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Ebay, pray you never need to open a case or call Ebay directly. ARE YOU UP TO THE PHONE CHALLENGE?

S

SamsungVibrant

Android Expert
Wow, I've been using Ebay for a while and never had a problem with a seller, until recently. Over the years I made the false assumption that Ebay has live customer service reps waiting to take my call anytime I have trouble.

Well recently I had major problems with a seller, and so I went to call ebay. So I log onto ebay.com and search for a phone number, 5 mins pass, 10 mins, pass, an hour passes searching the site for a freaking number. NO NUMBER. WTF?

Couldn't find a number anywhere. So then I google "ebay customer service number" and various numbers show up. So I start calling each one by one, and each one informs me that ebay has disconnected the number. (more on this later)

So then I try to do a live chat, again I search and search, can't find a live chat agent for my problem. Apparently Ebay believes if you pay the seller and the seller never ships your item, this doesn't warrant any right on your part to talking or chatting with customer service.

Totally pissed at this point, I'm searching every inch of their site. Finally, I find a link to chat with someone, which was hidden in some obscure place.

So, I wait like 30 mins to chat with someone, finally a live agent comes on the internet chat line. Apparently they don't like their phone number advertised, and any time someone posts Ebay's number on the internet somewhere, Ebay will quickly disconnect that line.

Make a long story short, I b*tch and complain until I get a phone number to call. So I call, another 45 mins on hold.

I open a case against the seller. Once you open a case they make you wait I think 2 weeks to hear for the sellers response. Seller never responded, but neither did Ebay! So I call Ebay few weeks later, I say "hey seller didn't respond, my case is still open, what's going on." The rep, who sounded I think outsourced from the Philipines says "Ok I will make a decision in your favor, you win your case, you will have a full refund in 48hrs." Ohh gee finally! Well that was over a month ago, and guess what, my case says it is still open, and still no paypal refund!

Wow thank goodness this happened on a small item, imagine spending a few hundred bucks and this happening.

So now are you guys up to the challenge?

I CHALLENGE YOU, FIND A WORKING UNITED STATES EBAY CUSTOMER SERVICE NUMBER. NOT ONE OF THE FAKE NON-WORKING ONES FROM A GOOGLE SEARCH, BUT A REAL WORKING NUMBER THAT GETS YOU TO A LIVE AGENT. BET YOU WILL PULL YOUR HAIR OUT BEFORE YOU FIND IT.

THEN POST THE NUMBER HERE, SO OTHERS CAN CALL AND VERIFY IT WORKS. LET US KNOW HOW LONG IT TOOK YOU TO FIND THE NUMBER, MAYBE I'M STUPID AND SLOW.

ARE YOU UP TO THAT CHALLENGE?

PS... to win the challenge you have to find a numebr that gets you to a LIVE PERSON. Many of the numbers you find via a google search either inform you that ebay has disconnected this number, or they send you on an endless loop and trick you. They say press 2 for live customer service, then you press 2 and guess what...they say "visit ebay.com."


Just wanted to bring this to the attention of people, because it has totally changed my opinion about purchasing stuff on Ebay. I've filed a case almost 2 months ago, supposedly I won my case and was due a refund in 48 hrs, and to this day, not 1 cent.

I've given up, I'm not spending another 45 mins on hold. I take it as a loss.

This is what it still says when I go and view my open case:
"Please wait for Customer Support to make a final decision in 48 to 72 hours."
"eBay Customer Support is reviewing the case details and will get back to you by Aug 27, 2010."
LOL it's been saying that since Aug 24th, and nope they never got back to my on Aug 27th.
BTW, I even had called and ebay supposedly decided in my favor, still that message is up, and still no refund.

