Whuffo's Journal: Ebay and the jumping of sharks

Ebay has system problems, blames customers for problems and leaves PayPal support to correct them.

 

I've been a Ebay buyer and seller for years. I never really encountered any problems other than the occasional bad transaction - and those were always resolved quickly and easily. That was until today: I'd listed some things on Ebay a week ago and the auctions ended last night. One thing that caught my attention: auctions of this type were always successful in the past but this time only two of six auctions got a bid - and they only got one bid. Oh well; that's the breaks. But then there's an auction payment and I notice that things don't look right. There's a link on the auction page that says "claim your payment now" but when I click it I'm taken to a PayPal page that wants me to create a new account. There's also a link that says "View PayPal Transaction" but when I click that one it tells me the transaction ID is invalid. That's weird; I sent an email about it to PayPal support and called it a night.

 

Then today I get a message from one of the buyers wanting to know about his tracking number. I check my PayPal account and there's no payments received and let him know that I'll send it out as soon as I receive his payment. He writes back that he paid me 5 seconds after the auction ended. Hmm; something isn't right here. I never received a reply to the email I sent PayPal so I spend some time clicking on the various links that should tell me when / what / how. Then I notice in one of the URLs that the email address being passed to PayPal is wrong; it's an old email address of mine which hasn't been active for two years. I notified Ebay and PayPal when I changed ISPs back then and I've had over 100 Ebay transactions since then with no problem.

 

It looks like it's time to contact Ebay. After poking around on their site for a bit I find that they have support options for all kinds of problems involving buyers or sellers - but there's no way to report a problem with Ebay itself online. After messing around a bit more I find a phone number for Ebay support and give them a call. After sitting on "your call is important to us" hold for about 10 minutes a customer service representative comes online. Female, sounded Asian - I kept trying to tell her that I knew what was wrong but she wouldn't stop talking long enough to pay attention. After finally reaching agreement on what was wrong her suggestion for resolving it was to have my buyers cancel their payments then create new payments going to my correct email address. This seems not to be a good idea to me - I've already got one angry buyer and why is this my problem, anyway? Ebay screwed up, took the money from my buyers and gave me nothing - but they can't tell me where the money is or accept any responsibility at all for what is purely their problem. After spending more time trying to talk to someone who is unwilling to listen I asked to speak with her supervisor. That caught her attention and when I repeated my request to speak with her supervisor she transferred my call.

 

But she didn't transfer my call to her supervisor - she transferred my call to another customer service representative at PayPal. That turned out to be the correct thing to do, actually. That person (another female, probably Asian) was very helpful; after I explained what the problem was she verified my identity and led me through a simple procedure that captured the funds from that non-existent account and moved them to my real account. Problem solved! That's the way customer service is supposed to work; identify the problem and solve it. Wonderful!

 

One of the things that that Ebay support person told me was that she'd fixed the incorrect email address and that this would not be a problem any more. So when I get back to relisting the items that didn't sell I pay attention to some details and find that they've helpfully filled in the wrong email address for me. I can fix it manually - but that eBay support person clearly lied to me more than once and didn't do anything to help. What does it say about Ebay customer support when it takes PayPal support to fix their problems for them? What's become apparent to me is that Ebay has changed their policies and procedures little by little until they've driven off much of their business - and makes up for it with their low budget user-hostile excuse for customer service. They can fill my email with all kinds of notices and offers but when it comes to paying me they can't find my correct email address? That didn't stop them from billing me for insertion and final value fees.

 

I won't mention the name of that Ebay "support" person - if anyone at Ebay cares, it should be no problem to look at this message and figure out who I am and what I'm talking about. And I'm going to remember that this is the corporation that Meg Whitman built and if this is the way she runs a business - I really don't think she'd be good for California and shouldn't be elected.