Yes, I love eBay. It's a great concept, allowing people to buy and sell trash and treasure on-line, all over the world. And, at pennies a listing for the majority of the auctions, they make a good deal of money, little bits here and there that really add up.
But, have you ever tried to reach their customer service? I have, and would love to share my tale of woe with you.
As most of you know, we moved a few months ago, so my bank account changed. This was the account that was hooked to my eBay sellers account. It ran low on funds, so, about the middle of last month, eBay couldn't get 20 bucks that I owed them. So they e-mailed me.
Problem # 1: it's impossible to discern a genuine mail from eBay. This is the fault of spammers. All spammers and con artsists should die a painful death.
At this point, eBay shut down my account, and I found this out when I tried to make a bid on something. Fair enough. They should have their money, I don't dispute that. I paid them via credit card, and expected that, since my balance was showing at zero, and since they were obviously all computerized, that my account would be reinstated automatically.
Problem # 2: eBay has a crappy computer system. What's up with that?
Next, after seeing that my account wasn't going to get reinstated, I look through their Help pages. I send an e-mail. I get a canned response telling me to pay my account. I DID THAT ALREADY! I send another e-mail. Nothing.
Problem # 3: It's bad when a computer based company does not answer e-mails you send them!
After days of waiting, Godfrey finds their phone # on-line, on a different (read: non eBay) web page, I might add.
Problem # 4: (and this is a big one) NO WAY TO PHYSICALLY CONTACT EbAY!!! NO mailing address, no phone number listed on their web site!!!!! How can they get away with doing business like this??? If any other company were to run their business like that, they'd be run out of town! Why, they'd be considered A BUNCH OF CON ARTISTS!
So I called the number. The first thing the eBay phone people do is ask you where you got the phone number! The first lady I talked to said to use the "Live Help" feature. Fair enough, I hadn't tried that before.
Problem # 5: Ebay's Live Help employees are about as friendly and helpful as a bunch of rabid wolverines with heat rash. The first one I talked to told me that I had e-mailed the account reactivation address on December 1, and it would be 48 hours until I heard them. She implied that every time I e-mailed them, it would be an additional 48 hours before I got a response. Since I was chatting with her on December 3, that does indeed make 48 hours since my last e-mail. I checked. I did the math. She abruptly ended our on-line chat session. Basically, she hung up on me. Yeah, great customer service. So I waited, and heard nothing. I decided to Live Chat again after three more days of waiting.
Problem # 6: In addition to being unfriendly and unhelpful, eBay's on-line help staff lies. "Kerry" told me that she (or he) had "No way to contact that department". "You can't e-mail them? You can't call them?" I replied. At this point, Kerry terminated our chat session. So, the first person could call up my e-mails, but "Kerry" couldn't even pick up the phone? LIES MAKE BABY JESUS CRY, KERRY!
So I called the 800 number again. This person actually had a conscious, I could tell, or maybe she could tell I was ready to crawl through the phone and hurt someone. At any rate, she had the decency to so at least sound apologetic. She said they couldn't do anything, it was up to the "accounting department". So I'm not really sure WHY they have a phone staff, if they can't ACTUALLY DO ANYTHING.
So there you have it. Ebay has the world's worst customer service, and all I can do about it is post this account of my horrible experiences with their employees, along with their phone #s:
(408) 558-7400
(408) 558-7401
1-800-322-9266 (This is the one I've been calling)
1-888-749-3229
1-408-376-6554 FAX
*See May 26 update below for a new number
Really, I don't know how the little guys of the Internet can tackle this monster. They are totally unaccountable!
UPDATE: Behold the power of the blog! My blog brings all the eBay customer service reps to the yard! Less than 24 hours after making this post, my good eBay name has been restored! Coincidence? I think not! Well, if we've learned anything from blogging, it's that people read this crap! Even eBay!
UPDATE:5/26/06 Received an email from Tim with a new number for eBay. 800-717-EBAY (800-717-3229).
UPDATE: 6/29/06Thanks to comment spammers I must temporarilly disable comments on this post. If you have additional information about eBay you would like to add to this discussion, please send me an email. P.S. - comment spammers, I feel certain there's a special place waiting for you in Hell.