Ebay buyer protection link:
1
http://pages.ebay.com/coverage/index.html
 
Ebay themselves cannot drive to the guys house and hold him at gunpoint to force him to return the money.....and Ebay is certainly not going to eat the cost... this is why you use a service like paypal..... if you didnt use paypal then youre gonna eat the loss...the most Ebay can do is give them negative feedback or suspend their seller account (easy to create a new one)... if you used paypal then you should be dealing through them ..... they are pretty quick to get your money back if you have a legitimate claim.... even if the guy has withdrawn the funds from paypal they will take it from his CC or his bank account
 
I have had both ebay and paypal rule in my favor before but not get my money back. There needs to be a way to hold the money in limbo until the product is received or something.
 
copestag said:
Ebay themselves cannot drive to the guys house and hold him at gunpoint to force him to return the money.....and Ebay is certainly not going to eat the cost... this is why you use a service like paypal..... if you didnt use paypal then youre gonna eat the loss...the most Ebay can do is give them negative feedback or suspend their seller account (easy to create a new one)... if you used paypal then you should be dealing through them ..... they are pretty quick to get your money back if you have a legitimate claim.... even if the guy has withdrawn the funds from paypal they will take it from his CC or his bank account
Click to expand...

ummmm did you read the part where I wrote:

"Ok I will make a decision in your favor, you win your case, you will have a full refund in 48hrs." Ohh gee finally! Well that was over a month ago, and guess what, my case says it is still open, and still no paypal refund!


BTW your statement is incorrect, paypal NO LONGER handles ebay disputes. Ebay handles them directly now, they have changed their policy. Ebay guarantees buyer protection, and the buyer deals directly with Ebay via "Ebays resolution center."

Direct quote from ebay:
""If you tell us that the problem cannot be resolved between you and the seller, and your case qualifies for and is covered by eBay Buyer Protection, eBay will refund your full purchase price plus original shipping into your PayPal account. "

PLEASE VISIT THE LINK BELOW
EBAY Buyer Protection:
1
http://pages.ebay.com/coverage/index.html
 
You can always dispute payments directly with your bank if its enough to care.
 
OMJ said:
I always use a credit card when I pay with paypal now because cc is real easy to dispute. I never have pp draw from my bank account anymore.
Click to expand...
Ya. Lots of banks make it easy to back out checks now too. With all the ID theft that goes on with checks nowadays.
 
  1. Google "ebay contact number" --3 seconds
  2. Click first result -- 1 second
  3. Page to load -- 1 second
  4. Read page and find contact number -- 5 seconds
  5. Call 800-322-9266 and listen to options -- 30 seconds
  6. Press 2 for customer support -- 1 second

All total it took about 1 minute give or a take a few seconds to find a working number! Interestingly enough, it was the first one I found. No "disconnected" numbers or wrong number or anything else...
 
I can tell you from a sellers perspective that eBay and especially PayPal certainley will give the money back to the customer...many time without even looking at the issue. I have had PayPal take $2000 out of my account because a customer claimed they didn't receive the item. Why they didn't receive it? They refused delivery because the truck was 5 minutes late. It took a week of calling every day to get my money back.

PayPal gives the consumer all the power. Sellers have no control over the money in their own accounts, it can be locked at any time for any reason. Ignore what eBay says about them handling claims and call PayPal. They let you get their phone number on their site. You say the right things and the money is yours.

As far as the eBay phone number, they really only offer phone support to sellers and that is a waste of time. I had an account rep for a while. He did nothing to help me. I really can't stand the whole eBay PayPal situation but there are no other options that get enough traffic to sell my products.

You want more horror stories from a sellers perspective? I've got a whole list.
 
Recently I had bought a textbook from a seller who got his account suspended a few days later. I was told on the eBay forums to file a dispute through PayPal rather than eBay. Not sure what the difference is but I filed the dispute through PayPal, waited through seller response period, and shortly thereafter got my money back without any hassles.
 
ScorpDX said:
  1. Google "ebay contact number" --3 seconds
  2. Click first result -- 1 second
  3. Page to load -- 1 second
  4. Read page and find contact number -- 5 seconds
  5. Call 800-322-9266 and listen to options -- 30 seconds
  6. Press 2 for customer support -- 1 second
All total it took about 1 minute give or a take a few seconds to find a working number! Interestingly enough, it was the first one I found. No "disconnected" numbers or wrong number or anything else...
Click to expand...

Okay, apparantely you didn't call the number. Those are one of the dead end numbers, one of like 100 you find on google.

After you press 2 for customer service, guess what, it tells you to please visit ebay.com for a chat. Also try to find the chat link it directs you to, tricked again, b/c the chat link doesn't exist on the upper right hand corner!

Okay challange lost.

