> it’s been damn near impossible to scam someone via eBay…

I got scammed by an eBay seller with thousands of transactions, and an almost faultless history. He shipped me a ‘brand new’ Punkt phone, but when it arrived it was in really bad shape: not only was it scuffed and scratched, there was about a year’s worth of call-history on it.

I made the mistake of contacting him first - and he immediately opened a complaint against me with eBay - meaning I was unable to leave a review of the sale (therefore his impeccable record).

In the end, because I had pictures and evidence of the phone having been used, next to screenshots of the sales page describing the phone as totally brand new, I eventually got my money back.

But nowadays I only buy from stores on eBay.