CC Age verification- ebay ruined!

[micfi9419]

Ebay NEEDS to find an alternative way to verify age. Most items my friends and i have bought and sold for many, many years are now unavailable to us. Rendering it next to useless. I suspect this is the same for many people. 
Why ebay feels the need to restrict the sale of vintage hand tools, cutlery and the like to credit card owning only members of society is beyond me. How many instances have there been of people being stabbed with antique cutlery? Or slashed with a hewing axe bought from ebay? 
Basically dragging us all down to the lowest common denominator. 
If an alternative way is not found to sort this then i (selfishly) hope ebay fails.

A truly pathetic policy youve implemented, treating the customers as potential criminals or lunatics first.

[john1297576]

Ebay is required by law to ensure that certain items are only bought by over 18s, and a credit card is the best way of proving this.

They will not find another way of doing this, they will not go for more complicated methods, for the minority of members with no card.

No one is forced to use a credit card, but simple enough to obtain as the easy way of being able to buy. 

[jckl1957]

Ebay insist that their sellers use this as the only method to verify that a member is over 18.

It is not suggesting that buyers are potentially mad or criminals but it is a simple way to accurately verify that the buyer is over 18.

You could always get a credit card to use on the site or ask somebody else to make a purchase on your behalf.

It is certainly not just Ebay - when I bought craft scissors from a specialist company a couple of years ago, I had to provide photo ID proving my age.

Personally, I believe that any little measure taken to make the world slightly safer is actually a good thing.