Trust me I've called about 20 of those numbers you find doing a google search, they all either say "thank you for calling ebay, this number is no longer in service" or they give you that endless loop when you press 2 and tell you to visit the website. Or if you get a live person, chances are you got corporate office in san jose, and not the actual cust service line..and they just hang up on you after they tell you they don't deal with customer service issues.
 
Still no winner on the challange, anyone else want to try?

Again, you have to find a number that gets you to a LIVE PERSON.
Many of the numbers online via google search trick you. You think ah ha I found it only to be tricked.

You press 2 to talk to a live agent and guess what, a live rep never comes on the line, instead you get a a nice message says "to contact an ebay rep right now, please click on live help link in the upper right hand section on ebay homepage."
GUESS WHAT, there is NO live help link on the upper right hand section of ebays homepage...lol. Tricked again.

Ok, I'm telling you, this challange is pretty hard. Not as easy as ScorpDX thought.
 
Having used ebay for years both as a seller and a buyer heres my two penny/bits worth.

After hundreds of trouble free transactions I had a problem a couple of years ago, ebays number was on my 'My Ebay' page, phoned them up and the guy apologised and pu the money straight back in my Pay Pal account there and then while I was on the phone.

A couple of month ago I bought an MP4 player for my son and a week later ebay removed the seller!!! So the item I bought along with all the details of the transaction disappeared from my 'My Ebay' page!! Looked for the customer care telephone number and looked and searched and looked again, no number anywhere on their site. Found an 'ask a question' text box so typed in "Wheres my *##%ing item gone" got another page with another ask a question text box and typed in "whats your telephone number" another page opened and their was a 'Contact Us' link, clicked it and finally got a telephone number with a pin number that was valid for 15 minutes.

Phoned the number and got through after what seemed like hours of 'if you want this click #1, if you want this click#2' etc etc, of corse non of the options was whats happened to my item? After a rather heated exchange when I ranted about how easy it used to be the guy said he would "open a dispute" then after 10 days I could "escalate it" and then and only then they would make a decision. Two weeks later after jumping through the same hoops to find their number i get to talk to a guy who tells me a dispute was not opened so I would have to open one and wait 10 days etc. I totally lost it asking why I would have phoned up a fortnight before (the call was logged) and NOT open a dispute. He appologised but still would not budge, "I have to follow procedures" he kept saying. Opened the dispute again (for the first time) and waited another two weeks and again struggled to find their telephone number but finally got through to someone and 'escalated' the case. Three days later had to phone again to get the decision which was in my favour. OF CAUSE IT WAS, IT WAS EBAY WHO BANNED AND REMOVED THE SELLER :mad:

Finally got my money back, it was only $20 but it was the principal, what if it had been the $260 purchase I made around the same time?

I could only presume that ebay was trying to make it as hard as possible for a seller to get their money back, I wonder how many people would just give up if it was for a small amount?

IMHO ebays customer service has gone from excellent to useless over the last year, very sad :(
 
A couple of weeks ago I had an open dispute with eBay. The waiting time for a response was a whopping 7 days. Four hours after the 7th day passed I received an e-mail asking if I had received a response from the seller (I had not). The next day a judgement was made in my favor and I had my money back within 2 days of that.

Easy enough... and requiring no waiting on hold for a rep to come on the line!
 
Why do people keep dealing with the middle man? I mean if your not having trouble with ebay and paypal that is great. But when you do just go to your bank and have them take the money back, paypal/ebay/other party involved will get a hold of you real quick once that happens and if not, well, you have your money back.
 
In the UK you get a number if you reach power seller status, 0208 6053111 ,aybe its worth a call to try and get a US equivalent?? But they are a faceless bunch of t*sse*s
 
Martimus said:
Easy enough... and requiring no waiting on hold for a rep to come on the line!
Click to expand...

Not that easy when ebay have removed the seller and the transaction no longer exists on your 'My Ebay' Summary page :mad: There is no way to open a resolution dispute with a seller that no longer exists for a transaction that apparently never happened.

I have no problem with Ebay removing a rogue seller but why remove the transaction details from the buyers account?
 
Martimus said:
A couple of weeks ago I had an open dispute with eBay. The waiting time for a response was a whopping 7 days. Four hours after the 7th day passed I received an e-mail asking if I had received a response from the seller (I had not). The next day a judgement was made in my favor and I had my money back within 2 days of that.

