Delivery to parcel locker/pick-up points

[highpeakster]

I haven't sold on eBay for some time (as a casual seller).

Yesterday I sold an item and the seller was using a clearly false name (seemingly two separate names, in fact, depending on where in eBay I looked) and the delivery address was a One Shop convenience shop. I couldn't see the seller's actual address. I cancelled the sale. 

This is VERY different from how it used to be. To counter fraud, I would expect to at least know the identity of the person buying -- their actual birth name and their actual address, even if I wasn't going to use it for delivery. 

Can somebody bring me up to speed with this? Am I overreacting? I'm going to sell some highly valuable items soon, the idea of just sending them off to some corner shop and keeping my fingers crossed feels... like a disaster waiting to happen.

[style_wise · Accepted solution]

You've been around the eBay block for nearly 20-years' and seen a lot of changes! This sale covers two of them. Yes, it's completely normal to ask you to dispatch to a corner shop. And yes, people increasingly use 'weird' names. When I send using Tracked service, I am happy to send to any name/address that the Buyer has entered officially for their purchase. Also when you cancel like this the Buyer can leave you Negative feedback.

This is doubly true now that Simple Delivery is available, because eBay general policy is that they handle any lost or damaged in transit claims and you keep your money too. They also protect you from Negative or Neutral feedback related to delayed or undelivered items.

That said, I know of Sellers who won't sell new Apple products because they feel these attract problematic buyers.

If you want to protect yourself more, you can tighten your Buyer Requirements here:

Setting buyer requirements | eBay

[highpeakster]

Thank you so much for a thoughtful and useful reply. 

[lucy_farmer]

'I'm going to sell some highly valuable items soon,'

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Well, to be perfctly honest, I wouldn't!

But that depends on what they are.

 If they are 'tech' items ( phones, lap-tops, cameras etc)  they are known as scam-magnets and I wouldn't touch 'em with a barge-pole.

But the old aphorism about ebay still holds true : Don't put up for sale anything you can't afford to lose'.

But if you are selling stuff* through the Simple Delivery process,  (which , if you are a private seller, you will have to) ebay now take responsibility for items that are *not* delivered: (the seller gets to keep their money *and* the buyer gets a refund)  Supposedy for items damaged in the post as well, but that one is a little more complicated....  

*there is an exclsion list of things that ebay will not send S.D. though. Read up on it before you start selling stuff worth more than a few quid...

(p.s. don't sell tech items to a particular shop in Walthamstow; I can't 'name and shame' here. But just don't )

[highpeakster]

The items are gold sovereigns (which I've sold before on eBay before "the changes", and had no issues despite my obvious paranoia). However, it looks like they're excepted under Simple Delivery, so it's not a good idea to sell them through eBay.