No communication,slow shipping 20 days,seller sucksscam artist Avoid!
so I left him feedback of:
HORRIBLE BUYER WITH BAD ATTITUDE! SELLERS BEWARE! AVOID AT ALL COST!!
I'm guessing he took this as a personal insult as he replied with this
Reply by : This seller is a peice of low life crap
and all of this is still completly visable in our feedback pages. I wasn't too worried over a neg. feedback but ever since then about every 2 weeks I get another email from him, which he sends through one of my "ask seller a question" link off of one of my auctions so I can't block his isp address or report him to his isp. Every email I have received has been nothing but him cussing me out and calling my whore, bitch, tramp, etc.. as a matter of fact here's a cut and paste of this morning's email:
Question from
About This Member
Positive Feedback: 98.6%
Member Since: Aug-03-01
Location: FL, United States
Registered On: www.motors.ebay.com
Hey you low life peice of shit, rip off anyone lately you scank whore bitch
and I've received one of these every 2 weeks. Now supposedly ebay has rules against harassing emails sent through their site and even have a link to report them within the emails that I receive. I have reported every single one with nothing more than an automated response and as always with ebay, no real solution. I know I can just delete them easy enough but ebay states they handle this stuff and what happens if one of my young daughters opens one of these emails, or god forbid, I'm dealing with a real nut who decides to pull my info off ebay and takes this to far. I've got a 2 year old and a four year old that are enough to worry about by themselves without adding a nut in the mix and there are some real psyco s running around. Where's ebay - probably typing up a new wave of automated responses. So once again thanks for this site and we'll see just how far I can get on the phone.
and the result is in. I am re-instated with ebay after my account was compromised and several cretins from asia made posts on the Community Boards in my good name by using my account.
I received a email from ebay North America, Bill Cobb's office and went from there. I choose not to divulge the details of the email. All I will say is that I am reinstated and life goes on and for all of those who are frustrated with ebay, May the Force be with you always! darthoz [-o-]
Boy, I am glad that I dumped my ebay stock and made a killing. I bought tons of Google and made a killing off that too. I was thinking about buying ebay stock again. Ebay has been very good to me and I would like to thank them for all of the $ I made.
I see here that there are a lot of rules that people seem to violate. The key is to read all of the rules and go from there. A lot of people seem to get busted for violations. A example: your brother can be the winner of a "Buy it Now!" listing but he can't be bidding on your auctions. Come on now! Duh! Doesn't this make sense. Why in the world would your brother be bidding on your auction?
Unless he lives in another state. If my brother wanted to buy something from me, well, I would sell it to him via Paypal if he was in another state. There is a difference in being suspended and indefinitely suspended. Follow the rules. My brother bought a item from a bloke in England and the bloke did not ship. He did not buy the Buyer Protection on the item and he has a Masters Degree.
If I was him, I would have bought the Buyer Protection especially when I am paying over $100.00 quid for a car part from England to the states. Common sense.
I personally have done over 1,000 transactions. One guy I had to hunt down for my refund over 60 days. Another guy thrashed the cd that I bought but we rectified the situation and the last one. Well, I won an apple and he offered me two more outside of ebay for $20.00...what did I receive? A total of three oranges. My fault. I should not have been involved in a transaction outside of ebay in the first place.
If you do not receive a item in 10 days +, file a item not received form via ebay and file a non performing seller form. There is always a way to contact ebay also. If the item is over $25.00, I thinkt that they you have a say. Always use Paypal. They seem pretty good at obtaining refunds.
In closing, all I have to say is follow the rules.
I have 2 M.B.A.s and I would never treat a customer the way eBays customer service treats theirs. It is poor relationship management coupled with a deleterious customer retention strategy. Then again, maybe they do not care about customer retention since they can goat others into becoming new registrants (although retention of a few percentage of customers can increase profits by as much as 100%). I do not think they will ever learn. However, if we continue to call them they may eventually get the message. (The story given is that they do not use phone support because of legal reasons as they can keep a paper trail of e-mails...that is a load of fly attractant since phone messages can be recorded with permission and are less likely to be tampered with). For good phone numbers to the site, go to the auction guild web site and you can find numbers for various departments, etc.
