eBay has extremely lousy customer service. And if you think it gets better when you become a Power Seller, think again. But don’t take my word for it. This page contains real questions I asked when I had my account and the responses that I got from eBay. Most of these are responses from Power Seller Support.

When reading these, its important to keep in mind that in all of these transactions, I was the seller of record. These response have not been edited at all (for grammar, content, or anything else) and to the greatest extent possible, I have done my best the preserve the structure of the messages with regard to paragraphs and such to illustrate these fine examples of the type of quality service eBay sellers pay thousands of dollars in fees to receive.

Submitted: Sat, 07 Jul 2007 20:01:06 PDT
First Response: Sun, 08 Jul 2007 12:48:35 -0700
Resolution: Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:00:31 -0700

My Question:

When is the SNAD/INR dispute - that the buyer filed about this item and has ignored for about a month - going to be reviewed and closed. There is nothing more I am willing to do with this buyer as they have their product, are claiming that the item is defective and not willing to return it, in violation of my Terms of Sale. I have a refund policy, I expect it to be followed. Customers who refuse to return supposedly defective items have no complaint, as far as I am concerned.

eBay Answer:

Dear Keith,

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to item #300111314552.

I recognize your frustration and want to quickly and responsively address your concerns. At this time, we encourage you to continue to work with your seller to resolve the transaction through the Item Not Received dispute process.

To access the dispute, please take the following steps:

1. Click the “My eBay” link located at the top of most eBay pages.
2. Select “Dispute Console” from the list on the left hand side of the page.
3. Find the item in question and click “View Dispute.”

As you communicate with your seller, we encourage you to be very specific about how the seller can resolve your concerns. It has been our experience that sellers are often more open to resolving disputes when buyers make specific and reasonable requests.

Additionally, if you paid for the item using PayPal, your purchase is covered up to $200 at no additional cost. However, many transactions are covered up to $2,000 by PayPal Buyer Protection.

For more information about how eBay protects buyers, go to: http://pages.ebay.com/help/tp/isgw-buyer-protection-steps.html

On this page you will find information on other options available to report and resolve this matter, including:

- Reporting the transaction to your payment issuer.
- Filing a report with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center.
- Filing mail fraud charges.
- Reporting the transaction to law enforcement.

Please keep in mind that eBay acts as a venue for buyers and sellers. As such, we will investigate any reports received and sanction accounts that violate our policies, but we do not take action on an eBay member’s behalf, nor do we directly intervene in disputes between eBay users.

I understand your frustration regarding this matter and apologize for the inconvenience it cause you.

Sincerely,

Rachelle
eBay Trust & Safety

Add Your Two Cents:

Have you received a reply that was completely off the wall, reeked of incompetence or was just plain comically wrong? If so, please submit an unedited copy of the question you sent and the response it got to me. I’ll post the better conversations below for everyone to enjoy. I will redact all e-mail addresses, names (except eBay employees), phone numbers (except eBay phone numbers), eBay User IDs (except “pinks” aka eBay staff members) and postal information prior to publication. Basically, I will take out anything personally identifiable except for items that identity eBay employees, departments and so on. Edited or redacted submissions will be ignored and will not be posted to the site.