eBay Gone Berserk? Lost All Marbles?

  We have been eBay patrons for many many years, probably almost since it’s inception. But lately, it seems to become more and more of a wild west and less and less of organized trusted marketplace.

Check out this latest example of an auction. Could this be an antique sold by resident of last century? Must be, and he’s probably a ghost by now! That or there was some other reason that eBay blocked him from selling and supposedly removed him/her (see screen shot below for evidence).

But, even though the user is not registered since July 2006, his/hers auctions are doing just fine. There are several of them ending daily, some even with Actual Winning Bids!

I wonder what the poor folk who pay the person can expect for their money. There isn’t even a way to leave negative feedback, once the user isn’t registered. But it gets better! We have decided to alert the “excellent” eBay customer care to this alarming situation, and got a reply back, several days later:

First of all, I would like to thank you for reporting such an important information to us. Valued members like you are indeed an asset to our community.

… please report the listing violation using our online form.

The best part is, that the form they are referring us to has no such reason in valid complaint drop-down as ‘unregistered user selling’, or even ‘other’. And, presuming for a second that our complain ended up in the ‘wrong’ department, they can’t forward emails/complaints inside eBay customer care?! They have to ask us to resubmit?!

Just to make sure I bore you to death with this post, there are more horror stories from other users and one that we ourselves recently ran into. And trying to resolve it with proper eBay channels is impossible, it seems that they don’t have the time to read even few sentences of your complain to understand the situation. Instead, they are shooting standard email responses completely unrelated to the question/concern.

Well, rant over. I think eBay is still fine for those cheap unimportant purchases, but if you are planning to make a major purchase, beware!!!

Us? We are giving up at this point. Maybe the good folks at Consumerist can pick it up and get to the bottom of this.

Seriously, with all the Millions and Billions eBay and PayPal making on these auctions, they can’t find good programmers? Or decent customer service?

Comments #

Comment by RumorsDaily on 2007-09-09 18:06:10 -0500 #

Plus he appears to have spent his entire last month as an active member accepting orders, taking money, and then not shipping to the winning bidders. Check out the last month of his feedback.

Comment by Adi R on 2007-09-09 18:12:58 -0500 #

I think you maybe didn’t look at a year. The last feedback I see is from July 2006, not 2007. There are lots of ended auctions in last month, some with poor people who paid and probably will never see anything or be able to complain or leave negative feedback.

Comment by RumorsDaily on 2007-09-09 18:35:24 -0500 #

Right, his last month as an active member. He is no longer an active member, even though he’s still selling.

Comment by Albert Rabinovitz on 2007-09-10 21:35:06 -0500 #

Congratulations !
You and your family are stopping wasting hard earned money and time on junk !

Comment by Boris on 2007-09-15 18:02:34 -0500 #

I think you should offer that important tip for sale on eBay.You can charge $.01 for it (shipping is free), and I am more than sure that it will also dramatically increase your positive feedback.

Comment by Nike Dunks on 2008-05-24 00:53:53 -0500 #

hen not shipping to the winning bidders. Check out the last month of his feedback.

Comment by Nike Dunks on 2008-05-24 00:55:56 -0500 #

then not shipping to the winning bidders. Check out the last month of his feedback.