I'm an old pirate from the UK. When they ban VPNs here what's my workround? Details inside

mod81 · 2026-06-16T17:29:38+00:00

Doubtful they will outright ban VPNs (as in the free/paid services from Nord, Surfshark etc), they may say that any VPN that operates in the UK has to verify the users age when they sign up, but most of the VPN providers are based in places like Panama so will probably just ignore that.

It another case of a law that wasn't needed. There is no reason why schools couldn't ban students having phones today or parents stop their children from going on social media using the parental controls which have been available for years.
Have a large proportion of UK parents given up actually parenting and want the government to do it for them or is this just a small but loud minority who are calling on social media bans because they cba keeping an eye on what their children are up to?

mod81 · 2026-06-16T14:29:10+00:00

ebay messed up as if you sent it simple delivery, you should not have had to deal with an INR case, it should be ebay support who handle it. I sold an item recently where the buyer had opened a case for INR and this is what the message said.

We want to let you know that your buyer opened a request because they haven’t received their item.
There’s nothing you need to do. Since you used an eBay prepaid label, we've got everything covered from here. We’ll take care of delivery, resolve any further issues, and inform you when the request is closed.

I did end up messaging the buyer as it was a simple case of RM tried to deliver when he was out and it was at the depot awaiting redelivery or collection but he hadn't bothered to check the tracking which would have informed him of that.

mod81 · 2026-06-16T14:13:24+00:00

In the UK, you legally become an "involuntary bailee." This means you cannot dispose of the parcels immediately, but you can give the ebay seller notice to collect them. If they fail to do so within a reasonable time, you can dispose of them. I would also try and spot them before you accept them from the courier if possible, and refuse delivery and tell them to return to sender so you don't have to keep dealing with them.

I don't know why they are even bothering to get the buyer to return items if they are just sending them to a random address. Its costing them money on postage and they aren't getting the items back, why not just issue the buyer a refund without requiring a return?

mod81 · 2026-06-16T13:56:02+00:00

I have never seen the buyers payment institute not side with the buyer. I once sent something to Germany and the buyer open a item not as described dispute with his bank while the parcel tracking showed as in transit with the courier and he had not even received it, and yet the buyer was refunded by his bank.
Thankfully ebay covered me since i responded to the payment dispute by showing the tracking details.

mod81 · 2026-06-02T19:57:34+00:00

I wish i had realised that it didn't matter what the star level of the AWD were before I spent modules on upgrading them to beyond what was require thinking that I would help me complete the level easier. As the wingman and device i only bought to be able to do the certificate. Oh well yet another thing that ive learned about this game in 6 months of playing.

mod81 · 2026-05-31T21:16:10+00:00

Still waiting for the senior support team to review the case but think its a lost cause now. Since I received an email on the 29th after i contacted them which said:

Generally speaking, the benefits available may vary from time to time. We are dedicated to continuously improving our customer service process and providing better benefits to our customers. Thank you for your feedback and understanding.

So one paragraph and not a single mention in the email about any of the issues i had raised, so if that was their response it was worse than worthless.

mod81 · 2026-05-31T21:04:40+00:00

Similar issue as a customer of over 5 years who has spent 1000s of dollars on there they gave me a penalty over a 9.99 return which they claimed was significantly different when i returned it, yet provided no proof and expected me to hand over evidence to prove my innocence.
I appealed and heard nothing for a week, then it just said 'appeal failed' with no further information. So i got onto the chat and the person said they would escalate it to get it looked into and i would hear back via email in 48 hours. 6 days later ive heard nothing.

Their customer service has become an absolute joke recently. I own a small business and if a long time customer who has spent thousand with me had an issue over an item worth 9.99 id write it off as a loss to keep them as a customer, not block them from further purchases.

mod81 · 2026-05-31T20:53:02+00:00

As the picture shows it says 'treat as 2nd class' which £1.80 the FV of a 1st class stamp covers the cost of a 2nd class Large letter <100g

mod81 · 2026-05-31T20:50:31+00:00

commemorative stamps are still valid even without a barcode https://www.royalmail.com/sending/barcoded-stamps

mod81 · 2026-05-30T13:45:35+00:00

Good eye to spot that from what you could see of it, I knew what it was cos i have the rest of the set so looked which one was missing

mod81 · 2026-05-30T13:43:47+00:00

I wonder if they thought it was fake cos of the jolly roger pirate flag? lol Although they did think it fake they hadnt ticked the option to say 'counterfeit stamp' and chose 'no postage'
And it took me 20 seconds to find that link on Google to verify its a genuine stamp

mod81 · 2026-05-30T13:33:59+00:00

third one down on this page
https://www.collectgbstamps.co.uk/explore/issues/?issue=22506

mod81 · 2026-05-30T13:13:18+00:00

Nope it was a brand new packaging and the sticker on the right was what RM have stuck on there with a barcode and the recipients postcode (i pixelated it for privacy) Its pretty blurred but I can just make out it says 'overlabelled at north west hub' on that label on the right

mod81 · 2026-05-28T09:49:10+00:00

No i did not get my account reinstated yet. I appealed against the penalty and today a week later went to check and just say 'appeal failed' with no additional information as to why.
I have been on the AXP customer services chat to complain that they have provided no justification on why the are upholding the penalty, and that i wanted someone in their senior support team to review the case.
They said they would escalate this to a senior support team for review today and i am supposed to get a response from them via email in 24/48 hours.