Easy enough... and requiring no waiting on hold for a rep to come on the line!
Click to expand...

well thats how it should be, easy, my experience hasn't been.

but for one minute, what if you were in my shoes, what if ebay didn't email you 4hrs after 7 days, like they didn't with me. Or what if they did make a judgment in your favor, but then they never gave you the refund, and your case mysteriously says open for 2 months. How would you call them, what number?

I guess when it doesn't happen to you, you don't care and you think the system is perfect, like I did for many many years, then one day ebay screws you, and you are like "oh shit, thank god it wasn't something expensive."

But I guess that is life, we all think everything is perfect till something happens to us.
 
SamsungVibrant said:
I guess when it doesn't happen to you, you don't care and you think the system is perfect, like I did for many many years, then one day ebay screws you, and you are like "oh shit, thank god it wasn't something expensive."
Click to expand...


Did I say the system was always perfect?

I e-mailed customer service four times during that week. What I said was that it took 7 days and they followed up. Now that prompt follow-up could have been by chance, a new eBay employee that didn't know better, as a result of me nagging them via email, or maybe they just followed their defined process. I honestly don't know why...

The point is that, in my case, they did their job! In your case, however, they didn't but you are generalizing that they are impossible to work with. You and I simply find ourselves on opposite sides of that coin. Maybe we can find some middle ground where eBay customer service helps out most of the time? ;)

Oh and my failed transaction was for close to $200... a lot of money in my world! :eek: For that reason I'd have contacted them 20 times more if I they hadn't contacted me.
 
Sid Bonkers said:
Not that easy when ebay have removed the seller and the transaction no longer exists on your 'My Ebay' Summary page :mad: There is no way to open a resolution dispute with a seller that no longer exists for a transaction that apparently never happened.

I have no problem with Ebay removing a rogue seller but why remove the transaction details from the buyers account?
Click to expand...

I agree with you! I don't understand why they do that...

When I had my issue I also knew that after 40 days eBay restricts the ability to leave feedback. I wanted to keep that mechanism open as a fall-back. In other words, if I didn't get my money back I'd leave one heck of a feedback for the seller as a means of getting my pound of flesh.

To try to reduce the risk of this process going over 40 days, I reported the non-delivery after only 2 weeks of waiting... and not getting replies to my e-mails to the seller.

Is eBay perfect? Not by a long shot! But, for some things and in most circumstances, it's still a viable alternative to retail.
 
I had a pretty bad experience when I sold my BlackBerry 9700 after I got my Vibrant. I really don't have a lot of money to throw around, & I was counting on the BB to offset the price of the Vibrant. I sold the BB for $300. I looked @ the buyer's profile & was very optimistic when I saw that the buyer had excellent feedback regarding fast payment & good communication. A couple days pass...I receive no payment or communication, despite sending an invoice. A couple days later I reach out to them, no answer. A couple days after that I go into the ebay customer support chat. *Sigh* Talk about a waste of time. The rep was NOT helpful @ all & kept on going on weird tangeants that served absolutely no purpose. I'm guessing English was not her native language. A couple days after that chat I filed a "non paying bidder" claim. That night, I FINALLY got paid!!! Still no communication from the bidder, though. I left positive feedback, just saying thanks for the payment. I never received feedback from the buyer. It was the weirdest thing, but @ least i got my money. I think from now on I'm only going to deal w/ forum classifides, even though I could get more money off ebay. At least w/ the forum classifides I'm more apt to get paid & if I don't I can simply "relist" my device w/o any hassle.
 
Martimus said:
The point is that, in my case, they did their job! In your case, however, they didn't but you are generalizing that they are impossible to work with. You and I simply find ourselves on opposite sides of that coin. Maybe we can find some middle ground where eBay customer service helps out most of the time? ;)
Click to expand...

True i'm sure ebay customer service comes through sometimes, other times they don't.

Anyway, my point is, can someone find a working phone number?

Care to take the challenge?

By the way, the number has to get you to a live person, pressing 2 for a live person then getting a message that tells you to visit ebay.com and click live chat on the upper right hand corner when it doesn't exist, doesn't count!
 
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