eBay wins stay in MercExchange case

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Ebay as a concept: A+. Customer service: F: If you have browsed my web site or read my articles in years past you will have noted me sounding the praises of Ebay as a poster child of electronic commerce. And for the 99 percent, or 95 percent or fifty percent of Ebay users, the experience may still be pleasant, or at least tolerable.

However, if you ever have a problem with Ebay or have to deal with their customer support, prepare for a wall of inaccessibility comparable to anything governments and financial institutions could ever erect on purpose.

Take the worst customer service scenario you?ve ever experienced, enhance it with inaccessibility to any individual, and you have Ebay at its worst. (Or perhaps, its best.) I inadvertently double paid my bill via PayPal (an Ebay subsidiary) and was appalled at the difficulty (impossibility?) of communicating with Ebay to obtain a refund.

First, the only way to request a refund is buried layers deep in web pages, and I was hard pressed to find the web form even being a seasoned professional in computers and in navigating Ebay. My multiple requests only generated an automated response from Ebay. My chat experiences with ?live chat? (I don?t know how it can quality as ?chat? when every response from Ebay?s side takes five or more minutes, even at non-peak times) was an utter waste of time.

Unfortunately Ebay, egregious as it is, is just one of the current villains of customer non-support. AOL nearly rivals Ebay in ineptness, but at least you can resign yourself (after a significant wait) to a dialog with an unskilled help desk technician that may have some command of English, albeit with an Indian accent. With Ebay?s ?live help? via chat I got the same comprehension of the English language (little or none) with unintelligible writing instead of verbalization.

After writing to the CEO of Ebay, Bill Cobb I got this response:

?As far as your refund, I have taken the time to find out some information for you. We sent you your refund by check, which can take 45 days. A request for refund was created on Jan. 13 05. Regrettably, if you don't get your check in this time, there is no way to track it. If you don't get it for 2 months, you should let us know. We can then resend a new check, which again takes another 45 days.?

Since I STILL had a credit on my account, I doubt Ebay has sent a check out.

First it's "up to 30 days," because of the banks. Then it's 30 "business days excluding Sat and Sun." Then it's 45 days, or 105 days if I don't get the check they sent out (which originally was to go back into my PayPal account, according to their first communication).

Somehow they must think that lying to customers because they?re Ebay is somehow better than lying to investors if you're Worldcom or Tyco?

Is this the beginning of the end for Ebay? Is it in the ?make hay on the Street and blow off operating as a real business? mode that has ravaged the corporate world so broadly?

www.ComputerHate.com; Posted by: ken@... Posted on: 05/14/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use