On 12/07/2018 12:10, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

My recent experience with ebay has been extremely positive: where
problems have arisen I've generally received refunds, in at least one
case extremely rapidly, and in several cases with the seller not wanting
the goods back.

Yes, despite having the goods twice, once as an order, the second as a
replacement when the original didn't work, and the replacement didn't
work either. I've got the items, though useless to me, and I got my
money back.

though the
few cases where I _have_ bought direct from China things have been fine,
just slow (though not any slower than promised).

The items above were from China. With another item originating from
China but being sold in the UK, the supplier decided it was faulty or
substandard before dispatching it, and emailed me to ask if I was
prepared to wait a while for a replacement, to which I agreed. When the
replacement stock arrived, it too was faulty or substandard, so at that
point I cancelled the order, and obtained the item from the next
cheapest supplier. Despite my asking the question directly, it was
never explained what was wrong with the original supplier's stock, but
my guess is the UK mains lead was not fused, because that's how the unit
from the second supplier came - no matter, I've been working with PCs
for decades, and have spare kettle leads coming out of my ears.