Friday, February 09, 2007

Letter to Ebay

I want to appeal the suspension on my account (mrcustomerservice).
First off, the accusation is ridiculous. In the original suspension notice, I was cited for 3 things to reinstate my account: Item #160059356115 had an open dispute with the buyer, I resolved that quickly with a refund to the buyer. Second, I had to pay all my current ebay fees. I also did that immediately. Third, I was cited for negative feedback for item #160010448529, which was sold over 6 months ago. Now your policy on seller non-performance states it takes "high levels" of negative feedback to generate a non-performance status. I hardly think 2 transactions out of 141 feedback is a "high level". Also, item #160010448529 was sold over 6 months ago. Why now? So far, I have emailed the buyer multiple times, no response. I have filed with Squaretrade as I was told to, and I can't get a response from them in almost 3 weeks, no emails nothing. And they wont answer my emails. I can't even log in to their page to check the status. I emailed ebay about this issue and I've received no help whatsoever.
So, in closing to my call for appeal, I would like my account reinstated immediately. If I am forced to go through much more run-around and this and that with the emailing buyers from months ago for something that wasn't a problem till now....you know, I'm getting very frustrated with what used to be a pretty decent auction site. You guys are starting to fall off the wagon. You're trying to prevent fraud, I can understand that, but you started too late. There's thousands of scammers out there and you're aiming to alienate your core customers, like me. In my years on ebay, I've made money for you, hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. Right now, by having me suspended, you're losing money, not making it. And if this frustration on my part continues, I'm bound to just give up and never use ebay again. I'm sure you're thinking, "who cares, we've got plenty of customers?". Well, bad PR is never good. Remember the old story about how if a customer has a bad experience they tell ten people, and those ten people tell ten people and so on? Yeah, that's never good for business. Perhaps you've forgotten our relationship? I'm your customer! You're suppose to be taking care of me. Not hassling me and frustrating me. If I treated my customers like that in my industry, we'd go under in a heartbeat. Does the nature of ebay give it the right to treat it's customer, me, like this? I don't think so.
My email is benmarvinATgmailDOTcom and my phone number is 803.474.3100 and I expect a response and resolution within 24 hours.

Thank you,
Ben

And they responded [very quickly, only 3 hours]:

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to your Seller Non Performance
Suspension.

As a venue, eBay takes a neutral position when we receive a complaint.
However, please understand that multiple complaints on any one account
poses a liability to our community, especially when that account has
been reported for potentially fraudulent activity. At this time, we
would like to offer you the opportunity to respond to these complaints.
Please note, in order to treat both buyer and seller as fairly as
possible, we require documentation.

Upon review, I found that 160059356115 - stacyyates@cebridge.net -
stacygreiner has been resolved. Please be aware that your account
balance has been paid in full.

In regards to your remaining complaint 160010448529 -
trs5@mindspring.com - ejskj, once you have completed the dispute
process, if there is no response from the buyer, SquareTrade will send
you an email informing you there was no reply to your dispute case.
Please forward us this email with the full headers. This will be
considered a valid form of resolution. If you do not have this email,
please fax us screenshots of your dispute case. Please keep in mind that
you must provide your buyer with sufficient time {14 days} to respond to
your dispute. If the cases are closed before the required time frame,
the screenshots will not be accepted.

We appreciate your patience and understanding regarding this matter and
look forward to hearing from you soon.

And my terse response:

I was reported for potential fraud?? So which buyer was it? The one that I took care of immediately or the one that won't respond? Am I just insane that I'm viewing that situation as ridiculous?

I will be faxing in a screen shot from Squaretrade showing that the buyer has not responded to my case since it was opened on January 22nd, almost 3 weeks now. I expect a full account reinstatement by Tuesday.


3 comments:

Aimee said...

This is still going on? wow.

Natalie said...

You make me moist.

Anonymous said...

I am in the very same situation!! The only difference is that I have been selling/buying on ebay for over six years, with 2304 Positive Feedbacks and 19 Negatives. Seven days ago, eBay suspended my account, citing SNP. Finally, five days after filing an Appeal, I received a reply from eBay, which listed their outrageous requirements for reinstatement. I have no problem with providing valid tracking information for items with complaints of non-shipment. I was stunned, however, to learn that "proof of resolution" for transactions which received "Neutral/Negative Feedback for Misrepresentation" could only be provided by follow-up feedback from unhappy buyers! This is BEYOND belief. First of all, feedback does not equal fact -When did the opinion of a few buyers (from many months ago) suddenly become gospel? And the fact remains that when negative feedback is exchanged, it is usually because the situation ended in disagreement. Having assigned what is clearly an impossible task, eBay offers another alternative - proof that a full refund was issued to those buyers who left Neg/Neutral Feedback -(without considering for one moment that the person leaving the comment may have been nit-picking, scamming or out-right lying.)
Of course, we are given one last choice:[quote]"Email with headers or full screenshots from SquareTrade showing that a complaint is resolved, cannot be resolved, or that the buyer cannot be contacted."
Ah, yes, SquareTrade - yet another eBay company. No mention regarding the cost of "mediation" by SquareTrade, which will cost between $19.99 and $29.99 per case. Smells like extortion...
(And the process takes a minimum of 14 business days.)

I'm willing to bet that my local TV news station might be interested in reporting this to the community. Did I mention that I live in Los Angeles?

I am interested in hearing from anyone who has had a similar experience. We can not stand by in silence while being steam-rolled by a company run by common thieves.