I have been doing business with eBay (and its former subsidiary PayPal) for well over a decade. And for the most part, it’s been an okay relationship. Sure, I think their fees are too high. But until now I’ve found them a pretty reasonable bunch. No longer.
In mid-August I sold a $409 item. I had forgotten to send a small part with the item, and the buyer requested I make good. I did. But the buyer wanted a $10 credit to purchase a new part. In order to make his point he asked for a full refund, but included a note saying he’d settle for the $10. I agreed. Meanwhile, because the return request had been filed, eBay told PayPal to freeze my account for the full amount, $409, despite the request for only $10 bucks. I asked eBay to release the other $399. eBay said that because it was filed as a return, they could not restore the funds.
Days later, eBay notified me that my buyer was suspicious and was removed from eBay as a user. So, now I’m in limbo. The buyer never accepted the offer for the $10 credit. And since he was no longer a registered user, there was no way to contact him. Because eBay had removed the listing and cancelled the transaction as the result of the suspicious activity, eBay said it would close the request and release the money back to my PayPal account within 48 hours. And it only took about an hour and three different eBay customer service reps to get this far.
Well, 48 hours comes and goes and there’s no money. And no note from eBay closing the case. So I call again. Again I go through three customer service reps to “escalate” the request. Again I tell the story in five part harmony. The supervisor apologizes for the incompetence of the previous supervisor in not getting this done. Once again this supervisor assures me that she will personally make sure the case is closed and my money is refunded. This time within 24 hours. Tune in tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel.
And 24 hours later, there’s no money. So once again I call. And this time, the supervisor goes through all of the previous notes and concludes that the prior representatives were unable to close the deal because the “system” wouldn’t let them, and, “it’s too bad that nobody bothered to tell you that,” but he comments that the other representatives were more 
interested in getting off the phone than closing out the case. So this supervisor takes it upon himself to call PayPal to try to get the funds released. We are on hold for just about 45 minutes. Then another 15 minutes while PayPal finds a supervisor. The PayPal supervisor says the matter can only be settled by eBay, though PayPal is willing to make the $10 refund and notify eBay it’s been done. But eBay says it cannot verify that the notice from PayPal will be sufficient to allow eBay to close the case. This has been my entire Thursday night’s entertainment.
So here’s where we stand. Unless eBay hears back from the buyer, which it chucked off the eBay website, the case will automatically close. On October 17th. I bluntly asked both the eBay supervisor and the PayPal supervisor if I’m the one getting F**ked here. They both acknowledged that I was. Now nice.
What’s my alternative? Next week we’ll have a report on alternative auction sites to eBay and alternative payment methods to PayPal. Did somebody say, “the customer is always right?” Clearly they’re not saying that at eBay.
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