Must be the two worst companies to deal with. AirBnB only contactable via Twitter evn if you've contacted them before. Ebay now seems to use AI or an i**** for communications.

Not having a pop at you personally,

Why do people use these things ,, to save a few quid...???

After many years of dealing with buying things, booking flights, hotels and accommodation etc etc. lessons were learned

Last week wanted a new laptop. Ebay, no known makes at a sensible price.

Ryzen 3 4gb 128gbssd HP laptop. £229 at Argos, included Norton and office 1 year subs.

free delivery or could have collected in store.

Less problems than Ebay if anything goes wrong.

Last year bought a UK spec smart watch from an approved uk seller on ebay, When I got it it was a china market version returned eventually after following instructions to no avail.

Beware E bay sellers disappearing. Argos hardly likely to.

Would never use AirBNB , Use trivago for finding hotels then booking.com to check actually does have private bathroom.. but nowadays can usually find identical or better deal on contacting hotel direct. A little while back one of my japanese hotels was substandard. Said sorry not good, not acceptable. They gave an instant refund.

Air Tickets we have a friend who works for a London travel agent. She finds the deals and tells us to book direct with the airline. (when she has our direct booking reference she can often get us better and cheaper upgrades because she has contacts in the airlines.)

All the above are better protection going direct and as you must know, using paypal on ebay breaks the transaction protection.

Edited by Orb>>. on 14/02/2025 at 16:55

Ebay is ok for small cheap stuff where you don't care too much about it being dud as it was so cheap anyway. I don't buy much on it and never have sold anything with it. For selling I use the local second hand shop where I can take a big box of stuff down and sell it to him for cash in hand. Easy. He makes a big mark up on selling each item individually and good for him. I can't be bothered with the hassle but he does it every day and makes a good living. Old film cameras, old comics and other 'collectables' are his bread and butter.

When I travel I am away for several weeks or months so I need a washing machine. AirBNB places have one that is convenient. I don't want to spend two hours of my holiday sitting in a launderette or a hotel basement. In SE Asia, backpacker areas will have laundry shops where you can drop off a bag of washing and collect it in the evening washed, pressed and folded for a trivial amount but you won't find that in Europe.