I first registered with
ebay in 1997 and had purchased well over 1000 error coins from 1997 to 2004, then opened up a
ebay Coin Store... In the early days
ebay was a great place for both buyers and sellers... IMHO when Meg Whitman had taken over, she pretty much destroyed a good thing by changing
ebay seller rules, raising rates, forcing sellers to accept only PayPal Payments on their listings, changing privacy rules so it is now impossible to warn other bidders that they are bidding on fake coins, etc... In April 2006, my
ebay coin store was hacked into, as was my PayPal account that was linked to the store listings, even my business checking account listed on PayPal was hacked into... Needless to say, this experience pretty much ended my
ebay dealings... I closed my store checking account on PayPal and only left one credit card on file for future purchases as I refused to sell on
ebay again... Sometime in 2008 I visited
ebay and placed a bid on a rare colonial document, and after winning the item, went to pay with PayPal... PayPal refused the transaction saying I was over my $10,000.00 account limit... My first thought was that someone hacked into my credit card account on PayPal and telephoned them personally... They replied that only having a credit card on file is not good enough and for me to use PayPal's services, I must have a checking account on file... I explained my previous hacking experience where the hacker gained access to my checking account and that I would never give them access to my current checking account... Since I can no longer use PayPal, on the rare occasion that I am on
ebay and interested in an item, I email the seller and work out another type of payment with a Postal Money Order being my first choice for payment... I hope all those who sell on
ebay don't ever experience what I did... Both
ebay & PayPal refused to give me the name/names of persons involved so I could pursue legal action against them...
*getting back on topic*
I would recommend anyone new to coin and currency collecting, purchase the books before the coins (my
CherryPickers Guide paid for itself numerous times)...