dreaded 'frequently asked questions' NEVER has the question I want to ask! When I retired my 'minxragtop' name which was my business one I wanted to change the name and revert to my private name 'vwhannibal2012'. I wanted to transfer the feedback but wasn't allowed to so had to start again - no loyalty, trust or brain cells on EBay's part. For the first 20 or so I had to put up with not getting paid until the buyer had received the item, despite my previous 100% feedback score over 16 years of trading.

There is one reasonable alternative to ebay (besides Legacy, of course!)

Amazon. Private parties can buy and sell through them. Anymore when I look for an item I just google it, and a few times Amazon has come up right there with ebay. Some well-known retailers are there, including A-E.

Can only be a good thing Harvey....

Competition improves the breed as they used to say about motor racing!

I find that eBay is an awful company to deal with, with policies that are heavily biased towards the buyer and with little or no protection for the seller. It's an invitation to fraud also but fortunately most buyers are honest. Well those I deal with are, although I did have one skirmish, but received no empathy whatsoever. That might have been PayPal, but they're about the same. Come from the same stable don't they? Trouble is, they control the market so if you want to sell you have to use them.

It depends what side of the fence you are on

I have not sold anything on Ebay. All my transactions have been as a buyer. I have been outright robbed by three different sellers, two with low completed sales, one with many sales but a high number of negatives. They never sent the merchandise, two disappeared and one strung me along until the two month window was up. I have had buyers sell me stuff listed as new that were clearly not, broken items, and completely different stuff. I've had one seller try to treble the shipping cost after I paid for the item. Anything you send back you are on the hook for return postage.
That said, the great majority of my sellers were pretty good.

I agree, there are good and bad on both sides but neither eBay, nor Paypal, conduct a thorough investigation, and in my opinion, take the easy option of favouring the buyer. I'm surprised your rogue sellers got away with it, unless they operated their accounts in such away that they managed to circumvent the repayment/freezing of payments system.