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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.
Perhaps this is in response to constant criticism that eBay has ignored complaints and refused to talk to users over serious problems? The UK consumer program Watchdog did a peice on eBay not long ago. Users had experienced fraudulant transactions and downright theft via. other eBay users but had been stonewalled when they tried to complain to eBay to get the problem resolved. Watchdog found it near impossible to contact and speak to a real human being at eBay. If a TV production crew couldn't speak to anyone, what hope do normal users have?
So it's about time. Lets just hope the "real humans" at the other end of that email address arn't constricted into responding like a robot from a pre-written script..
Uh, the level of fraud with the feedback system is enormous.
Besides astroturfing, I've had several sellers leave negative feedback, and offer to retract the feedback if I rescind my fraud charges. Because of the enormous volume they do, the can take a hit on a few negative feeckbacks and still keep a relatively high percentage of positive feedback. Or simply open new accounts and have a few friends by things in order to establish credibility.
Ebay has been unresponsive to this, and as Ebay collects revenue primarily from sellers; this isn't likely to change.