Formal Complaint about eBay Customer Service

[10nicole58]

Hi, 

Can any please provide the complaints information for eBay to make a formal complaint about their Customer Service team? The phone number does not work. 

I have been on chat for over two hours, been insulted multiple times and no result and when I asked for the complaints information, I was told by a 'manager' that they can not provide this information....what???

Then in the middle of the contact they cut me off???

This is extremely poor.

Regards

Nicole

[repentatleisure1952]

I am unable to assist with contact details... perhaps another member will come along.

However I have found that 99% of problems can be solved by asking on these boards.

What issue are you having that would require contacting eBay CS?

[countessalmirena]

@10nicole58,

You may want to bear in mind that the pandemic has affected many businesses, and that one of the ways in which it's affected eBay is in respect of its Customer Service.

There hasn't been phone support since the first quarter of 2020, if I remember correctly. You can only communicate with eBay via Live Chat.

It's important to stay polite with eBay CS representatives if one doesn't want to get up their nose - particularly if one wants their help. Keep in mind that CS reps don't have much authority or power, and that sometimes one needs to politely work one's way up to get to a CS rep who does have authority to step in personally with a dispute or an issue, overturning the automatic bot-driven outcomes of most of eBay's processes.

Of course it's never pleasant to feel insulted in a communication with CS reps, and to be cut off. Perhaps the rep or manager with whom you were chatting felt that the communication was simply going around in circles...?

If you'd like to post the issue here (without any personal details), the various responders on these boards may be able to give you some advice. Even if you need to head back to eBay chat, we may be able to help you arm yourself with a point-by-point summary on which you base the discussion, along with references to relevant eBay policies.

[10nicole58]

Thank you for the replies.

I understand the pandemic has changed things, but I do not accept that it has changed customer service values. I was respectful until I was continually insulted for over an hour and a half, then I was beyond frustrated! 

The issue involved eBay’s system changing my Click and Collect order to Delivery as the payment was being processed. I checked I had selected Click and Collect multiple times before proceeding to click the payments button.  As soon as I noticed the problem I contacted customer support to try and get it changed to Click and Collect (as you said the pandemic has changed things, one being money is tight so I was trying to save on postage). I was told to contact the store directly, which I did but was too late as the store has shut (they got back to me three days later and said too bad it’s already been sent) and so I asked for eBay Customer Service to honour what I had selected as it was not my fault for the error when the payment processed. I was originally told, yes it was an eBay error but too bad. then I was told it was my fault as I should have known to screen shot every step of the transaction to prove fault...bit late after the fact. After getting frustrated in this taking over an hour and then to be insulted with the implication it was my fault after CS admitting it was a technical error on their end was beyond frustrating. I politely asked to be escalated and was refused until I continually pushed this. Eventually I was passed along only to be told it was my fault again...again I explained what happened, again the story was should have screen shot it all to prove, otherwise you must have picked the wrong thing. Once again I asked to be escalated and to also have eBay customer complaint details. I was refused on both accounts and continued to be talked down too and told too bad. This continued until I was eventually transferred. At this point the CS started the same spiel again before disconnecting. Interestingly I have since found out their is no eBay customer complaint section anymore.

When a glitch occurs and it is not the customers fault I expect a company to step up, recognise the error and then find a suitable solution with the customer. That was all I was asking. If I had of stuffed up then I would have to suck it up...but this wasn’t my fault and I was treated as an idiot! Pandemic or no pandemic that is really poor.

it really makes you question continuing buying with such a large company.

[padi*0409]

Did you make certain that "click and collect" was available at your local store before buying ?

Many of those stores have since pulled out of the "click and collect" program, so that could explain why it reverted back to normal postage.

[countessalmirena]

That's a very good point, padi. In particular with the lockdown rules changing (so it seems) from minute to minute, it may well be the case that the store's click and collect option was not possible to maintain.

I also wonder... OP, I don't know how familiar you are with the click and collect option on eBay in terms of how it differs from Click and Collect more broadly online. So... please excuse me if this sounds condescending. On eBay, click and collect doesn't mean that there is no delivery charge. It doesn't mean that you pick up from the seller (in most cases). It means that generally speaking the seller sends to one of the Parcelpoint or Hubbed locations, where the item is kept for (I think) 7 days for you to collect it. You are charged the delivery fee from the seller to the pickup location, unless the seller is offering what is ludicrously termed FREE DELIVERY.

Hubbed is actually new to me; locations include some newsagencies, some 7-elevens... Here's the locations map. It's wildly disparate over Australia - plenty of VIC and NSW locations, lots along the QLD coastline, a cluster in WA, smaller cluster in SA and I think LITERALLY one in NT. (No, actually 3 in NT, now that I zoom in.)

There are some sellers - the big-box/major sellers - on eBay who offer click and collect along the same lines as the more general internet understanding of this term.

Hence... are you sure, OP, that you were purchasing from a big-box/major seller whose click and collect option is the sort where you go to collect from one of its own store locations?

Perhaps if you post the item number here, some of the responders can check to see what the click and collect options were.

If what happened was a technical glitch, I would certainly expect eBay to refund you the postage cost, and I'm truly sympathetic with you re a fruitless and bad experience. Being told you're wrong when you are actually correct is unpleasant and frustrating.

[10nicole58]

Thank you for your replies.

Even with lock down rules click and collect was an option. In fact I used it soon after the glitched purchase to place another order at the same store and collected the item this week.

The item was from the eBay store for The Good Guys (eBay item number: 112591307282), and yes click and collect is an option, without the need for delivery fees (I know what you are referring too, in that I can Click and Collect to pick up from my local Woolworths but will still have to pay postage to the store).

I have made multiple (at least 5) click and collect purchases through the eBay The Good Guys store without any issue, so know the process and I am 110% sure I selected Click and Collect. For it to change as the payment was processing is not my fault.

As you said Countessalmirena, to be told I was wrong on so many occasions, after initially admitting a technical glitch, is unpleasant and frustrating. Initially, I was only asking for eBay to change it to Click and Collect on their back end system so as to fix the glitch, but then as time progressed and this was not an option that is when I asked for a refund on postage costs (which  is what you would expect, as did I), which was denied and I continued to be told I didn't know what I was doing. This is why I wish to make a formal complaint about eBay Customer Service, but alas it seems with the pandemic they have shut down any avenues for this. 

[10nicole58]

Oh, I forgot to add, that I was trying to Click and Collect from the Bayswater store in Victoria, as I know the post states Click and Collect a selected stores 🙂 

[ketoone]

Ebay support, outsourced to Phillipinos, have failed on numerous times to provide correct information. They have also breached their own ebay policy on  numerous occassions. One fundamental breach of policy was allowing a buyer to open a false claim -case of "item not as described"  , me providing return the buyer return postage label at my expense, resulting in the case closed in my favour because the buyer failed to return the item within the time frame required under ebay ruled. A month later, I received an ebay that ebay had reversed the decision and allowed the buyer to receive a full refund debited from my account. When I appealed, they rejected my appeal. Even the so called "Manager" was shocked that this had happened to me in direct violation of ebay. I lost my money and did not have the authority to reverse that decision, and have no recourse to escalate this. I wrote to ebay head office in Ca. USA. They ignored my email.

I'm now considering legal recourse against ebay. Ebay support have proven to me to be biast towards sellers, ignoring their own policies, and no avenue to appeal to have ebay support investigated.

This is the ultimate false!!!

[repentatleisure1952]

Somehow I think there is more to this story.

When you contact eBay you should direct them to the feedback policies you have chosen to ignore.

If you have time you should learn the difference between buyer & seller.