I wrote via ebay to a man who was selling an old lorry, badly in need of extensive renovation.
I wasn’t interested in buying but was in the history of the vehicle because it bore a logo that I recognised as genuine but from a time long before that company had operated in the UK.
I always prefer emails as I can file them for ever, but just before I gave him mine, I noticed some very small print which warns that such personal contact was against ebay’s rules and offenders would be punished. So I desisted.
I received an informative reply from the seller, no offence taken by me as a time waster, who replied giving me his email address, but thus: ********** at gmail.com.
At first I thought he was heading for trouble but then realised what he had done. Will it beat the robots?