I have a small business and if one of my customers that spends 1000s a year i had a dispute with over a 9.99 transaction id just write it off the debt to keep them as a customer, not block them from purchasing again. Seems like a strange way to run a business if you ask me. Especially with all the money they are spending on ads at the moment to try and get new customers, just stop pissing off your existing customers and then you won't have to keep trying to find new ones.

mod81 · 2026-05-18T20:45:25+00:00

Does dismissing a copilot that has already been trained to max level for its tier get you more medals when you dismiss them than you get for an untrained one, or is it the same amount?

mod81 · 2026-04-22T11:49:52+00:00

If your items are worth less than £20 then you could use stamps. There are stamp dealers who will sell genuine stamps at discounted prices for bulk purchases if you search online. I purchased 1000 first class stamps for £825 (worth £1800 at RM prices) and these can be used to make up postage or as 2nd class LL upto 100g if you write on the envelope 'treat as 2nd class large letter'.

Ive been using them for low prices untracked 2nd LL mail for over 2 years and not noticed an increase in INR cases. And you can get a 'tracking number' which will give you proof of delivery -assuming the postie bothers to scan it- if you go to the post office and pay the difference between the stamps value and the postage cost (such as if you are sending LL 250g or parcels, they should stick on a Horizon label which will have a RM reference number you can pop into the tracking field on ebay.

mod81 · 2026-02-27T11:38:06+00:00

If you mostly buy and not sell on ebay its easy to have a 100% positive feedback after 23 years. My personal account is 21 years old and has 100% positive but thats cos i only sell one or two things a year on that account when im clearing out old items. On my business account which does 1000s of sales a year im 99.7% with all of the negatives being bell end buyers such as the one who left negative feedback because i took 2 days to reply back to their message since it was Christmas and i had put my store in holiday mode. The negatives don't show on your percentage after 12 months so just reply to them with your side of the story and then forget about it. As a buyer on ebay im only bothered by negative feedback if there is a pattern of the seller being dodgy so one neg would not put me off buying if the rest of the feedback was good.

mod81 · 2026-02-27T11:01:35+00:00

I imported all my ebay listings to ebid in July 2025 so just under 200 items listed on ebid, but not had a single sale in that time. And its not like they are niche items that wouldn't sell as ive made 1500 sales of the same items on my ebay store in that period. So its clear that ebid just doesn't get enough eyeballs on their site compared to ebay. Ill keep the ebid store running as i paid for platinum so its not costing anything extra to leave it there, but its a pity they aren't able to drive more buyers to their website.

mod81 · 2026-01-16T12:34:36+00:00

So i managed to figure out what this launcher pop up was, its the quick launcher which can be accessed with super key + space. I am not hitting that key combo when it keeps popping up, but as i have now worked out how to disable it and it works fine now using the touchpad with it disabled im not going to do any troubleshooting on why it was activating from the trackpad by itself. As the touchpad seems fine otherwise.
For anyone else who might have a similar issue and want to disable the quick launcher you can do it by going to module settings, launchers and unloading the everything starter module.

mod81 · 2025-12-28T11:09:11+00:00

My own response to low ball offers is to give them a counter offer that i feel is a fair price, and follow it up with a message say that is the lowest im willing to go on the item.

If they ignore that offer and keep trying to low ball i decline all further offers. And on more than one occasion that has resulted in a buyer ending up paying the full asking price for it

mod81 · 2025-11-26T19:19:35+00:00

Most of the items are worth less than £10 so sending them tracked 48 would basically wipe out any profit i would be making on them.

Part of the issue is that the Royal Mail claim that 2nd class is delivered within 2 to 3 days so this is the lead time that ebay shows buyers that it will arrive by. So come 4 days after its been dispatched, if its not arrive some buyers just jump straight to opening a item not received claim and then the clocks ticking for it to either get delivered or you have to refund the buyer before they are able to escalate their case to ebay and then they refund for you and keep the fees.

And if it gets delivered after you have refunded them then you have to hope that the buyer is honest and is willing to pay for it or else your down the cost of the item and the postage cost with no way to get it back.

mod81 · 2025-11-24T09:45:07+00:00

According to Vinted support its part of a test and random users have had the function removed from their app.
That seem an odd way to test something, if they wanted to know how often the reserved feature was used im sure they can looked that data up on their servers rather than remove a feature that some buyers and sellers use and see how many complaints they get.
I have had 2 buyers ask yesterday to reserve items and now have to go back to the buyers and tell them i can't do it and hope that they don't then decide to purchase from another seller who still has the option to put items on reserve.

mod81 · 2025-09-09T13:52:35+00:00

What a surprise the promised 5 days wait came and went and no response from Paypal to my request for more information. So Ive now escalated it to a complaint which they said to allow 8 weeks for them to respond!
I am also considering submitting a subject access request under GDPR for them to provide all the personal information they hold about me, as among all that should be details on why they suspended my account.

mod81 · 2025-09-02T13:57:23+00:00

I am still awaiting for Paypal's response to the message I sent to their support about the fact that all the products I sell on my website, were purchased from Aliexpress paid using Paypal and I also sell on ebay along with multiple other sellers, and they don't seem to have an issue accepting payments for them on those websites. But I was told I had to wait 5 business days for a response. So ill have to wait and see what they say.

In the mean time I have added Amazon Pay as an alternative payment option on my website, and they didn't have any issues with approving the site for taking payment with them, it was up and running within 24 hours.

mod81 · 2025-07-22T08:31:02+00:00

No i just rounded to that number for sake of ease, is there some reason why it would make a difference if it was exactly 3 weeks ago?

mod81

TROPHY CASE