That's not quite genuine. You need to look at probability of a scammer winning your auction, not the probability that a scammer still has room under his/her chargeback cap. And even after that, I somehow doubt that those statistics are satisfying to the person who lost 100% of their money after selling 100% of their phone inventory (one phone).
It's less than 2% in the aggregate across eBay, but it's probably significantly higher for small high-value electronics like recent smartphones, especially if you're a small seller relying on eBay to detect scammers.
If you plan to sell 100 iPhones, you are absolutely right.
If you are selling an iPhone and actually need the money, a 2% risk of being left with neither may be worse than just getting 50% of the money, safely.
2% is a way higher number than reality. The amount of fraud on eBay is well, well below a 10th of a percent.
Selling on craigslist and gazelle does not solve the issue. It could be lost in the mail or you could be robbed. Il take a 99% chance at getting twice my money than a 100% chance of getting half. To each his own though./
It's heavily skewed by category. For every Macbook or iPhone sale that goes awry, 10,000 Beanie Babies are traded between elderly housewives without incident.
Hence you are better selling 100 iPhones on eBay and taking the hit for two then sell all 100 on gazelle and not.