Have you ever bought something from eBay? There are legitimate sellers on there who offer great products, but sometimes the experience isn’t as great.

What would you do if you asked a seller a simple question about a product but they were really rude in their response? Would you let it go and buy from someone else, or would you get even?

The customer in today’s story gets even. Read on to see what he does.

Don’t be a rude eBay seller

So I sell on eBay and sometimes buy in bulk to flip.

Recently, I spotted a listing for a bunch of TI-Nspire calculators marked as school property. They were listed for parts only with the condition “turns on but needs additional equipment.” I

’ve sold a lot of calculators, and usually if they turn on, they’re fine, so I sent the seller a polite message asking why extra equipment was needed.

The seller was pretty rude.

His response?

“Just for you to ask to show your intelligence! LOL!!! Bored?”

Completely unprovoked. I told him I wasn’t being rude, just curious, and he doubled down:

“If you were smart enough to read the description, you wouldn’t ask anything. I’m not entitled to ‘edicate’ you.”

Then said he’s just going to block me so he doesn’t waste his time.

He did some digging.

Normally, I’d roll my eyes and move on but I didn’t for this seller. I looked at his negative reviews and apparently he does this to EVERYONE and is very racist about it.

There’s even a negative feedback complaining he cancelled an order before shipping and he replied it was because he was a “Honduras scammer” or something like that and makes fun of people who speak “spanglish”.

So I dig… and I find that his listing descriptions has his phone number. I google that phone number and find that he runs another eBay store under a company name that claims to do electronics recycling and refurbishing.

Selling different inventory of high-ticket medical devices, like electrotherapy units, ultrasound heads, laser therapy applicators. The kind that require FDA 510(k) clearance and can’t be legally sold to the general public without proper authorization. eBay has an entire policy banning these unless you’re an approved medical seller.

eBay took this really seriously.

So I spent some time compiling a list of his priciest, clearest violations. I cross-checked them with FDA’s device classification database and matched them to eBay’s “Medical devices and accessories” restricted list.

Then I reported them all through eBay’s “Item not allowed” category, attaching the exact model names and classification codes.

Fast-forward to this morning: eBay emails me to say six of his most expensive listings are gone. Including multiple $2,000+ medical therapy devices, electrotherapy systems, and vital accessory packs. They even removed some “for parts only” listings, which eBay still bans if they’re restricted devices.

In fact, the total amount for the listings removed came out to be $13,590.

He felt like it was worth it.

I’m not saying I sank his store… but I probably ruined his week.

Moral of the story: If you’re going to be smug and block people for asking questions, make sure your business model can survive someone actually reading the rules.

I hope eBay flags that guy so they can take down his entire store if he keeps posting items on the restricted list.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This seller wasn’t too bright to draw attention to himself.

This person thinks this seller sounds familiar.

This person shared a bad experience with an eBay customer.

Another eBay seller weighs in.

Even if the guy hadn’t been rude, he needed to be reported.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.