Some years ago, I bought a lot of items on eBay for several hundreds dollars and it arrived poorly packed and heavily damaged with several of the highest value items missing entirely. When I contacted the seller about the damage and missing items he/she’s first response was, “What the hell do you care, you’re probably just going to resell them anyway?”

While I wasn’t buying these particular items to resell, I bristled at this. Even if I were to resell them, why does that make me any less entitled to getting the items I purchased in the condition I purchased them in? How does my being a seller have anything to do with the fact that I didn’t get what I ordered?

I tried to be as nice as possible about it, though obviously if he/she had just given me my partial refund in the first place, it wouldn’t have had to move onto a claim. (I only asked for a partial refund to cover the items that were missing which was damn nice of me since the items that did arrive were destroyed beyond repair.)  I’d been charged for insurance but apparently no insurance was purchased, a big mess with a very antagonistic seller resulted.

When it was finally escalated to PayPal and they found in my favor weeks later, they gave me my partial refund and I figured we could all move on with our lives I got an email from the seller that said, “You got your refund. YAY Powersellers, we’re so F*ing cool!!!! YAY! 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 :-)”

My first thought upon receiving this email was, “Holy crow, this person is out of their mind.” But as I reread this psychotic, sarcastic email and the rest of his/her angry emails from the claims process, I realized that s/he hated the fact that s/he had sold his/her item to a PowerSeller and was specifically mad that the very idea that I might try to resell what I had bought from him/her. S/he wasn’t just annoyed by the idea, s/he was filled with blind rage about it, enough that s/he’d been cursing me out for weeks and desperate to prevent me from getting a partial refund.

I have to confess, I don’t get it. It has never even occurred to me to look and see if someone who buys from me is also a seller, nor would I care one way or the other if they were. And why would I care if that person resold an item after buying from me? I already made my money.

But since this happened, I’ve had several conversations with other sellers who insist on having separate account for buying and selling on eBay. I know many of us collectibles sellers occasionally “flip” items, buying big lots on eBay and later re-selling individually or after cleaning/restoration. I know some sellers are desperate for their buyers not to know they do this and use a separate account to buy to keep this secret.

As you’ve no doubt gathered, I don’t do this. My selling account is the one that gets all the coupons and other selling benefits, of course I’m also going to use that to buy. I also, frankly, don’t understand what’s wrong with buying and selling from the same account. That’s how the site is designed to work!

That said, I know I’m in the minority with this. Do you separate your buying and selling into different accounts? Would you mind explaining why? Have you ever had an issue where a seller refused to sell to you because they knew that you were also a seller?