I need a new place to buy electronic components and some mildly niche circuits/products that's not Amazon. I'm currently looking for an adjustable temp fan controller for an indoor green house. It's sitting in front of a Window on a shelf covered in plastic. I want to add a 12v dc fan to the top to turn on when gets somewhere around 90 degrees farenheit.
I used to use parts-express.com, but it looks like they mostly just do audio now. Does anyone have any good recommendations for purchasing things like this in the USA.

I've used eBay for many years. It seems to me their support is just getting worse and worse, and their buying experience is beyond confusing.

Most recently, I've been getting an invoice for items that I never committed to buy, I merely asked the seller if combined shipping was a possibility on these items. eBay support first told me that I made a bid on the items. I responded that is incorrect because the items weren't even up for auction, it was a fixed price. They responded with "oh sorry, I see you did not bid, but you did send an offer and if the seller accepts, you must pay the amount". But I never sent any monetary offer, I didn't even request a shipping price.

This is the most recent of a few experiences that just seem beyond confusing to me. Is anyone else having these kind of experiences?

Today I got an email from ebay.

It says:

We wanted to let you know that your eBay account has been permanently suspended because of activity that we believe was putting the eBay community at risk...

Well this is weird because I don't use ebay. I sold some things there over 10 years ago. Since then I may have logged in once or twice. Maybe I reset my password a few years ago to make it more secure. So I couldn't have violated any of their policies.

This is a concern to me because I assume someone has been using my account. I assume they have been logging into it and scamming other people. And the account is linked to my email so the scammer has that. So I don't know if someone found out my address info, credit card, or something else. But I can't login to ebay and change my email or check account history because my account is suspended.

So I contacted customer support and they replied a few hours later that I'm banned for life and the reason can't be told to me.

By the way, I did not reply to the original email or click any links in it. I went directly to the ebay site and contacted customer support through that. I'm sure it wasn't a phishing attempt, it's really ebay and they really banned my account (which I haven't been using).

Any suggestions? In my opinion eBay has not used proper security and is exposing me to risk by not giving more information about what has happened.

For example: someone will buy, say, several different pairs of pants. They really only want one pair of pants. They’ll try all of them on, keep the one they like best, and then return the rest.

The key here is that they never intended to keep all of them — it was only ever about one pair.

This has come up frequently for me in conversations with others recently. Just today, a penny-pincher family member who never spends more than he has to on anything and will take weeks to make decisions about even the smallest purchases, mentioned deliberately overbuying some stuff that he’s planning on returning.

I don’t know if it’s a new trend, or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, or what.

I got the sense from one person I spoke to they weren’t serious about the return part, and that the “I’m going to return most of it” was a sort of intellectual safety for buying too much in the first place. But for other people it seems like it’s a legitimate practice.

I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around it, because it seems like a lot of mostly unnecessary hassle. It also seems like it ties up a lot of your money for no good reason, and is perhaps even risky if the store(s) find ways to deny your returns. I can additionally see this as pretty harmful for smaller businesses. It feels like there are a lot of negatives for me, so I’m having trouble seeing the appeal.

Does anyone here do it and can speak to it as a practice? I’d love to get some first-hand insight to demystify it for me.

I'm in the market for an OEM part that usually comes with the "premium" trim of my vehicle. Rather than pay the $2000+ listed on the official parts website, eBay gave me several junkyard/recycler types that list the part for $200-$400. Each of these listing make promises about 60-day returns, warranty, etc.

However, I attempted a buy-it-now (with a CC, not through PayPal), and the sale was cancelled within an hour claiming that the part didn't pass their QA. I made the purchase at 9pm, and I wouldn't expect that quick of a turn. I did send a note thanking the account for not sending something that didn't meet their standards.

Then, it happened again almost exactly the same way, save for a 3pm purchase time and a 45-minute refund turnaround. This is raising a bunch of red flags for me. Am I just having bad luck, being paranoid, or is someone trying to maybe steal credit card info?

I'm thinking that calling local junkyards and just asking if they have the year/model of vehicle I'm looking for and potentially the part. Will take any advice, though.