Buying better on eBay
Practical, checkable writing about finding and pricing things on eBay. Every claim here is either sourced to eBay's own help pages, or labelled as something we checked ourselves, or labelled as something the community reports and we could not verify.
Buying ex-corporate laptops on eBay: the BIOS lock a wipe won't clear
A supervisor password set by a company IT department lives on the motherboard, not the drive. Lenovo's own remedy is replacing the system board.
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Buying graded trading cards on eBay: fake slabs eBay can't catch
eBay's own pages disagree on the price threshold for authenticating trading cards. Here's what the program covers, and how to spot a fake PSA slab.
8 min · AUGUST 29, 2026
Buying vinyl records on eBay: no authentication, real bootlegs
Vinyl records sit outside eBay's Authenticity Guarantee entirely. Every grade is a seller's claim, and bootleg pressings are a separate, real risk.
7 min · AUGUST 29, 2026
Free eBay deal hunting tools in 2026, checked one by one
We loaded 19 free eBay tools on July 29, 2026. Goofbid and BayCrazy are gone, Terapeak was renamed, and several of them beat us at their own job.
12 min · JULY 26, 2026
eBay Authenticity Guarantee: 2026 thresholds by category
Wristwatches from $2,000, sneakers from $100, handbags and jewelry from $500. eBay's own two pages disagree on the trading card number, and both are live.
10 min · JULY 24, 2026
"Untested" isn't an eBay condition. Here's what the seller actually picked.
A seller who types untested has still picked Used or For parts off eBay's list. That field, and not the prose around it, is what a claim is measured against.
10 min · JULY 22, 2026
Buying video games on eBay: fake cartridges and who grades games now
WATA stopped grading under its own name on 2025-10-15 and is PSA Video Games now. How to spot a fake cartridge, and where eBay's coverage stops.
11 min · JULY 20, 2026The full index
- JUL 16
Buying watches on eBay: what $2,000 authentication misses
eBay authenticates watches automatically from $2,000 and sells the check for $80 below it. It catches counterfeits, not frankenwatches built from real parts.
11 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Buyer protection, Price research
- JUL 14
Dating vintage clothing on eBay from a photo of the tag
Care labels, fiber percentages and RN numbers each set a floor on a garment's age, never a date. Single stitch is evidence, and reproductions copy it.
11 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 10
Buying Funko Pops on eBay without overpaying for a lot
Box condition carries the value, and a mixed lot sells at roughly 50 to 55 percent of summed guide values. We compare asking prices, not sold prices.
10 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 8
Retired LEGO sets on eBay: box grades, seals, and fake bricks
What B1, B2 and B3 actually mean, the tells a resealed box gives away, and where to price a retired set. We compare asking prices, never sold prices.
11 min read · Collectibles, Authentication, Price research
- JUL 6
Can you take back an eBay bid? Only for two reasons.
eBay lets you take a bid back for two reasons, inside one hour, and only if the listing ends within 12 hours. On Trading Cards you can't retract at all.
10 min read · Auctions, How eBay works, Buyer protection
- JUL 2
eBay buyer scams in 2026 and the tells that give them away
Five 2026 eBay scam patterns with the tell for each, from off-platform payment to AI-generated photos. Patterns only, since no single tell proves fraud.
10 min read · Buyer protection, Authentication
- JUN 30
eBay's Money Back Guarantee: 30 calendar days, and the one move that voids it
eBay's Money Back Guarantee runs 30 calendar days from delivery, or the seller's window if that's longer. Paying outside eBay checkout removes all of it.
10 min read · Buyer protection, How eBay works
- JUN 26
eBay auction vs Buy It Now: what changes at the first bid
Buy It Now usually disappears when somebody bids, but on a reserve listing it survives until the reserve is met. eBay won't say which categories differ.
10 min read · Auctions, How eBay works
- JUN 24
How to find eBay listings that have been sitting unsold
A listing's start date is the signal, not its price. How to read a listing's age, the categories where it matters, and why sitting usually means overpriced.
10 min read · Deal hunting, Reselling, Price research
- JUN 22
eBay allows sniping. A snipe won't get you a cheaper price.
eBay allows bid sniping in writing, software included. Proxy bidding means a snipe changes who gets to react and not what you'll pay. Live 2026 tool costs.
10 min read · Auctions, Tools, Deal hunting
- JUN 18
Is there really a best time to buy on eBay? We went looking for proof.
No study backs the Sunday evening rule, and two statistics behind it are fabricated. Automatic bidding is why the ending hour can't lower what you pay.
10 min read · Auctions, Deal hunting, Price research
- JUN 16
eBay listing red flags: 12 checks and what untested means
Twelve checks to run before you buy. Untested isn't an eBay condition. The seller still picked a label from eBay's list, and that field sets your protection.
10 min read · Price research, Buyer protection, Reselling
- JUN 12
eBay has no price history chart. Here's what you can check instead.
eBay has no price history chart, and no tool can show you prices from before tracking started. Here's why that's structural and not an oversight.
10 min read · Price research, How eBay works, Tools
- JUN 10
eBay stopped documenting its search operators. Here's what still works.
eBay documented three search operators until 2018 and documents none today. Buyers report all three still work, and here's how to test any of them.
10 min read · How eBay works, Deal hunting, Tools, Alerts
- JUN 8
How to calculate eBay sell-through rate from free data
Sell-through rate is sold listings divided by active listings on one eBay search. Both counts are free to read, and there's no price anywhere in the answer.
10 min read · Reselling, Price research, Deal hunting, Tools
- JUN 5
What an eBay watcher count tells you, and what it doesn't
eBay shows a public watcher count on many listings, and we checked one signed out on 2026-07-29. Sellers get a count and never a list of names.
8 min read · How eBay works, Price research, Alerts
- JUN 4
How eBay Best Offer works, and when to make a lowball offer
A seller gets 24 hours to answer an eBay Best Offer, and a counteroffer lasts 96 hours. What to offer, and why you can't see the accept and decline limits.
10 min read · How eBay works, Deal hunting, Auctions
- JUN 2
eBay says your watchlist holds 1,000. Another eBay page says 300.
eBay's watchlist page says 1,000 items. Another live eBay page says 300. Ended listings drop off after 60 days, and eBay doesn't document price alerts.
8 min read · How eBay works, Alerts
- MAY 29
Is this a good price on eBay? How to check without sold data
Sold prices tell you what buyers paid. Asking prices tell you what sellers hope for. Here's how to check eBay sold comps free, and where they fall short.
8 min read · Price research, Deal hunting, Reselling
- MAY 27
eBay's own help page tells you to search misspellings
eBay's bidding strategy page tells buyers to search typos. Which misspelling tools still work in 2026, checked, and why the discount isn't measured.
9 min read · Deal hunting, Tools, Buyer protection
- MAY 25
Why eBay saved search alerts stop, and what actually fixes it
eBay's saved search help page documents one control, an on/off toggle. There's no published frequency setting, and four things that stop the emails.
9 min read · How eBay works, Alerts
FindersKeepers is a small, independent eBay tracking tool, and the writing here comes from actually using it. Every factual claim about how eBay works is linked to the eBay help page it came from, and anything we checked ourselves carries the date we checked it. Where something is widely repeated but we could not verify it, the post says so instead of repeating it.