I just made a huge mistake...

[spacetomatoes]

Thinking I could get an invoice issue sorted early, I decided to click the 'Chat with us' button instead of waiting to call Ebay the next day...

I have wasted about half an hour with a man who decided the postage rebate credits I was asking about were instead final value fee credits. He then ever so kindly made an exemption for me and said he would credit me my FVFs when I was asking about something else entirely!

When I told him I wanted postage rebate credits instead of FVFs for items I posted in November, he told me that the promotion had expired!

...I gave up at that point.

Is Ebay's email support any good? Or is calling the way to go?

[robinsonmarineparts]

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Is Ebay's email support any good? Or is calling the way to go?

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I'll let you know tomorrow.

[saarzi · Accepted solution]

From experience in a company that used to do the same - "Chat with us" online systems are usually used as training. The supervisor can run around checking on things and answering questions without interupting or continually putting a phone call on hold.

You probably got a complete newbie who didnt have any idea what you were talking about, and didnt bother asking his supervisor to clarify.

Email support:  Ive emailed them five times - Ive only received a reply ONCE. all other emails completely ignored.

I hear the best way is to call them.

[spacetomatoes]

OMG are you serious? 😞

Thanks for letting me know though; I just couldn't understand why the chat operator randomly went crazy decided to give me FVFs suddenly!

Sorry to hear you haven't had much luck with email support. I emailed them once before in the past and got a great friendly rep. But after this conversation...

[spacetomatoes]

Good luck! I hope you have a good outcome 🙂

[black*poppy]

I've only used the chat function when I want to get something in writing, like if I do <<xx>> action will it result in <<xx>??

I'm too impatient to wait for email responses.

But to get something sorted out I call.

[sueken4812]

I've had 99% success emailing them   Would prefer that, as I don't have 2 hours to waste on the phone.  If you're not in a hurry just email them, they always get back to me, and they are sensible and helpful replies to my questions.

[phorum_junkie*]

they always get back to me, and they are sensible and helpful replies to my questions.

What is your question? Something like: Is the earth is round?

[bettyboopsadaisy]

All I can say to your comments is that you have been very lucky and I think you must be very much in the minority in getting any sort of satisfaction from email responses.

My experience with this form of CS is that the email responses are generally not relevant to the query I have put to them as if they have a number of stock responses they give and they just choose the one that they think is closest to the one that might answer my question. Generally it doesn't.

I usually have to write back on 2 or 3 occasions with the same query (and pointing out to them that their previous responses simply didn't come close to addressing my question) before I get anything like a response that is appropriate or helpful in answering my question.

Routinely, I come away from the experience feeling dissatified and like I've wasted a lot of time for no real benefit !!