hi, Why is it so hard to find a phone number so I can speak to some person from Ebay.

[papermoon.lady]

You can contact them via live chat from the help page (or quite often you can also choose to have them call you, although I don't think this option is always available.

Or... if you just need advice, you can also ask us here.

[the-collector-bull]

Because they treat Australian sellers like lepers.  Once upon a time they had a call centre in Australia, with Australian employees who didn't make you repeat everything 3 times, and they would sort your problems out within minutes. When they took that away from us, you used to be able to go to the US site and get someone from America to ring you, but they figured out we were doing that and now won't allow calls from the US to here. Instread we get routed to someone in the Philippines who has never even been on eBay and has only been trained to make apologies and read scripts that end with the lie "someone will get back to you". You can spend hours dealing with them and get nowhere.  If I sold something on eBay 15 years ago for $10 + $10 postage, the final value fees on that would be 55c. If I do that same sale now, the final value fee is $1.90. Instead of using some of that money to hire some staff, they'd rather hand it over to the shareholders, which ensures big pay packets for management. It used to be a great site, but is now just a shadow of it's former self.

[countessalmirena]

@the-collector-bull,

Once upon a time there wasn't a pandemic. That has played into the whole call centre issue.

Australians are not being treated by lepers; that's an illogical statement. We're not able to contact customer service as we were once able to, that's true, but that is a far cry from being tossed a few torn garments, told to ring bells and cry out "Unclean!", and banished to a leper colony.

Without exaggeration then... the customer service reps on Live Chat are admittedly not high on the pecking order, and do read from scripts, and not infrequently give less than the best advice, and cannot make independent decisions on behalf of eBay, but they are probably doing their best in difficult circumstances.

As to whether eBay should provide higher-ranking CS reps, with decision-making powers and the ability to look at individual situations before providing a non-script response, we no doubt all think YES. In the probable event that it doesn't happen, the CS reps on Live Chat can help, especially if a situation is laid out with clarity and evidence and quotations from eBay's policies and courtesy and patience.

The responders on these boards are always happy to help out to the extent that they can.

[davewil1964]

If I sold something on eBay 15 years ago for $10 + $10 postage, the final value fees on that would be 55c.

Maybe, depending on the category. What was the insertion fee, though? Very few freebies back then. The usual best would be 99c. So we're up to $1.54. Plus Paypal fees, which the current regime subsumes. Another 30c + 2.6% = 82c. $2.36.

Versus $1.90, which for a $20 sale is so far from reality to prove that you don't currently sell on eBay, and thus have no actual facts to support your exercise in fantasy.

[domino-710]

In excess of however many feedback - probably not all as a seller - BUT.

Yes - there should be a better contact - with eBay - for sellers - especially of this caliber.

Try selling. 

[domino-710]

15 years ago - there was no fee on postage.

[davewil1964]

True, which makes the bull's claims even less in touch with reality.

[shiver_me_shrimp]

Because customer service is expensive.

They prefer you to use live chat, because one person can handle multiple customers at once by flicking through the chat tabs.
I believe many businesses work like this now.

[magicessence]

*** oops. my error ***