eBay Begins A Change

ctwxman writes "If I hadn't double checked the routing, I wouldn't have believed the email I just received from ebay was real. After all, who is 'spoofed' more than ebay? But it looks like they're making some major structural changes in the way they deal with their customers. This includes, "giving our CS reps the flexibility and tools they need to really take care of you. So, to start, within the next 90 days, we'll shut down most of our automated email responses. Our users will get a "real" e-mail response to their questions - you'll hear from a human being who will try to help you with your problem or question right off the bat. We will only use auto responses to acknowledge receipt of spam or policy violation reports." Wow. However, don't read everything at its simplistic face value. When they say, "We also think the time has come to expand phone support," it's only for sellers. Still, this seems to be movement in the right direction. Now all they have to do is take a little more responsibility with fraud protection." The message is online; granted, this isn't the most exciting news ever, but it will end affecting a lot of people.

Comments

Walmart

[RicJohnson]

The ONLY reason eBay is alive is because they the Walmart of auctions - they have the biggestest marketplace, so everyone else has go to them to sell.
It is not because they have any clue about what customer service is.
I have had quite a few friends loose money on ebay. When they filed a report - what did they get? A FORM LETTER saying "we can not help you...". Any yet ebay/paypal still collected THEIR fees.
There are a few good aution helpers, where they list, sell, and package your goods for you but they charge 40%!!!
EBay will be around for a while, but this move is an attempt to keeping growing in a market that is starting to die. Auctions used to be fun, but until somebody can offer a guarantee to protect the little guy, more people will just as soon buy at Walmart. And that is not a good thing.

Re:Walmart

[Wiseleo]

I am supporting an ebay store stores.ebay.com/daretowear

I also have prior experience at handling collections. When a customer initiates a fraudulent transaction or refuses to pay, I go after them. I've found that using the SquareTrade service is not too difficult. While it does have its faults, is a reasonable way to get fraudulent negative feedback removed, provided that you are a reputable party to the transaction.

I personally can't wait until SquareTrade implements binding arbitration. Binding arbitration takes ST from being a virtual counseling session to a virtual courtroom with legally binding decisions.

Never rescind fraud accusations, and pursue the sellers. Small claims court is probably your best bet. I haven't had to resort to that measure yet, since we are pretty effective at getting paid, but that's always an option in the event of such abuse. Mentioning to the seller that they could be suspected as guilty of interstate mail and/or wire fraud, which is a very serious federal offense, may also enable you to get the matters resolved. After all, eBay will retract unjust feedback if told to do so by law enforcement.

Good luck!

Re:About time?

[odano]

Yeah, PayPal is infamous for this.

Until of course <URL:http://www.paypalsucks.com> came about to show us the way to paypal customer service.

More interesting is the 5 Cent Listing Fee Drop

[Cr0w T. Trollbot]

To my mind, the more significant change is the 5 cent drop in listing fees. Given that I've listed over 100 items (most SF/F/H paperbacks) in one week, such a small change quickly begins to add up. Of course, that only partially offsets other eBay nickle-and-dime-to-death fee hikes in recent years, including a hike announced just last month for Buy It Now fees.

But it still may not be sufficient. Sell-through rate in eBay has been steadily declining for the last 18 months. If I can't make money on eBay, I'll just stop listing there.

Woot!

[Jinsaku]

I've been buying and selling on ebay for almost 7 years, and this is a sigh of relief. Ebay has, in the past, had the worst customer support this side of Paypal and Comcast. Basically, if you had a problem, you're screwed. It's nice to see them going in a positive support direction (hopefully it's not just smoke and mirrors).

Substantial Database?

[duffbeer703]

A+++++++++ Awesam comment! Great point! Asset to Slashdot!! A_++++ super!

Fraudulent sellers spend a couple of weeks trading $0.25 recipies and baseball cards, leave comments like "A+++ great labtop!" wait a few months for the contents of those auctions to be removed by eBay, then ripoff unsuspecting users.

Re:Paypal

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I wonder how much of a problem Paypal really is. Problems affecting only 0.1% of customers can be a real big deal on the Internet.

I have to Agree - PayPal need serious help

[cybrthng]

I find it amazing that you can sell something according to the Terms of Service on EBay and a buyer can renig on such contracts through PayPal and get there money back.

I will NEVER sell tickets on Ebay again due to being burned in such a fashion where the person purchased tickets for a specific date, got the tickets but didn't open them and sent them back and did a refund request on PayPal. PayPal asked for the shipping tracking and saw it was returned to sender so they reversed the charges and gave the money back to the buyer.

For someone who did 15k in paypal billing that year to get ignored and to have no one able to answer my calls and emails was pretty upsetting to say the least. To have an "All sales are final" sale get reversed because of a cheating buyer was upsetting but to freeze my account and hold my money until I authorized an illigitimate refund was icing on the cake.

Paypal purposely won't accept visa or mastercard payments on reversed charges because they know they couldn't win a disputed or cancelled charge with Visa/Mastercard - Remember that when you let them suck money out unprotected via an EFT/Bank draft.

oh, and the insurance up to 500 only protects the buyer..

Seller beware.. ebay and paypal aren't out to help you.

Re:PayPal Spoof - Use the SafetyBar

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, PayPal offers a free, community-based tool (via Cloudmark) that will zap 99% of the spoof/fraud emails that you receive. You can download it from here: http://www.paypal.com/safetybar/

Re:Is it just me? [OT]

[Ozy311]

I work for eBay, and if you think that that is actually a V2 ISAPI dll serving content, then our strategy has worked well. That URL looks like that for backward compatibility for URL's when we were auction-web.

PayPal alternatives

[alexo]

In Canada, there are several alternative money transfer methods that you could use instead of PayPal. They have their limitations but they work.

Try:
- INTERAC Email Money Transfer
- HyperWallet

They may be others as well.