Local secondhand site won’t load if you use a VPN

I don’t see this as infuriating. It’s making sure you’re actually local. It’s location based. If you’re hiding your location they can’t verify that. It’s like complaining that Google Maps asks for location data on your phone.
- Sounds like a design flaw. If you can't manually set a location, then the app is broken. I turn off and deny location requests for apps and websites, as most people should, because it's often a massive privacy risk.
  
  But then that opens the door to anyone creating fake local ads by manually entering a fake location. If you do t want to have your location shared on a location based website maybe you’re in the wrong place. My two cents.
- Also a lot of dip shit scammers probably tried using the VPN before you so they’re banned now.

If it's only local, doesn't it make sense to block people from out of the area to prevent all the common scams?
It's probably nothing to do with using a VPN, you just need to connect from a local server (if available).
- I might be wrong but I think the site is geo blocked. I’ve sent links to family that live outside of the country and they weren’t able to open them.
  
  That's what the person you're replying to said.

Yeah this isn't infuriating and makes perfect sense. Unless your country is like 10 square miles or something.

I think it makes sense. VPN changed your location to somewhere there are no nearby users / deals / whatever. Not sure but maybe that's it?
- My VPN server is located in the same country as the site (Ireland)
  
  TIL Ireland is tiny

Are there multiple servers of your VPN in the country? Might be worth switching around, or even using a neighboring country instead, assuming that people from across the border shop there as well.
- I’ve tried with a couple different servers but no luck (Proton VPN). I don’t necessarily need the VPN to browse here but I occasionally have it left on from other sites.

It's common to block an IP if the majority of traffic from that IP is not the kind of traffic you want.
Why do you need a VPN to access it? If you're protecting privacy, VPNs don't block browser-based tracking, only obfuscate where you're connecting from or preventing man in the middle type attacks from your ISP, but usually that can be better avoided simply by using secure DNS technology. Only other thing is hiding what sites you're connecting to from your ISP. If you can't change ISPs, that can be worked around by setting up a trusted, cheap VPS or something as your VPN exit point so you have your own IP address.
- setting up a trusted, cheap VPS or something as your VPN exit point
  I think this would likely have the same problem since they are probably checking whether the traffic is coming from a datacenter vs a residential connection