If you google the buyer's address, it's home to a package forwarding service. Do not ever do business with a buyer using such a service. 100% guarantee it's a scam.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/78+McCullough+Dr,+New+Cast...
https://www.google.com/maps/place/78+McCullough+Dr,+New+Cast...
I had shipped out a piece of recording equipment. It was packed pretty well- certainly good enough for domestic shipping. I sent it off to somewhere in Seattle, and according to my shipping records it arrived.
Strangely, like 3-4 weeks later the buyer is like, "Whoa, it arrived damaged!", to which I felt terrible, as I liked shipping things properly. I told him to ship it back to me, and I'd refund him, or to take it to the USPS store for the insurance claim. He said he couldn't ship it back to me, or that it would be $100 to ship, and there was no USPS store. I told him that was absurd, because it only cost me $15 to ship it to him.
It was then uncovered that he was in another country, and that it had been shipped on a container ship to get there. I hadn't packaged the thing for international travel.
Anyway, we resolved it and I paid him a bit (somewhat begrudgingly) for 'poor shipping packaging'. But it taught me a lesson about shipping.
Had he simply been transparent, I'd have added yet one more box layer. As-is, it looked like a forklift drove through it.
In this case, package is open at customs, phone weighted and replaced by an another phone with exact same weight. Typical man-in-the-middle problem.
As someone who uses package forwarding services to get things that don't ship outside America, I can assure you I'm not a "scam".
By the way, I never had a problem and never a seller put a complain on this.
So it's perfectly inline to refuse to ship to such address via eBay.
What percentage of the eBay-using population has reduced their trust in eBay as a result of this and many other articles on HN, though?
The brand awareness of eBay has given them a great deal of trust runway that, IMO, they can burn through before it starts to actually affect the short term numbers that dominate the things that anyone actually acts on with large, publically traded companies.
I think the scam listings are easy to avoid and the one time I was scammed by a seller (sent me obviously used item rather than the advertised new condition) eBay refunded me and the entire process was pretty easy.
I really like eBay bucks (though they have neutered the program lately), its a great place to buy used everything, eBay daily deals can be great, major stores/brands have eBay stores and Newegg specifically has a lot of eBay only sales, and they sometimes have 10% off gas cards sold directly by SVM.
It still works even though there are scams because the vast majority of people are honest.
I sell on eBay as well but I don't love it because the commission is more expensive. If the commission were lower I'd prefer it to selling on Amazon. I do most of my selling on Amazon lately but I still eBay some stuff.
I do worry about getting scammed, especially while selling, but I think you're equally likely to get scammed on Amazon than eBay. For high value items (I sell items that cost $1,500+) I google the buyer and address, and I take pictures and video of me packing up and shipping it. I also don't ship anything that isn't eligible for PayPal's seller protection. I'm glad most people don't try to scam me. I had one person claim to have their eBay and PayPal accounts hacked but PayPal's seller protection took care of me.
Facebook groups seem to be a good place to sell and I've sold a few impossible to ship items there, but honestly, I still don't feel comfortable meeting strangers in person.
Did it multiple times, and no seller refused to send a package to forwarding address. Never had a problem either.
The service I use does make photos of all incoming and forwarded packages (and contents), so in case of any problems there will be some evidence.
This isn't correct, not 100%, probably not even 50%. I sold a $1,000+ used MacBook and shipped it to a package forwarding service. Before shipping expensive items I always do a small amount of research to determine if I feel comfortable shipping it out.
I googled the buyer and I found out that he's a newspaper reporter in the Caribbean, so he obviously had a large public presence. Before the sale we had a lot of back and forth messages as he had several questions about the Macbook and I sent him several more pictures. He was very well spoken, personable, and polite. He seemed like the most legit buyer there can be, I sent it out. I got a very nice feedback from him thanking me.
I also have sent a whole bunch of things (none expensive) to eBay's global shipping program, Never had a scammer there either.
It is extremely unfortunate that scammers are using them, this means a lot of sellers won't sell to me :( .