Why Ebay's Customer Service Blows Chunks
8/21/2008 I've always hated Ebay's customer service. You can never talk to a damn person unless they call you, you can't respond to their e-mails, and basically whatever decision they make in their divine wisdom is essentially unchallengeable. What they did today though.... I tell you.... it takes the cake. I was called by their "safe harbor" representative today and told I was to be restricted for seller non-performance. I asked why, what they had determined to be "non performance." I was told it was due to my detailed seller ratings, negative feedbacks, and non-receipt of items. I of course protested and tore the rep a new one and made my case, which fell completely on deaf ears. I told her if she did not have the authority to listen to me and change this foolish opinion, then just put into the notes right now that the next level of supervisor or whatever had better call me and fix this. I again restated why all those reasons were the most ludicrous thing I had heard all day, but she told me that their supervisors don't return calls! WTF??!?! Well, well...who died and made you judge, jury and executioner? Anyways, I hung up on her.
Now, on to the meat of my story. I admit when I am wrong. I sent
a set of stickers way late back a month ago and apologized to the buyer and
refunded him. He ended up apologizing for leaving me a negative and I said
"whatever, I deserved it" and I would hardly call the buyer dissatisfied in the
long run. Since this was one of Ebay's divine reasons for restricting me,
I did a little research. From today, 8/21/2008, I have had 171 positive
feedbacks going back to my last negative, and that was over a month ago.
The reps comment to me was "we warned you a month ago" and I said that my last
negative was quite a while ago, and if you go back my last couple 1000
feedbacks, the two negatives in six months bring me down from 100% to what....
99.7 or so? So that argument changed nothing. I am getting chastised
by some hack minimum wage bee-yotch for having a 99.7 satisfaction rating.... do
you know what I would tell my manager at my real job if he criticized my
performance for that kind of rating? I don't think I'd say anything. I'd
just walk out.
And so here's my detailed seller ratings. How anyone can complain about my
postage prices I don't understand. I charge $3.00 to order 15 parts.
If you only ordered one damn part, and it didn't cost quite $3, then that's you
own fault. It says right in my auctions I don't enjoy making one part
orders. And regardless, every one of them looks to be over a 4.7.
Hardly a capital offense.
However, since this issue is the most recent, this has got to be the reason for my persecution. I sent an order to Brazil back in the end of July. It got lost, temporarily. I told buyer and never once did not communicate with him. He filed Ebay non-receipt complaint. I responded there too. However, due to my horrible track record of one rectified negative feedback in the last month, I guess his non-receipt complaint was enough to justify Ebay calling me and advising they would be restricting my account. I had explained over and over again that I cannot control what happens after it gets to Brazil, and I explained I sent the three items. Now, I understand it is three items and three non-receipt complaints, but it is ONE package to ONE buyer, in Brazil. Shit gets lost. So this is Ebay's reason to restrict me. No investigation. No wanting to hear my side of the story. Three complaints filed, and one negative feedback, and you're done. Thing is..... look at this.... same day Ebay calls me.... I get home to look at my e-mail and.....
Sweet vindication. The buyer has got his stuff in Brazil, and the complaint was closed when Ebay called me. So now, they called me and threatened restriction of my selling for essentially ONE DAMN negative feedback, precisely a month ago today. All I can say is just one HUGE F-YOU to Ebay. So if any of you buyers ask why I don't leave you feedback immediately, it is because I have ZERO FAITH in the system. I am pretty confident that I have won my case for not being restricted, but I am willing to bet any money that no one from Ebay will call me and apologize saying "we, clearly, were so totally wrong." And I am leaving this page up for everyone to read until they do.
8/22/08
I have now called twice and e-mailed twice. The first call I spent the entire time on hold while typing the first e-mail explaining that my Brazil buyer now had no issue and could you please not restrict my account. So that went nowhere. The second call I got someone and it was 24 hours+ post e-mails, and no one had responded. They are 48 hours out on responding to e-mails. If that is Powerseller priority, who wants to see the regular response time. They get back to you next month? So the rep was completely unhelpful. He gave me the same song and dance which I'm sure is all scripted and still can't explain to me why I was cancelled having ONE negative in a month. He again brought up the fact that my "detailed seller rating are very poor" and kept referring to the fact that overall I was fine but had problems the last couple weeks. Now, you can look back in my feedback to my last negative a month ago. Like I said, 171 positives, not one negative. Does not seem to indicate a problem the last couple weeks. I went and looked at my DSRs tonight critically, and this is what they show:
My DSRs are either the Ebay 12 month average (and that's only for shipping time) or better (all the other three). I almost fell over. This punk had the gall to tell me my DSRs were poor, and I am above average on three of four. By this idiotic rationale, the entire Ebay community has to be restricted from seller. I so wish they would do that, so they would go out of business. I said the evidence is all there for him to see. Why should I have to fill out an appeal for a mistake you should have never made? You can reverse the decision as quickly as you made it. Nope. They just do not give a damn. Our decision is final and if you don't like it, too bad. I am closing my store on them and I will sell stuff only on this site. I have had it with their monopolizing, disgusting customer service and how badly they've started to treat sellers. And their phone numbers that get you no resolution.
I have to wonder, since I sold primarily in my store and hardly ever listed auctions, if I am unfairly persecuted since the stores make them considerably less money than paying .35 every time you want to list an auction. I'm certain they would never treat a heavy auction lister who makes them a ton this way. I plan to start my own investigation into their unfair practices and take this up with my local legislature, so if anyone has any stories they'd like to share, please send them my way.
I love how they somehow, in some twisted way, calculate my buyer satisfaction as poor. Look back in 12 months, I have 6 negatives, in six months, 2 negatives, in one month, no negatives. I'm only improving! And all my DSRs are above average except one, which is average. And my only complaint was beyond my control and resolved. That, my friends, is buyer dissatisfaction hard at work right there....
8/24/2008
I
noticed today that the notification for the item-not-rec'd-dispute I have been
talking about says that after ten days we may take action on your account.
Ebay cancelled all my auctions and restricted me from selling after three days.
So this means one of two things. Either the dispute was not a factor in my
restriction, meaning I was restricted for a negative feedback a month ago and an
unfounded suggestion that my DSRs were poor. As noted above, clearly, they
were not. They were above average.
Or the dispute was a factor but Ebay just decided that the extra seven days in
their own policy were not worth considering. Certainly, had I been given the
full ten days, the issue would have cleared itself up, because the buyer got his
stuff and closed the dispute on day three. But Ebay had already decided to
play God and, as we know, God cannot make a mistake. I wrote to the San
Jose BBB and I plan to pursue this legally via MA general laws. If you've
had an obviously grossly unfair story about Ebay similar to this, let me know,
because I'd like compile date for a class action if I can.
9/2/2008
I noticed something absolutely revolting today. I have paid Ebay an
average of $137 per month for the year of 2008. This is on par for what I
pay for cable, far less than what I pay for car insurance, more than twice what
I pay for my phone service, and exponentially more than what I pay for Sirius.
Yet even though I pay all the other companies less, they do not provide shit
customer service or treat me like a hostage who is given no information about
their account. You know why... because with the exception of Sirius every
one of those businesses has a well-known competitor. And Sirius'
development is new, since the merger just went forward. From what I
understand though, Sirius/XM can't afford to treat anyone like shit, since they
were still in the red the last time I looked. But Ebay has apparently made
all its sellers expendable, despite the fact that we are the ones that make them
ALL of their profit. I should thank them for cancelling my account.
My new Webstore is going to cost $20 per month and there are no final value
fees. Looks like that will keep about $100 in house. Unbelieveable.